Elemental Puzzle

[davar55]

Originally Posted by davar55

Yes indeed an infinite repetition of small singularity through expansion to
infinite dispersion, regressed backwards through time and unfolding again
through the future, does satisfy the infinity of time in the Universe, and
automatically removes the word "the" from "the Big Bang", since there were
infinitely many in the past and will be again.

But there can not ever be any observable evidence to support this concept,
all evidence of previous Bangs would be wiped out by necessity and the
definition of a singularity.

I agree that there is a cyclic galactic generation process within the Universe,
but not for the Universe as a whole.

Originally Posted by xilman

That's a rather dogmatic statement.

Whether evidence can or can not be observable is something which can be tested by observation. CCC makes a clear prediction of effects which can in principle be observed.

The iniitial condition of the big bang is usually described as a
singularity. Cheesehd used the alternate "small dense state".
But is it a "point" or not? A point has zero dimensions, zero
properties. That would seem to be the necessary concept
for this CCC sequential big bangs idea to work mathematically.
But it couldn't work physically.
I was perhaps being overly assertive, but there is no way for
the infinitely spread-out Universe to pass through a
zero-dimensional point to restart.
Am I really being dogmatic? It seems obvious to me.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

"The Big Bang" is always taken to mean the most recent one, in contexts where multiples are discussed. Thus, "The Big Bang" is the beginning of the most recent era/cycle/whatever.

OK, fair enough. So basically we're not discussing whether the
Universe has an infihite past, but rather whether there was a
unique major event approx. 13.7 billion years ago which evolved
space and matter and energy, such that the properties of the
evolving universe changed both gradually and in sudden spurts
through periods in which the laws of physics were not quite
what they are now. Is that correct?

This conception is what my monograph is trying to dispel.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

It's certainly not first in cosmo1.txt, In fact, cosmo1.txt doesn't contain either of the words "spectral" or "peak", and the only occurrences of "line" are in the phrase "traveling in a straight line".

Did you do a text scan for those three words?
That's fine, but I'm trying to understand your points
and hopefully explain mine, and I do occasionally use
words and ideas to do so that I didn't put in the monograph.

BTW I've been working on draft 2, and this fundamental issue
of the red shift and spectral lines is obviously important to
resolve.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

One simple reason is that it doesn't account for the frequency-shifting of emission and absorption lines.

Example, Part A

Suppose there's an absorption line at 6550 angstroms (from a source stationary with respect to the observer) and this results in the following reading from a digital spectroscope:

Wavelength  Intensity of light at that wavelength
 
   6545                  0.99
   6546                  0.99
   6547                  0.99
   6548                  0.99
   6549                  0.97
   6550                  0.05
   6551                  0.97
   6552                  0.99
   6553                  0.99
   6554                  0.99
   6555                  0.99

Then, we look at an identical source, at the same distance but receding from the observer at a speed of 0.0003 c and again record the spectrum, getting:

Wavelength  Intensity of light at that wavelength, in some unit
 
   6545                  0.99
   6546                  0.99
   6547                  0.99
   6548                  0.99
   6549                  0.99
   6550                  0.99
   6551                  0.97
   6552                  0.05
   6553                  0.97
   6554                  0.99
   6555                  0.99

How, in your theory, did the light at wavelength 6550 happen to brighten-up from 0.05 to 0.99 while the light at wavelength 6552 happened to dim from 0.99 to 0.05, between the first and second sources?

(Now, that is just the first part. Once you explain that, I'll present the next part.)

Since spectral lines represnt electron level transitions,
the specially selected wavelength (in your example 6550)
should represnt a "peak" (not a trough) in the measured spectrum.

So I believe your numbers don't correctly represent a distant
light source such as a star or galaxy.

Perhaps

6547 0.95
6548 0.95
6549 0.96
6550 0.98
6551 0.96
6552 0.95

?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by davar55

Since spectral lines represnt electron level transitions,
the specially selected wavelength (in your example 6550)
should represnt a "peak" (not a trough) in the measured spectrum.

If a hot gas lies behind a cool gas, the latter can absorb the light emitted by the former. In particular, the light from the hot gas raises electrons in the cool gas from a lower to a higher energy level. When the electron subsequently falls back to the lower state the light is emitted in all directions but the originally absorbed light is taken only from the direction where the hotter gas lies behind the cooler. The result is a net absorption in our line of sight.

This is such basic spectroscopy, and something which has been understood for at least 150 years, that I wonder why someone writing about cosmogony doesn't know about it.

Paul

[lavalamp]

Originally Posted by davar55

Since spectral lines represnt electron level transitions,
the specially selected wavelength (in your example 6550)
should represnt a "peak" (not a trough) in the measured spectrum.

So I believe your numbers don't correctly represent a distant
light source such as a star or galaxy.

This has already been explained.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_spectroscopy

[davar55]

Originally Posted by xilman

If a hot gas lies behind a cool gas, the latter can absorb the light emitted by the former. In particular, the light from the hot gas raises electrons in the cool gas from a lower to a higher energy level. When the electron subsequently falls back to the lower state the light is emitted in all directions but the originally absorbed light is taken only from the direction where the hotter gas lies behind the cooler. The result is a net absorption in our line of sight.

This is such basic spectroscopy, and something which has been understood for at least 150 years, that I wonder why someone writing about cosmogony doesn't know about it.

I'm prerty sure I understand this, but that's just absorption producing
a lower intensity, not what Cheesehd and lava are trying to
demonstrate, i.e. the shift in intensity downward in all frequencies
toward the red, which I am suggesting is NOT demonstrated by
Cheesehd's data/example because his "trough" at 6550 should
be represented by a "peak" since the spectral lines represent the
wavelengths at which MORE (not less) light is produced.

That was a run-on sentence, but I'm leaving it. The issue is
what does the data showing red shift actually look like.
I think it's being looked at wrong, including here.

Don't like being verbose, but as long as my alternative suggestion
for how the red shift occurs is in question, I'm open to discussion.

[davar55]

And BTW thanks 4 pointing me to "cosmogony", which is an important
portion of what I'm trying to discuss in the "cosmology" monograph.

The Wikipedia article mentions several issues I hadn't addressed (and
some important ones I had), mostly epistemological, e.g. the quesrtion
of the logical validity of infinite temporal regression.

The article does express that origin explanations have long been theistic
in nature, and that even current explanations that assume or explain
the "beginning" of the universe, are iincomplete.

The monograph emphasizes (and a bit better in my new draft) that
there was no beginning.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by lavalamp

If stars or galaxies were perfect blackbody emitters, then they would have perfect black body spectra dictated only by their temperature. But they don't, because they aren't. Instead you get dips in the spectrum dictated by the absorption spectra of the various elements in the emitter, which for stars is overwhelmingly hydrogen, then helium, then increasingly trace amounts of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and so on.

I have no idea what you are getting at here, but if you look at cheesehead's well presented post, you should see that the same dip in intensity has been moved, or shifted, to a longer wavelength (hence the name red shift). Of course it's actually the whole spectrum that has moved, not just that dip.

But those dips (troughs) should be peaks, shouldn't they?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davar55

OK, fair enough. So basically we're not discussing whether the Universe has an infihite past, but rather whether there was a unique major event approx. 13.7 billion years ago which evolved space and matter and energy, such that the properties of the evolving universe changed both gradually and in sudden spurts through periods in which the laws of physics were not quite what they are now. Is that correct?

Okay, up to "in which the laws of physics were not quite what they are now".

As I understand it, BB cosmologists contend not that any physics laws were different then than they are now, but only that, just as special relativity is asymptotic to Newtonian mechanics at speeds << c, so too do current physics laws that hold under "ordinary" circumstances diverge in extreme conditions to produce results that are not a linear extrapolation of what happens in nonextreme circumstances.

IOW, what we know of current physics laws in our "ordinary" conditions may not yet incorporate asymptotic terms that become apparent only in extreme conditions. So, it's not that laws of physics were then (BB) not quite what they are now, but rather that additional terms of those laws may be apparent only in near-BB conditions. The laws haven't changed, but our current understanding of them is incomplete.

Originally Posted by davar55

Did you do a text scan for those three words?

Yes, of course.

That's fine, but I'm trying to understand your points and hopefully explain mine, and I do occasionally use words and ideas to do so that I didn't put in the monograph.

Okay, that's understandable. Let's continue working toward better understanding.

E.g., regarding absorption lines, xilman's explanation is better than I would have written.

As for the continuous emission spectrum behind my example's absorbing gas layer: it's composed of a myriad of emission lines (perhaps from a star, but that's not necessary for my example) that are smeared out by Doppler, relativistic, and other effects so that each "original" emission line gets broadened and merges with its neighbors.

In other regions of the universe, such as nebulae, gases at low density and low pressure may emit light that is not smeared out by those effects, and so appears to us as discrete emission lines in a spectrum.

BTW I've been working on draft 2, and this fundamental issue
of the red shift and spectral lines is obviously important to
resolve.

Okay.

Does that mean you do not yet have ready your theory's explanation for the example I posed? It's okay with me to wait until you have that ready, if that's the case.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by davar55

If you think the initiating "singularity" or "very small dense state" once
existed, and that its "explosion" or "expansion" initiated the generation
of our current Universe, some large finite time ago, how do you resolve
the issue that there is no reason to consider that event the "beginning"
of anything? And if you accept that the initiation of that event was
preceded by any amount of time, that in fact time goes back forever,
of what special significance is the bang (if it really occurred)?
...

By "of what special significance" I meant: if time goes back forever,
why do we even need the concept of a big bang to explain our
universe? If you start with: the universe has always been (and I
would continue that "like it is now") then no big bang explanation
is necessary.