home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: sci.astro
- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!ames!pacbell.com!well!metares
- From: metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
- Subject: Re: "Modeling" the Expanding Universe?
- Message-ID: <C1DD95.IFw@well.sf.ca.us>
- Sender: news@well.sf.ca.us
- Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
- Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 17:43:53 GMT
- Lines: 28
-
-
- Pursuant to our discussion of what expands in the big bang, space
- itself or galaxies in space, I would like to augment the references
- previously cited with one from the current issue of the Astrophysical
- Journal to support my contention that current cosmologists insist that
- space itself expands. In vol. 403, pp. 28-31, 1993 Jan. 20, E. Harrison
- (U.Mass.) argues in his paper "The redshift-distance and velocity-distance
- laws," that one gets inconsistencies by assuming a redshift-distance law
- for large redshift. He concludes that only a linear velocity-distance law
- is compatible with big bang assumptions. At the end he says: "From a
- purist point of view one cannot help but deplore the expression *big bang*,
- 'loaded with inappropriate connotations' (McVittie 1974), which conjures up
- a false picture of a bounded universe expanding from a center in space. In
- modern cosmology, the universe does not expand in space, but consists of
- expanding space. And this correct picture leads naturally to a distinction
- between the redshift-distance and velocity-distance laws." He then quotes
- deSitter (1931): "The theory of general relativity brought the insight that
- space and time are not merely the stage on which the piece is produced, but
- are themselves actors playing an essential part in the plot."
-
- It is also illuminating to appreciate that such a fundamental point as
- the appropriate distance law is still being clarified at this late date.
- -|Tom|-
-
- --
- Tom Van Flandern / Washington, DC / metares@well.sf.ca.us
- Meta Research was founded to foster research into ideas not otherwise
- supported because they conflict with mainstream theories in Astronomy.
-