[freespace]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Good morning Freespace welcome from me to Iceinspace and thank you for your very informative input.

Thanks

I must say I like your approach as I see it as one based on reasonable and careful consideration together with I suspect hands on experience.

I try to do my best. I have on paper worked out most of modern physics as part of my university degree in astrophysics, so I have a little faith in them :-) Some of my laboratory work also born out the results I calculated, so I am fairly confident what we know is pretty good (it might not be 100% correct, but its pretty good to get us to where we are today).

say I do not believe gravity is a force of attraction but is in effect a pushing force which I think is generated by the radiation (somehow) of all the stars ( matter generally) in the Universe.

You need to be more specific. Gravity isn't so much a force of attraction as it is a distortion of space time. General relativity explains gravity very very well, down to something like 0.001%, as recent gravity probe B shows. See http://einstein.stanford.edu/. Perhaps you are right, but you have a mountain of existing observations to explain. Anywho, radiation pressure is insignificant, unless its a form we do not know of.

I believe there is no force of attraction which makes it very hard to fit my views into the current thinking... but they are my views and I will hold them and others can say what they like about them and me... the pushing approach makes sense to me as it is the only way I can envisage there can be any communication through out the Universe.

I am interested to know why not, and why this pushing is required for communication. For the record, there is a fundamental barrier to communication. Due to the fact expansion of space-time increases as a function of distance, theory predicts there will be such a point where space time expands faster than light can travel. Outside this limit, no information can reach us.

I can not accept that a grain of sand makes it presence known by sending a message to the whole Universe that it is "there"... whereas pressure of radiation (particles whatever) requires no such message to be sent.

Gravity propagates at the speed of light. There is not contradiction I can see.

You obviously understand that galaxies are not held together by an internal force (that's what I read into what you have said so forgive me if I have misinterpreted your meaning) such as attraction but by something "outside" that pushes.

I see gravity as a pressure that acts on everything rather than a force from an object that individually relates to everything else in the Universe.

As I said, if you can explain current observations with your theory, and also make some predictions about strctures on the level of galaxies, you might have something. Though, not to put you down, I doubt you can with a pushing force.

It is perhaps my views on the way gravity works that started me thinking about the black hole concept... firstly because a pushing Universe may well do things differently to a Universe of attraction and secondly I find extrapolations to reach a view unsatisfactory.

I see extrapolations like taking a poll... the views of say 1000 people surely can not represent the views of everyone and may well have asked 1000 people representing in effect the minority view. Needless to say a poll can be spot on but it can also be very off the mark.

I am uncomfortable with the current big bang theory simply because I see it as a result arrived at from an extrapolation of the "observed" expansion... and feel simply because there is expansion this does not mean that at one end we will find a start "at a point" (and I understand there are different views on a start at a point as opposed to a overall change in condition).

Big bang theory was initally hinted at by running the observed expansion backwards. There are other supporting evidence, such as the fact our universe is finite in age as far as we can tell(the fact we have dark skies, for example), and also cosmic background radiation, something predicted by the big band model, something which we have found and fits well into our models. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_...ound_radiation

Your point 7 interests me greatly as that sounds better than a mere inference drawn from "expected activity in the region" and I will search out that observation. Thank you for pointing that out I will be a happy man today as you have given me a mission.

There is more than "expected activity" which strong supports the existence of blackholes. The mathematics tell us such objects should exists, and models which consider what happens to gas falling into a blackhole closely matches observation of X-rays being emitted from centre of galaxies etc.

I would like to shed light on the upper mass limit, and I can next Wednesday when I go back to uni.

My other difficulty with the big bang (not that I have to be convinced before the world excepts it) is it seems to rely very heavily upon the "theory of inflation".. which I think has little right to be called a theory in the sense that I understand a "theory" in science requires more than the "theory of inflation" has provided. I feel it is a big ask to expect the Universe could have expanded at such a rate (I know not expanded just doubled and doubled) ..to me it is unsupported nonsense... my view, not saying I am right or wrong just how I see it... I have asked many times seeking to be told my view is unreasonable and that I should take on board such and such so as to find it reasonable. Seeking a point much like your black hole and star observation which takes it to a new level for me.

The expansion of the universe, inflation, is observed in the redshift of distant galaxies. Its hard for the first cosmologists to accept it, but in the face of evidence, they had to. Space /is/ expanding. Objects further away from us are accelerating away from us, as shown by the fact light from them are red shifted. Very /VERY/ few distance objects are accelerating towards us.

I find it amusing that proponents of the big bang will point to the bible and a six day building plan as unreasonable yet then tell us that all we see reached a size even greater than we can observe in a mere fraction of a second... if you see my drift.(and I say I am not of any faith it is a mere observation of a curiosity)

Yet it seems inflation because it saved the big bang is readily accepted and a matter that is not seen as a flaw in the big bang theory.

It is not entirely unreasonable. When you consider space itself was expanding, momentum and inertia plays no role. We can not say for sure exactly what happened during the big bang, if indeed there was one, but from what we can observe today, we can make predictions on what should have happened. The rate of expansion etc can be inferred from the background radiation, the amount of hydrogen and helium we can see, etc. IF you look into it, varying the rate of expansion in the inital big bang changes a few things. More information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang Note Big Bang isn't entirely with out problems. Science isn't blind to its own short comings. Big Bang is "accepted" because it is the least wrong of our theories :-)

I think there must be a better explanation but I can not suggest something to replace it.
Maybe if we remove inflation the age of the Universe could be reviewed and some inconsistent findings (stars older than they should be) reviewed again.

It seems inflation was introduced to fix the problem of how everything could be the same all over... maybe there are other solutions to get past this point that do not ask us to accept such a rapid "ïnflation".

Sorry, inflation wasn't introduced, it was observed. To explain the inflation we proposed the Big Bang theory.

Thank you so much for your reply I found it informative and comforting as you seem to have a view that does not get carried away easily.

My pleasure, I do my best, however I may have slipped. I am by no means a fully qualified physicist, and my year off from uni has robbed me of some memories

Cheers,
Steve