COSMOLOGY

The weatherman tells me the wind is blowing from the east today. How does he reconcile that with the fact that outside, I can see leaves being blown in all directions?Galaxies are not large components, galaxies are certainly not "uniformly" accelerating away, nor are all galaxies accelerating "away", and when we refer to "us" in terms of Universal expansion, we are not refering to merely our Galaxy.Furthermore, the "inflationary model" has nothing to do with your point. The inflationary model is relevant in the first few seconds of the expansion. We're somewhat past that stage now...Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

While chaotic systems can exhibit this behaviour, chaos has little to do with the point. The point is simply that there can be an overall large scale phenomenon (expansion of the Universe) which isn't necessarily noticed at the small scale (neighbouring galaxies' gravitationlly driven motions.) Clusters of galaxies and megaclusters of clusters. There you go again with that word "all". Did he show that Andromeda was moving away? This reasoning would equally apply to the Earth, the Solar System, and the entire Universe. The point is that our Local Group of galaxies is too tightly bound by our own gravity to show internal evidence of the expansion. The Loacl Group, or even our own local cluster, would be a much more appropriate "us". This is why JohnFolton's utter bullshit is so absurd. Even if we are the centre of the Universe, "we" refers to our Local Group at the very least, and we are in one random part of this enormous "mini-universe" - a very far-cry from the Earth, Sun, Solar System, or even Galaxy being at the centre of creation. Expansion is not inflation. Inflation is a very specific form of mega-expansion that occured in the very early Universe (first few seconds) known as the inflationary period. It is incorrect to refer to the present expansion of the Universe as inflation, and the inflationary model is specific to the inflationary period.

An excellent way of putting it But don't use "inflating" - we reserve this purely for the brief (few seconds) period of inflation. Expanding and expansion are the correct terms. It was once thought that the Higgs field could be the principle component of dark energy but theory has shown that that is not the case. Dark energy is yet another field that we haven't pinned down yet. It almost certainly arises from the physics beyond our Standard Model, and may well be related to String/M Theory, Supersymmetry, etc. the LHC may shed some clues... Sorry, this is not correct, though it is how it is often presented (even by scientists who are talking beyond their experience and knowledge) The Higgs field does indeed give rise to the measured *rest * masses of the particles of the standard model (electron, quarks, W and Z bosons, etc), but it in no way affects the gravitational mass of the particles. That is always there, and would still be there even if the Higgs field was turned off. The vast majority of gravitational mass arises from binding energy of the partciles and has very little to do with their rest masses. You will find plenty of physicists unaware of this important point!

If the Earth is the centre of the Universe, why is it orbiting the Sun? And why is the Sun stuck in the murky backwaters of the Milky Way Galaxy, and not at the centre? And why is the Milky Way not at the centre of the Local Group?So what you mean by, "the centre of the Universe", is "not in anyway shape or form, the centre of the Universe". Glad we have this straightened out.

This is still not known. It is clearly large compared to the scale of the Observable Universe, but there is no definitive parameter value (or even model type!) to be able to claim an infinite Universe.

But we have just agreed that the Earth is most certainly not at the centre.

You forgot the disclaimer in your heading There is no centre, nor is there a center!

This is almost certainly true.

And here lies the gaping chasm that separates professional science from armchair musings. We deal in words to convey our science to the interested public, but the actual work is almost predominantly mathematics. Why? Because this enables us to CALCULATE and MAKE NUMERICAL PREDICTIONS. How many of those have we seen from the armchair brigade?

For fucks' sake - just when I thought V-Bird and Buzsaw were as mad as it gets, we get this lunacy. Tell me, how does biblical physics compare to Quaranic phsyics and... no, on second thoughts, don't bother. There's only so much idiocy I can tolerate.

Let's just be clear - the whole collective world of mathematically and scientifically trained cosmologists are at one pole, and you are at the other. When I calculate (to one loop) the electron g-factor using our standard mathematics of the "electron cloud", I get 2.0023228. What do you get using your theory?Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

So this "change" is unmeasurable. Fine. So this "change" is measurable.Do you possibly get the tiniest hint that this may be contradictory Yep, we haven't a clue. But at least we know that fire, thunder and lightning come from our gods.

Ah, but I already do, V-Bird, I already do The simple fact is you have no mathematics, no theory, no calculations, no predictions, no conclusions - all you have are meaningless words and hugely erroneous thinking. The concepts you claim to understand and explain are the not the concepts of space-time physics, they are the concepts of popular science books. One does not revolutionise chemistry by critiquing My First Chemistry Set. One does not break new astronomical ground by declaring the Ladybird Book of I Spy Space obsolete.I know you think you are onto something, but believe me, so do tens of thousands of others scattered all over the web, all joined in equal conviction that they are right, that they have spotted the one true answer, that the astronomical, cosmological and mathematical departments of the world have all lost their way, and all joined in their sad shared mass delusion.Why are you different V-Bird? What makes you stand out from all of the other cranks out there, clamouring that they have THE answer. I have heard this a thousand times. Why should you be any different? Give me something tangible. At the very least, show me some mathematics. I have a little training in the area Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Oh V-Bird, can you not just feel your credibility swirling down the plug-hole? There is no such thing as "FTL" and "sub-light" maths. You are confusing physics for mathematics (and using science fiction terms, I should stress, not the language of phsyics) but if you are so sure, perhaps you would care to tell us whether the contour integral of 1/z² is "FTL" or "sub-light"?

Exactly as you should. No, it is very important physics issue. Cosmological models with surrounding voids can be built in GR but they have very different behaviour to what we currently observe.