How can we see distant stars in a young universe?

Stripe

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You miss the point. bob b's model assumes that the inflationary period occured after the stars and galaxies existed--I think that has already been stated somewhere. The standard model provides for the inflationary period to occur long, long before the existence of stars.
My recollection is that we are dealing with the inflationary period suggested by the most recent cosmological theories. bob b has claimed that he only needs it to last for a teeny bit longer than the real theorists need.
And "proof", you seek "proof", be careful what you wish for.
Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation, Jukia. I know what the commonly accepted theory is and I'm fast learning well what Bob proposes instead. Insisting that the commonly accepted model is the only model and Bob's cannot be feasible simply on the grounds that the accepted model is accepted and Bob's is not is no argument at all.

What is it about the idea that matter, stars, planets and other stuff, existed within the period of expansion that makes it so unreasonable?

Do you have a reason for saying matter cannot have existed during an inflationary period?
 

Stripe

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You've missed the point.

Let me spell it out in simple steps:

In the real world, it happened in this order:

1. Inflationary expansion
2. Stars form
3. Light from stars undergoes small post-inflationary expansion

Under bob's notion, it happens in this order:

1. Stars form
2. Inflationary expansion.

In the real world, the light we see from stars never underwent inflationary expansion, under bob's model it did.

These models predict wildly different values of red shift. The prediction of bob's notion is contradicted by observation.
Light that was once wildly compacted and then wildly inflated would look no different to light that was minutely compacted and then minutely expanded as long as both values wind up at the same place.
 

Jukia

New member
Thanks for adding nothing to the conversation, Jukia. I know what the commonly accepted theory is and I'm fast learning well what Bob proposes instead. Insisting that the commonly accepted model is the only model and Bob's cannot be feasible simply on the grounds that the accepted model is accepted and Bob's is not is no argument at all.

What is it about the idea that matter, stars, planets and other stuff, existed within the period of expansion that makes it so unreasonable?

Do you have a reason for saying matter cannot have existed during an inflationary period?

You are quite welcome.

Unreasonable? The basic unreasonableness is bob b's theory requires a literal Genesis, 6000 year old universe etc. On its face, based on all the evidence we have that is not only unreasonable but absurd. Hope that helps you understand.
 

Stripe

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No, it wouldn't. Light that had undergone expansion would be red shifted; light that hadn't wouldn't.
Light that had undergone redshift would have been compacted in comparison to what it wound up like. What it wound up like would look exactly like new light produced from the same star.

If an unexpanded star is producing unexpanded light and then both the star and the starlight undergo expansion then the expanded light will look the same as the new light.

Wrong. In bob's proposal the universe gets expanded in creation week only, the light from stars within 6,000 years therefore would have come to us without that expansion, the light reaching us from a star 6,001 light years away would have. This would produce a discontinuity in red shift. What's more it'd be an observably moving discontinuity.
I thought this would be the case too at one point. Then I understood that Bob's proposal put fully formed stars within the universe before expansion.
 

Stripe

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You are quite welcome.

Unreasonable? The basic unreasonableness is bob b's theory requires a literal Genesis, 6000 year old universe etc. On its face, based on all the evidence we have that is not only unreasonable but absurd. Hope that helps you understand.
That's right, Jukia. In order to believe what Bob is saying you have to either:
a) accept that God made the heavens and the Earth in six days, or
b) have been living under a rock for the past 150 years.

Regardless of whether you are prepared to deal with the eternal consequences of your belief you are still faced with an alternative, scientific proposal that you have no evidence against.

Choose well.
 

Johnny

New member
An absolute standard that depends on variables?
No, it doesn't depend on any variables.
stipe said:
Would not expansion make these readings change along with measured wavelengths?

Here's how I see it:
Star A has a blueshift value. A reading of 1 on an imaginary wavelength scale.
The constant is set at 2
Star B has a redshift value. 3 on the same scale.

Expansion occurs.

Star A now has a wavelength value of 30 times its original reading. 1x30=30.
The constant increases by the same amount (or potentially an exponentially higher amount). 2x30=60.
Star B will show a reading of 3x30=90.

Now both stars will still be blueshifted and redshifted just as before. What has changed is only the scale by which we measure their properties.

Does this make sense?
Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification. I understand where you're coming from now.

There's a misunderstanding as to how the "standard" is determined.

If we want to know how much the wavelength has shifted, we first have to know what the wavelength of light was when it was emitted, correct? The way we determine that is by using emission or absorption lines of certain elements. The reason these lines occur is not important to this discussion. Suffice it to say that when photons strike an element such as hydrogen, the electrons are excited and bumped to a higher energy level. When the electrons fall back to their original energy level, they emit a photon of a specific wavelength. These photons are called the hydrogen emission lines, and they occur at very specific wavelengths.

So to determine redshift, we look at the starlight from an incoming star or galaxy and find the hydrogen emission lines. The difference between the lines and the laboratory values of the lines is calculated. If the lines are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, the light is called "redshifted", and vice versa. See this image for a good illustration of redshifted lines. See how those lines are shifted towards the red?

So the standard is a value derived here and now. It is derived from a light source stationary with the measuring device. That's how we know what the wavelength of the light should be. Then we compare incoming starlight to it and determine how much the light has been stretched or contracted as compared to the standard. It's like calibrating a scale. You have to "zero" the scale first with no weights on it. Likewise we have to "zero" the hydrogen emission lines with a stationary object. Only then can we measure how much the starlight's light has been shifted.

The wikipedia article on redshift is a worthwhile read if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift#Measurement.2C_characterization.2C_and_interpretation

So to use your illustration:
Star A has a blueshift value. A reading of 1 on an imaginary wavelength scale.
The constant is 2 (what we measured in the lab)
Star B has a redshift value. 3 on the same scale.

Expansion occurs.

Star A now has a wavelength value of 30 times its original reading. 1x30=30.
The constant is still 2.
Star B will show a reading of 3x30=90.

Now both stars will still be redshifted.
 
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Mr Jack

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Wait, wait.

Stipe, you're saying the stars were compacted before the expansion - in your model each individual star was tiny before the expansion? Producing special tiny lightwaves? And then the expansion happened and everything got expanded to it's real size?

Is that what you're saying?
 

Stripe

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Wait, wait.

Stipe, you're saying the stars were compacted before the expansion - in your model each individual star was tiny before the expansion? Producing special tiny lightwaves? And then the expansion happened and everything got expanded to it's real size?

Is that what you're saying?
I am following as best I can what Bob is proposing and I believe this is the case. Yes.
 

Supremum

New member
I'm not sure that stipe and bob b really know what they're getting into with the inflation thing. Changing a photon's wavelength isn't the same as with a longitudinal wave. When you shift a photon, you change its energy, and so tweaking a universe model with respect to metric expansion to account for shifts in this way takes a lot more work than either of you realize.
Also, bob, you're positing the existence of stars and nuclear fission too soon again. If I'm correct, you're proposing that stars were formed in pre-ideal gas expansion? I've already shown you once that you have to wait a few minutes into ideal gas expansion for the energy density to be low enough to allow the existence of stable hydrogen atoms to begin with.
 

Stripe

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I'm not sure that stipe and bob b really know what they're getting into with the inflation thing. Changing a photon's wavelength isn't the same as with a longitudinal wave. When you shift a photon, you change its energy, and so tweaking a universe model with respect to metric expansion to account for shifts in this way takes a lot more work than either of you realize.
Are you suggesting that if Bob's model was worked with and new theories calculated in response one could find answers to the problems you outline:

Also, bob, you're positing the existence of stars and nuclear fission too soon again. If I'm correct, you're proposing that stars were formed in pre-ideal gas expansion? I've already shown you once that you have to wait a few minutes into ideal gas expansion for the energy density to be low enough to allow the existence of stable hydrogen atoms to begin with.
?
 

Mr Jack

New member
I am following as best I can what Bob is proposing and I believe this is the case. Yes.
That's not what bob's said at any point. He said that the expansion was the same and thus the redshift was the same; and he was wrong. Your new idea is a whole step more absurd. Really the only way it could work is by massive supernatural deception.
 

Palladius

New member
If we assume that the Genesis creation account is correct then the expansion took less than a week. This compares to the usual assumption made by astronomers that the expansion has taken 13.7 billion years and is still continuing.

This is the problem. You are assuming that a mythological story is true.
 

Stripe

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That's not what bob's said at any point. He said that the expansion was the same and thus the redshift was the same; and he was wrong. Your new idea is a whole step more absurd. Really the only way it could work is by massive supernatural deception.
I'm not so sure you are correct. Could you point out where Bob has said something that I have missed?
 

Mr Jack

New member
I'm not so sure you are correct. Could you point out where Bob has said something that I have missed?
Can you point out where Bob claimed the light was either massively compacted, or blue shifted, to make up for the expansion?
 

Stripe

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Can you point out where Bob claimed the light was either massively compacted, or blue shifted, to make up for the expansion?
Possibly. Possibly not. I think this line of discussion is a little bizarre considering how I agree with Bob that everything was created in six days around 6 or 7000 years ago. If things happened that way then I see no reason why not to assume the stars were involved when the expansion took place.

You do agree, don't you, that matter can exist within an expanding universe?
 

Mr Jack

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Possibly. Possibly not. I think this line of discussion is a little bizarre considering how I agree with Bob that everything was created in six days around 6 or 7000 years ago. If things happened that way then I see no reason why not to assume the stars were involved when the expansion took place.
Stipe, what's that got to do with anything?

In order for your new claim to be correct. You don't have stars before the expansion. You have magic mini-stars that by some means produce high frequency electromagnetic waves of frequency that somehow varies by final position and then under the properties of the inflationary period exactly match up with the properties of light from normal stars with a mild red shift. Including, most significantly, absorption spectra.

You do agree, don't you, that matter can exist within an expanding universe?
In an inflationary one? No, I don't. But, frankly, I'd rather not get into that side of the argument. It's simply not necessary: even if we accept stars could exist before the inflation, and survive the inflation, observation of the universe proves the idea false.
 

Stripe

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Stipe, what's that got to do with anything? In order for your new claim to be correct.
I don't believe it is a new claim.

You don't have stars before the expansion. You have magic mini-stars that by some means produce high frequency electromagnetic waves of frequency that somehow varies by final position and then under the properties of the inflationary period exactly match up with the properties of light from normal stars with a mild red shift. Including, most significantly, absorption spectra.
That's not magic. That's a necessary prerequisite of the theory. I'm sure mainstream cosmology has some necessary conditions for matter before expansion.

In an inflationary one? No, I don't.
What? Matter did not exist within the universe while it was inflating?

But, frankly, I'd rather not get into that side of the argument. It's simply not necessary: even if we accept stars could exist before the inflation, and survive the inflation, observation of the universe proves the idea false.
All you have is lightwaves from stars to go on. How does that prove what you say right and what I say not?
 

Mr Jack

New member
I don't believe it is a new claim.
It's a claim bob never made. He just thought that the red shifts would match anyway. He was wrong. So you've come up with a new idea that is even more absurd.

That's not magic. That's a necessary prerequisite of the theory. I'm sure mainstream cosmology has some necessary conditions for matter before expansion.
It's an ad hoc pretence without any evidence or explanation. There is absolutely no natural process capable of creating the electromagnetic waves you'd need (I say electromagnetic, and not light, because they'd need to be shifted way beyond blue in order for your new idea to work). Your idea requires that God came along and faked up the starlight pre-inflation. If you're going to say that happened why bother with your inflationary period at all.

What? Matter did not exist within the universe while it was inflating?
No, it didn't. It was far too hot and dense for matter to condense. In fact, the first atoms didn't form until about 300,000 years after the Big Bang.

All you have is lightwaves from stars to go on. How does that prove what you say right and what I say not?
This is false. What we have to go on is the entire laws of physics as derived in the laboratory, observations of the nearest star (the Sun), and light waves (and other electromagnetic waves) from other stars. These provide a consistent and detailed picture of what goes on in the universe (with, it must be said, various areas we haven't figured out yet).

Here's a challenge for you: provide me with one piece of observational evidence in support of your idea.
 

Palladius

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If we assume that the Genesis creation account is correct then the expansion took less than a week.

This is where your argument completely falls apart. Against all rationality, you ask us to assume that a mythological story represents the real, historical truth.
 
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