<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Aug 6 2008, 09:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I don't think we're arguing either. We're discussing our understanding The big bang did occur with a giant flash of light. http://flux.aps.org/meetings/YR03/APR03/baps/abs/S3890.html <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Cosmic Microwave Background Ari Brynjolfsson (Appl. Rad. Ind.) Large plasma redshifts of photons in hot, sparse plasma are given by \ln \left( 1+z \right)=3.326\cdot 10^-25\cdot \int_0^R N_e\cdot dx., provided the wavelength \lambda \le \lambda_0.5 =3.185\cdot 10^-6\cdot \left( 1+1.296\cdot 10^5\cdot B^2/N_e \right)\cdot \sqrt N_e/T cm, where N_e is the electron density in cm^-3, T the temperature in K, R the distance in cm to the emitter, and B the magnetic field in Gauss. The cut-off at \lambda _0.5 means that the redshift is 50% of its full value. The theory is based on an overlooked interaction of photons with hot sparse electron plasma. It has been overlooked, because the necessary conditions (high temperature and low densities over extended dimensions) cannot be created in the laboratory. The plasma redshifts help explain: the heating of the transition to the corona, the coronal heating, solar redshifts (which invalidate the equivalence principle), galactic redshifts, the heating of galactic corona, the redshifts of white dwarfs and quasars, the cosmological redshifts, and the recently discovered dimming of distant super nova. This presentation will show how plasma redshift also helps explain the cosmic microwave background.</div> My understanding is that in the big flash of light generated by the big bang, the light was red shifted so severely it became microwaves.</div> I'll buy that there was light created in the big bang, which makes sense. The CMB, however, is a map of how the universe looked at the epoch of last scattering- which is when light and matter stopped being in equilibrium. Before this, any light floating around the universe was instantly absorbed and reemitted by hydrogen. As the universe cooled and spread, all of a sudden the mass of particles becomes transparent to light, the the universe is "filled" with light. At that time, I'm pretty sure the light was in the visible spectrum (at least that's what my professor said)- but space expanding is what redshifts it. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Where I think your explanation doesn't satisfy my curiosity is this: you talk about the Earth (or the space it occupies to be precise) moves or moved at .99 the speed of light, yet the speed is closer to 1/10,000th the speed of light. That the universe had to mysteriously expand rapidly, then slow down, and now it's growing at an accelerating pace flies in the face of logic.</div> I'll try to explain this in a bottom-up way, because you seem stuck at thinking the Earth moves at a fixed speed. Think of an empty universe, except for the Earth. Our speed here is impossible to measure. Try it and it will quickly become obvious. Then add a second object, pluto. All of a sudden we can be moving away from Pluto, towards Pluto, at a measurable speed. Or they could be still relative to each other- let's say this is the case, that they're in the same frame of reference, but then we add a third object, a pebble, and it's zooming off in a different direction. Then you notice that although Earth and Pluto seemed to be completely still before, in fact they are moving away from the pebble. Let's add a sun. The earth moves kind of slowly towards that sun. So it could be moving with 0 velocity relative to pluto, or with great velocity when measured against the pebble, or slowly when measured against the sun. There is no one speed for the Earth, or for any object in a universe with more than 2 frames of reference. That the universe was created, then expanded rapidly, then slowed, then continued to expand at an ever accelerating pace does fly in the face of logic. Dark energy is thought to be a positive feedback mechanism, wherein each parcel of space engenders the creation of more space within itself. So when you have things kind of close by, this isn't that noticeable, but when you have a lot of space between things, all of a sudden there's a lot of space being created which creates even more space and then things are just whizzing apart. This kind of answers one of your last question, about what beyond the universe - which is technically unanswerable - but if there is just space, which to me seems possible, there's more and more space being created all the time, if this is something that actually takes place. (Dark energy is what you were talking about when you said gravity can be a repulsive force, right?) As for how this happened during inflation, I don't know (maybe no one does?), but there was a lot of weird stuff going on in the early universe. Density was being determined by quantum fluctuations, all the forces were unified (except gravity?), there was the plasma state going on, as well as the largest concentration of dark matter that would ever happen.
I'm not stuck thinking the Earth moves at a fixed speed. It moves at 1/10,000th the speed of light AND relative to the expansion of the fabric of space (which is larger than 13.7B light year radius). The photons in the light have to move relative to the expansion of space, too, otherwise it'd never reach our eye. It's just mathematically impossible (illogical) that light emitted from very close by, in relative terms since the universe was much smaller 13.5B years ago, would take 13.5B years to reach our eye. There's three explanations that I can come up with that do make sense: 1) Light moved slower when the universe was smaller. If it moved at a speed that it'd take 13.5B years to reach our eye tho the distance traveled was obviously far less than 13.5B light years, then it makes perfect sense. The speed of light would have gradually sped up to what we measure it today, as the universe expanded. No matter what the size of the universe, the light would always take 13.5B years to reach our eye. 2) Time does not move at a constant pace. A minute was not a minute 13.5B years ago. Speed is measured in distance / time. Similar to #1 above, time measured would have to change with the size of the universe. 3) What we're seeing isn't 13.5B light years away, but 27B light years away. The light took 13.5B years to reach us. The 27B number comes from roughly adjusting the 13.5B light years distance by the expansion of the universe.
