If I were to tell you that we know the universe is expanding because light from the more distant galaxies is redshifted more than for closer galaxies, which means that the more distant ones are moving away faster that the closer ones, because of the Doppler shift, you would probably accept that as boring common sense. The big bang as an associated ah-ha moment probably dawned on you as well. Suppose I told you that we know there is ‘dark’ matter located in the galaxy clusters because those clusters of galaxies appear as long straight-line strings directed away from us on galaxy surveys rather than as spherical clusters. Rationale for that is that velocities of orbiting galaxies result from gravitational attraction toward the center of the cluster, producing redshift of those galaxies moving away from us and blue shift of those approaching. But since the mass of the observable galaxies has been determined to be only about a quarter (actually 27 percent) of what would be required to account for the apparent motions we observe, there must be at least 73 percent more mass than the luminous mass we observe; we just can’t see it, so we say “it’s dark”.
And you’d probably think I was talking real world stuff if I explained that in 1998 a physicist measured the redshift of extremely distant supernova and demonstrated that the data doesn’t fit accepted expansion formulas unless the universe’s expansion had somehow been accelerated long after the big bang. Scientists dared not say the formula was wrong, so it was decided that the universe just isn’t obeying its manmade laws. It would require 25 times more energy than all the mass-energy (including the ‘dark’ matter) in the observable universe to produce such a fete, but that’s just the way it is. It leaves the periodic table and everything we see (or could ever see) as only one percent of the ‘real’ universe we live in. But you’d accept that; Adam Riess did and got a Nobel prize for it.
So then, if in a humble mood I were to explain that no honest scientist has the least idea what dark matter or dark energy is, you would probably accept that as just the way things are. You’d probably say, “Well, there’s just a lot we don’t know.”
Admitting we don’t know is one thing. Not wanting to know is something else. Some of us insist on knowing. You may very well not believe a word I say from now on, but it’s time to act on this skeptical obsession anyway:
When someone mentions plasma, medical plasma sometimes comes to mind, a yellowish liquid component of your blood that acts as a transport medium, making up about 55% of your blood. But we’re not doctors, or nurses, or speaking as sickly patients. We’re referring to the stuff that comprises 99.9% of all ordinary (baryonic) matter in the visible universe that’s in a hydrogenous plasma state. I am more interested in that than the supposed fact that it is only about 27 percent of all matter that is not ‘dark matter’, and only about 1 percent of the energy of the universe that isn’t ‘dark energy’. I am of the opinion that science should be about the ‘visible’ universe, i.e., “What you see is what you get.” To justify that, however realistic stance, one must show that the 73 percent that was introduced to account for observed redshift in galaxies and galaxy clusters is superfluous. And the 96 percent introduced to account for the acceleration of expansion of the universe isn’t there either and formulas that require acceleration were based on assumptions that don’t apply. The universe isn’t expanding and there was no big bang. All the conjectures of the ‘dark’ components of the universe are just attempts to account for observed redshift. I intend to show that forward scattering of light through denser plasma at the centers of galaxy clusters, with a cumulative effect on increasingly distant regions of the visible universe, can more accurately account for the redshift by very well-understood plasma phenomena without introduction of the deus tenebrosus machinae. Avoiding that darkness is why I’m doing this.
The hydrogenous plasma is primarily disassociated hydrogen, the thermodynamic state that can only be realized if the average temperature of the universe is well in excess of 103 K. (Yeah. A little more than the 2.728 K of the CMB, so let’s just accept that as fact. The thermodynamics of separated kinetic plasma and CMB radiation temperatures that accepts an equal energy density is a different, but a very solvable, physics problem.) In cores of galaxy clusters temperatures may approach 109 K. All of which means that meaningful discussion of plasma phenomena must involve relativity. Fundamental investigations of light propagating through a medium were done by Oseen, Born, and Wolf ; this resulted in their ‘spectral invariance’ theorem, demonstrating that forward scattering does not alter the spectra of incident radiation as it propagates through a medium – except for hydrogenous plasma, because they did not address relativistic effects. It is that omission that must be addressed.
I’ll leave you here till I return with the tablets, the climb gets steep from here on up.
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