# The Trouble with Hubble Constant



## Serendipity (Nov 2, 2019)

This is a good summary of the problems scientists are experiencing with measuring the Hubble Constant and what the consequences are... The Hubble constant: a mystery that keeps getting bigger


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## tegeus-Cromis (Nov 2, 2019)

I don't understand why the possibility that the Hubble "constant" is itself increasing over time isn't one of the options they're considering. That would go a long way toward reconciling the figure resulting from observations of the microwave background radiation (which applies to an early state of the universe) and that from local measurements (which applies to the current state). 

And adding "dark radiation" is just piling hypothetical notions on top of other hypothetical notions. This just goes to further confirm something I've thought before: no matter how many scientific advances we have made, we are perhaps no more than one millionth of one percent closer to understanding the nature of the universe than was Anaximander 2600 years ago.


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## tinkerdan (Nov 4, 2019)

The more we know--the more we know there is more that we need to know.
I think that sums up where we are today.
We are learning more and we have a lot more to learn before we even have a glimmer of a notion of what the real questions are to ask before we can understand what it is that we need to know. At the moment we can only guess.

It is almost mind-boggling.

If we were to look at the big bang from outside(yes we've been told that that isn't possible); however if we could we would see a mass--what was that mass encased in. One guess is that it was inside nothing and that the bang itself created the universe and space time that seems to us to be expanding at some possibly constant speed.  However if it is expanding and there was nothing to expand into then what is it expanding into now? Did it create an infinite something that is what now the universe is expanding into? But then I recall a discussion about the rim of the galaxy and being scoffed at because there is no rim--The answer being that the universe is infinite and is expanding into itself. So maybe for our limited understanding we should say that the first thing that was created at big bang was the universe and it was a void and then there was the mass that exploded outward to expand and fill that void. We really don't know. Maybe there were several bangs and each created its own space time wave that pushed behind the previous space time wave. This is just one of possibly and infinite possible notions we could have and we won't know which ones to toss out until we know the right questions to ask.

Maybe everything was a big infinite marshmallow not dense at all.
The the inside foamy like area compressed into an infinitely small piece within an infinitly large vacuum. The big crunch--just before the big bang. Then refer to above after the infinite space was created.


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## CupofJoe (Nov 4, 2019)

Or... And I'm just putting this out there...
The Programmers of _this_ Reality, weren't as good as they thought...


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## Ursa major (Nov 4, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> first thing that was created at big bang was the universe and it was a void and then there was the mass that exploded outward to expand and fill that void


How does time work if there's nothing but a void.

And how, without time, can there *then* be anything....


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## tinkerdan (Nov 4, 2019)

Are we still searching for the right questions?


Ursa major said:


> How does time work if there's nothing but a void.
> 
> And how, without time, can there *then* be anything....


The mass from which the big bang came forth exists in whatever form: The first act of the big bang is the infinite void into which everything can then expand. The void may or may not have time as a component; if anything it seems like it may be mostly empty time and as expansion proceeds it is space time.

Maybe the question is what is space-time without the universe.
Or what is the universe without space-time.

Similar to the old which came first....

Anyway is the second question asking if there was anything before the big bang or intimating that there had to be time if there were some mass that experienced the big bang.


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2019)

Ursa major said:


> How does time work if there's nothing but a void.
> 
> And how, without time, can there *then* be anything....



We are but mortals chained to a dark wall frantically trying to make sense of the shadows dancing about the wall opposite us. 

Perhaps some of us have figured out there must be a fire or some other light source and a procession of objects causing these shadows (although some of us believe these shadows to be real)...and some may even hypothesis that this is in fact a cave and therefore there must be an entrance _out_ to an unbelievable real world....but how will we ever know?  

Mind you it's fun speculating on the shadows, so let's do that. 

I think time and mass are interlinked. (In a nod to Penrose) You have to have something that can change for time to have meaning at all. A proper void doesn't 'need' time in the same way our universe seems to require it. 

But then to ponder your second point. Perhaps we don't need time as we think of it right now. Time could be entirely illusionary. I have a nice book on this that I should read soon. However, I am wanting to use it for a novel, so I'm going to remain somewhat tight-lipped about it at the mo'


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## Ursa major (Nov 4, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> I think time and mass are interlinked.


That was the basis on which I commented.


Venusian Broon said:


> Time could be entirely illusionary. I have a nice book on this that I should read soon.


I've read a book like that. It seemed literally endless (i.e. the explanation for how it worked as we observe it to work, seemed to be missing).


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## tinkerdan (Nov 4, 2019)

So the question seems to be--did time precede the existence of the universe.
Though there still might a question of whether the mass existed.
Maybe both time and mass came into existence at once--though that sounds like magic.

I also believe that what the universe banged out of was at complete rest and that as such it wasn't interlocked with time. It only aquired time when everything was set into motion. [It's possible the big bang was the birth of physics as we know it.]


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## Ursa major (Nov 4, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> It only aquired time when


I think we need to be more careful with the words we use...

...because "when" already (more than) implies the existence of time... as does any change, particularly, one might have thought, a state change as important as that between a universe at complete rest and one where "everything was set in motion".


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 4, 2019)

Ursa major said:


> That was the basis on which I commented.



Apologies, I was just thinking aloud and expanding on your comment. 



Ursa major said:


> I've read a book like that. It seemed literally endless (i.e. the explanation for how it worked as we observe it to work, seemed to be missing).



I fear this book could be flawed like this. At best I'm hoping it will lay out a very nice hypothetical argument for it's central ideas, but it will probably have sod all evidence that such a scheme really exists. Like a lot of high end cosmlogical 'answers'.



tinkerdan said:


> So the question seems to be--did time precede the existence of the universe.
> Though there still might a question of whether the mass existed.



Well, I suppose it depends on what sort of model of the universe/multiverse you are looking at. And whether such models have something in existence before the start of this universe. 

Look at the multiverse of eternal inflation - think of the multiverse as a forever expanding inflationary field that at random pops out universes, like they are currants in a bun. An infinite and timeless bun that just grows bigger and bigger, forever. Hopefully you get the analogy. 

So perhaps in this case one could view time as a fundamental property of this inflationary field, i.e. the fact that it always expands at a certain rate. And that our universe, embedded as it is has it own 'local' time property derived of the interaction between the universe's expansion and the multiverses expansion. 





tinkerdan said:


> I also believe that what the universe banged out of was at complete rest and that as such it wasn't interlocked with time. It only aquired time when everything was set into motion.



Interesting. Why? What was the process that 'set everything into motion.'? Could it be withdrawn?


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## tinkerdan (Nov 4, 2019)

This all gets back to the fact that we are dealing with something that is difficult to comprehend because we are limited by what we know of how physics appears to work to us. The beginning of the universe doesn't have to adhere to our understanding.

We model the best we can within our understanding and we usually reach a point where we're unable to ask the right question, so instead we reason in circles and delve into cynical semantic arguments.

Sorry about that aquire thing.

I'm not certain of the argument presented; other than if you are not convinced there wasn't time by virtue of the semantics then there must have been some time before the big bang, I suppose and I'm not sure what difference it makes. Can you prove that there was no time before then? And just when did time begin?

I'm only explaining things within current understanding and my language has difficulty dealing with no-time or nul-time or absence of time so yeah you can punch time into my words any way you want--the question is where is your explanation of the no-time that you so want to see there. I haven't seen that.
I'm not trying to force feed you with my nonsense, you don't need to eat it, however it would be nice to know...
What proof is there of when time began if it has a beginning?

By your reasoning you can't even say there was a big bang because that requires time.
You can't have a beginning because it requires time.
Time requires time for time to have a beginning.

So the universe always was and always will be.
Forever time.

I'm sure you have a smarter explanation and that's all I'm expecting.


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## Ursa major (Nov 5, 2019)

It's a matter of logic: if there is no time, there cannot be events happening in a time-ordered way. Thus without time, there can be no "before" or "when" or "after".

The only issue is whether or not time has always existed (or, at least, existed before _our_ universe came into existence), or came into existence in parallel with our universe (which may have been at the Big Bang or at the creation of the pre-Big bang void you postulated).


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## tinkerdan (Nov 5, 2019)

Not sure why you are so obsessed with time this way.
Time before the universe doesn't have to look like our time--doesn't have to be called time.

We call it time because that's how we've perceived it for so long. Space time is a slight difference but is still based on our perception.
We were not there to perceive it to experience it and to name it, however now that we are here and do perceive it when we talk that is how we speak of things and even  if there wasn't a universe at some un-time the universe in our minds eye had to have a beginning and it doesn't matter what type of semantics you toss at it calling it logic. 

Without time logically the universe couldn't just appear and logically there couldn't be anything to start with and logically there couldn't be anything to bang big or small, so time always existed in some way shape or form. But you don't know that because logically you weren't there. And we don't exist and are not having this conversation.

Logically nothing can come into existence from nothing to parallel anything not just because there wouldn't be any time for it but it defies physics.

The question is: does any of our understanding have any influence on what happened back then and is it even relevant to what happened--predating our time our universe our thinking. Which gets us back to how this is all nonsense anyway. So whether it makes logical sense to you or not I prefer to fall back on the when, the before, the after and all those artifacts of time because once again until  it is proven that the universe always existed and its much older than we think, then in my infinitesimally small mind I can only see that it had a beginning.

However I'm not the one saying that there was no time back *before *there was space-time and as long as something existed to begin the universe it must have had some form of time even if in its compacted state it was quite different than what we've now defined.


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## Ursa major (Nov 5, 2019)

If something happens before, or after, something else, how is time _not _involved? What do "before" and "after" mean without the exsitence of time? (And that's without worrying about things that don't happen literally instantaneously.)


tinkerdan said:


> Logically nothing can come into existence from nothing to parallel


This is physics' "it's turtles all the way down" problem... a problem that physics is not going to solve.


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## tinkerdan (Nov 6, 2019)

Once again-I never said time wasn't involved--I think the worst I said was that things were not interlocked with time(meaning time as we know it as in space-time) which is because space-time wouldn't exist if what is expanding is the space-time(at least not as we know it) I never took time out of the equation because we simply don't know what things were like back then and we may never know. So I still don't understand....


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## Ursa major (Nov 6, 2019)

I don't know how many ways I can type this, but: anything that allows non-simultaneous events to occur is some sort of time. (Indeed, the very concept of an event** requires time.)

Whether it's like the time in spacetime is neither here nor there (pun not intended).


** - I suppose we might have to consider that, while we see (from within our universe) the creation of our universe as an event, it may not be an event outside our universe.


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## tinkerdan (Nov 6, 2019)

okay so we agree.


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## CTRandall (Nov 8, 2019)

Time is a function of consciousness.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 8, 2019)

Time and space are the impenetrable walls of the room of nature to which we are confined. But nature is just  one of many, perhaps infinite other dimensions within a greater house of Spirit that contains and surrounds and permeates the dimension of Nature. Perhaps?

Dimensions interweave and coexist like threads in a tapestry. My Father's house has many mansions? Sometimes we glimpse but cannot make sense of strange vibrations coming from beyond our own dimension.

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it.

Time and space are the walls of our dimension. A bit like noisy children in a nursery our natural senses are not equipped to deal with anything beyond? And our telescopes and microscopes and other truly wonderful and ingenious scientific instruments -- are really just extensions of our own natural senses.

We are not equipped by natural logic to understand beyond nature.

Perhaps?


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## tinkerdan (Nov 9, 2019)

Now we enter the absurd-ium again.


CTRandall said:


> Time is a function of consciousness.





RJM Corbet said:


> Time and space are the impenetrable walls of the room of nature to which we are confined.


Time as a function only of consciousness would lead to determination that most of physic might also be that.
We measure time and many other things to help us explain physics and we use time to determine the speed of light which in turn might be the speed at which the universe expands.  Which would mean in a time is consciousness sense that the universe is only expanding in our mind and then perhaps all of our measurements of gravity and acceleration are in our mind also.

As far as Time and Space as a wall--we use light and radiation to see what is out in time and space so even if we called it a wall it would be one we can see through. However; when we go into space we are in space-time and we travel through it so it is more a medium than a wall. The only real wall is the limitation of the Speed of Light if, in fact, that is the fastest we can travel. If the universe is expanding outward from some-undefined-point then theoretically there might already be parts of the universe that are out of our visible horizon and that would almost be like a wall to the things we can see as at some point, with some parts of the universe traveling away from us, light would cease being able to reach us. Also in theory we would not be able to travel there even if we could travel at the speed of light. 

What we measure as time might fall in the conscious level. If we were on a tidally locked world we might have had a different way of determining time. Different measurement.
We probably would have a whole bunch of other problems along with that. We would probably measure time anyway and that would help us determine other thing having to do with physics.

We are measuring something that exist and is real and if we were all removed--if every conscious creature were removed--time would not cease to exist. The universe would go on moving as it is now. Gravity would still work. The planets would still move--none of these things would stop. It would be a waste of some awesome things without anyone to appreciate and to measure it though.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> if the universe is expanding outward from some-undefined-point


I think it is expanding outward from everywhere. There is no centre point? The big bang is a point where time and space began, but in all directions? It's somenting we cannot mentally visualise?


tinkerdan said:


> the speed of light which in turn might be the speed at which the universe expands.


I' think the Hubble Constant is the speed st which the universe is exoanding? The further away a galaxy is the faster it appears to be receding from us? I'm not too sure....


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## Nozzle Velocity (Nov 9, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> I think it is expanding outward from everywhere. There is no centre point? The big bang is a point where time and space began, but in all directions? It's somenting we cannot mentally visualise?



There is no center point because we are still inside the Big Bang, so to speak. It's difficult to visualize.



RJM Corbet said:


> I think the Hubble Constant is the speed st which the universe is expanding? The further away a galaxy is the faster it appears to be receding from us? I'm not too sure....



Think of it this way: Space is expanding. The more space you measure, the more expansion you observe. Eventually, given enough space between two objects, they will physically move away from each other faster than the speed of light. This is possible because the two objects (and this is important) are not traveling _through space_, they are merely being separated by expanding space. Because of this, most of the universe is lost to us, and the amount of it that is observable from any one point will continue to decrease as billions of years go by.

The Hubble Constant is based on the concept that objects will separate from each other at a predictable speed based on the amount of space between them. The speed of separation is non-linear, because the more space you insert between two objects, the _faster_ the speed.

Keep in mind, this effect of expanding space doesn't necessarily apply to galaxies and galaxy clusters. It's not going to make nebulae and planetary systems fly apart. These are held together by close gravitational attraction. It takes a lot of space to cause this separation, and we see it happening at long distances because there's a lot of space out there.

Hope that helps.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

Nozzle Velocity said:


> Hope that helps.


Yes. Thank you


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## Venusian Broon (Nov 9, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> Yes. Thank you



The reason for all this is that expansion of the universe has nothing at all to do with General/special relativity. To take a silly analogy, a game of chess on a chess board has a large number of rules that govern how the pieces interact, but there are no rules on how big the board should be. It can be expanded and, of course, the game remains the same. GR are the 'rules' about how mass and spacetime interact but not about how spacetime itself develops. 

Currently the points of the universe that are actually moving out of sight are actually quite a distance away ~14.4 billion light years away, so we're not losing most of the current observable universe at the moment thankfully! 

Re: the speed the universe could expand at. I think TD is refering to the discovery that the hubble constant is variable and accelerating. I don't think there are any ideas as to why or what value it could get to. But because of above, and our lack of understanding of dark energy and spacetime, there is currently *no* constraint on it, in fact it could easily be a multiple of the speed of light. But that's bad...

...because one of the postulated ends of the universe is the 'big rip' where the expansion of the universe is allowed to accerelate exponetially. To give an example, if the expansion was at the speed of light then, by my calculations, the size of the observable universe drops to ~3260 light years. Note that that is significantly smaller than the milky way. At this point large scale structures such as milky way galaxies or larger cannot form - remember that the laws of physics of matter are still limited to the speed of light i.e. a planet can only orbit a star if it 'sees' the gravitational effect of the star. If the star drops out of the planet's universe because it's part of an expanding space that is faster than the speed of light it can no longer interact with the star. As the expansion increases this size shrinks further and further till even the electrons in atoms are too distant from their nuclei...and so it continues till everything is ripped apart.


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 9, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> where the expansion of the universe is allowed to accerelate exponetially



Phil Plait mentions something like this in one of the last Crash Course Astronomy videos - and it can cause a really interesting effect.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

Cool. And while we're here is there any latest knowledge about the shape of the universe? I believe recent opinion is that the universe is flat?


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## Nozzle Velocity (Nov 9, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> Currently the points of the universe that are actually moving out of sight are actually quite a distance away ~14.4 billion light years away, so we're not losing most of the current observable universe at the moment thankfully!



Exactly. I misspoke earlier about this. Only the very earliest galaxies are currently lost to us.



RJM Corbet said:


> Cool. And while we're here is there any latest knowledge about the shape of the universe? I believe recent opinion is that the universe is flat?



Here's a rundown on the various ideas circa 2015.


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## tinkerdan (Nov 9, 2019)

This is the most recent I have heard about.








						New Research Suggests that the Universe is a Sphere and Not Flat After All
					

We have long thought the universe was flat. New research shows it could be curved, and that raises questions about our understanding of the cosmos.




					www.universetoday.com


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> This is the most recent I have heard about.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


November 6th 2019
"... When the team analyzed the CMB data from the Plank spacecraft, they found the fluctuations were larger than expected. This means that to within a 99% certainty the universe is closed, not flat ... This new research contradicts numerous previous studies showing the universe is flat..."

That was quick. Thanks @tinkerdan 

EDIT


Nozzle Velocity said:


> Here's a rundown on the various ideas circa 2015.


Thanks @Nozzle Velocity
So ... it seems that four years is a_ long_ time in early 21st Century science?


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## Elckerlyc (Nov 9, 2019)

It says in the article:
_"The scale of fluctuations in the CMB is determined by t*he amount of dark matter and dark energy* in the universe, *which we know*, so we know how large the fluctuations should appear."_

I know next to nothing about the shape or any other characteristic of the universe and my brain is too small it even begin to understand any of it, but... I remember someone in the field of physics in a documentary mentioning that dark matter and dark energy only exist hypothetically. They have been 'created' to explain the way the universe was holding itself together. Their existence has not (yet) been proven.
I suppose you can hypothetically calculate the amount of dark matter and energy that is required for what it is supposed to do. But basing any further theories on this hypocritical data, as with the CMB data to establish the shape of the universe, seems a bit... premature?

_*skulks away, hoping he did not make a fool of himself* _


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

Elckerlyc said:


> Their existence has not (yet) been proven.


The existence of the two invisible forces that exercise the effects of dark matter and dark energy have been demonstrated by evidence. What they actually are and were they come from is not known. Vibrations from other dimensions that impact our own? Unknown. But the effects are definite.

The universe IS expanding. It's a weird antigravity force. So they call the effect 'dark energy'. Determined by the Hubble Constant.

There is not enough visible matter to account for the gravity holding galaxies like our own together. I'm swinging a bucket 100 feet out on the end of only 10 feet of rope. What's up? Where's the invisible missing rope? The galaxy should fly apart. So they call it 'dark matter'.

Hope that helps, lol ...


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## Nozzle Velocity (Nov 9, 2019)

Elckerlyc said:


> I suppose you can hypothetically calculate the amount of dark matter and energy that is required for what it is supposed to do. But basing any further theories on this hypocritical data, as with the CMB data to establish the shape of the universe, seems a bit... premature?



Dark matter has predictable and observable influences on galaxies. We know it's there, but we don't understand its nature. Why can't we see it? 

Dark energy is more theoretical. The 2011 Nobel Prize winners discovered the increasing rate of expansion of the universe around 1990. Dark energy was used as a _hypothesis_ to explain that phenomenon. Now those same prize winners are credited by science journalists for "discovering" dark energy. I always thought that process was a little sketchy, but the calculations may very well hold up over time.


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## Elckerlyc (Nov 9, 2019)

Thank you, guys, for my ongoing education!   
This now also reminded me also of the 3 ways the universe could end: The Big Rip, The Big Chill or The Big Crunch.

Here's another one. I have always pictured The Big Bang simply as an explosion. (I'm sure it is lot more complex as that) The outgoing forces of an explosion would normally be equal in all directions (IOW an expanding sphere), unless there are some other forces or barriers that prevent this from happening.
If the universe was not a sphere but open or flat, as previously thought, what forces could cause that to happen? Assuming there's nothing outside our universe (and if there is we have no inkling of what that could be, anyway) to limit or block expansion in all directions, it must be some force inside. Has this to do with an unequal distribution of dark matter and dark energy?


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 9, 2019)

Elckerlyc said:


> The Big Bang simply as an explosion. (I'm sure it is lot more complex as that) The outgoing forces of an explosion would normally be equal in all directions (IOW an expanding sphere)


It's like trying to visualize an explosion from a centre that is everywhere? 'Direction' loses all meaning?


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## CTRandall (Nov 9, 2019)

@tinkerdan  Ok, you've convinced me. Consciousness is a function of time.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 10, 2019)

It seems that in spite of the recent Planck mission measurement of a larger lensing of the microwave background than known to date -- there is still lots of debate about the shape of the universe:





__





						There Might Be a Hidden 'Crisis' in What We Know About the Universe - VICE
					






					www-vice-com.cdn.ampproject.org
				




"... According to Planck’s measurements, the CMB is being gravitationally lensed much more than expected. One possible explanation to account for this observation is that there is a curvature woven into the fabric of spacetime.

“A closed Universe can provide a physical explanation for this effect, with the Planck cosmic microwave background spectra now preferring a positive curvature at more than the 99% confidence level,” the team said in the study.

This is a provocative result that complexifies the established idea of the universe’s shape, but the authors emphasize that it will take much more research to confirm whether the Planck data presents a terminal challenge to the flat cosmos.

“In principle, the next CMB experiments such as the Simon's Observatory [in Chile] should answer the question,” Melchiorri said, though he said that would not necessarily be enough.

“Personally, I think we need a new CMB mission like Planck with improved detectors,” he added, such as a concept mission called CORE, which ESA rejected. “In reality, we may end up waiting several years before having a definitive answer.”

In the meantime, the flat universe remains the leading model of our cosmic surroundings. But given that we have barely begun to understand this weird expanding object that we live in, more surprises are sure to come ..."

EDIT
The paper for anyone who can understand it:



			https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0906-9.epdf?referrer_access_token=njN3SbL44v49f558i2HssNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NqA1r1vCcOgNn4LDpENPnwoeHNKdiccffHhZYAzAfWiicyEpU4qm6nVNuq4YO5lddQO6BhCo76PxcO3GPnn77qr5SCkW7rqW1f_WWrDXt8OnM2xBJX49KCLCtKZVz2vf_EIjnTQiYwZTFyMP17hcu_xVrhJshxJPLXBXgcTQSShP0CtQXE59l9zR51QRxd9kM8C59EMLmae50ajQQqMBRFK-uzzGCZVhAIcyujuKPZBcb--V4G4sHvPRzunxquBtTb5r0LFa7NEvj5-KzzciQ0&tracking_referrer=www.universetoday.com


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## Brian G Turner (Nov 10, 2019)

RJM Corbet said:


> It seems that in spite of the recent Planck mission measurement of a larger lensing of the microwave background than known to date -- there is still lots of debate about the shape of the universe



Absolutely - the debate has been running for decades.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 10, 2019)

More explanation for laymen like me about this new Planck CMB data. November 8th 2019. It's clearly presented and the visuals are nice lol:
10.45


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## tinkerdan (Nov 11, 2019)

We are working on that.


Nozzle Velocity said:


> Dark matter has predictable and observable influences on galaxies. We know it's there, but we don't understand its nature. Why can't we see it?


Here is food for thought...



			http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.753.5361&rep=rep1&type=pdf
		

Same article different location


			https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4804.pdf


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## Nozzle Velocity (Nov 12, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> We are working on that.
> 
> Here is food for thought...



Thanks, I'll dig into that.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 12, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> We are working on that.
> 
> Here is food for thought...
> 
> ...


It's Greek to me. In your opinion do you think it means that dark matter particles have been detected?


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## tinkerdan (Nov 13, 2019)

In all honesty No...it just means they are working on it.


RJM Corbet said:


> It's Greek to me. In your opinion do you think it means that dark matter particles have been detected?


Having worked with a number of scientists whose work is more in the theoretical realm(while working at the MSU Cyclotron)the usual method is theory that strongly suggests the existence of something such as dark matter and from there they try to postulate what they need to do to observe(most cases back then were theoretical particles with very short lives and they were attempting to get the best 'photo' of said particle[if it exists].) 

This article suggests that they have a device they believe will detect and measure dark matter and that the best place to test it is in the cold Arcic region, where they believe to find a higher concentration and better possibility of a clearer reading.

The only reason I knew about this was that we sell equipment that measures impact and vibration and because of the sensitive nature of their equipment they needed something to monitor its ride from their lab to the Arctic, so if anything went wrong they would know before they tried to use a piece of equipment that had been damaged.

They were also using our equipment  for measuring to help determine the best way to package the equipment for future trips. 

However, in the article, what they did seem to determine is that the equipment worked as expected and the conditions in the ice region were found to be favorable as expected in containing fewer contaminants that normally make it difficult to measure within the realm of where they expect to find dark matter.  Since this was a while ago there might be more current data--however, I haven't been privy to latest developments. I just meant to demonstrate that they are working on methods to measure for the presences of dark matter.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 13, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> ... we sell equipment that measures impact and vibration and because of the sensitive nature of their equipment they needed something to monitor its ride from their lab to the Arctic, so if anything went wrong they would know before they tried to use a piece of equipment that had been damaged.
> 
> They were also using our equipment for measuring to help determine the best way to package the equipment for future trips.
> 
> However, in the article, what they did seem to determine is that the equipment worked as expected and the conditions in the ice region were found to be favorable as expected in containing fewer contaminants that normally make it difficult to measure within the realm of where they expect to find dark matter ...


Fascinating! Want to explain more?


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## tinkerdan (Nov 13, 2019)

Not sure what you want explained:


RJM Corbet said:


> Fascinating! Want to explain more?



How ever the introduction to the article fully explains the scope of the project.


			
				https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4804.pdf--Intro said:
			
		

> I. INTRODUCTION
> Astrophysical and cosmological observations suggest that roughly 27% of the Universe is cold dark matter [1].  Although evidence for dark matter has been firmly established [2, 3], its composition and characteristics remain largely unknown. Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are theoretically favored because they can be produced in the early universe with the correct abundance to result in the observed relic density [4]. A suite of direct detection experiments is now underway [5] to search for WIMPs through observation of WIMP-nucleon scattering [6, 7].
> 
> We report on the performance of DM-Ice17, a NaI(Tl) direct dark matter detector deployed at the South Pole in December 2010. DM-Ice17 is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of operating a remote low-background NaI experiment to directly test the annual modulation of the WIMP-nucleon scattering rate observed by DAMA. The expected annual modulation arises from the motion of Earth around the Sun while the Solar System moves through the dark matter halo of our Galaxy [8, 9]. The DAMA/NaI [10] and DAMA/LIBRA [11] experiments, running at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso for a combined 14-year period, have measured a consistent annual modulation at 9.3 , which they attribute  to dark matter. More recently the CoGeNT [12, 13],  CRESST [14], and CDMS-II(Si) [15] experiments have  observed events in excess of the known backgrounds in  their respective detectors. Under the assumption of elastic scattering of WIMPs, these results are inconsistent with exclusion limits set by several direct detection experiments for both spin-independent [16{20] and spin-dependent scattering [20{24]. New dark matter candidates [25{28], instrumentation effects [29, 30], backgrounds [31{33] and modifications on the distributions of  the local dark matter halo [34, 35] have all been proposed in an attempt to reconcile these seemingly contradictory results with limited success.
> ...



Note that they begin with an assumption that dark matter exists and they are experimenting with what they believe might eventually lead them to data giving detection and measurement of the dark matter that the Earth pass through.

The next section describes the device itself.



			https://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.4804.pdf
		

However I don't want to quote the whole thing here.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 13, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> Not sure what you want explained:
> 
> 
> How ever the introduction to the article fully explains the scope of the project.
> ...


Oh no, I was asking about your own work and involvement in the project?

EDIT
I go with axions not wimps. If forced to choose. Or even more so, with Penroses' Eribons, or whatever he calls them. But I think really DM may not be a particle at all? No harm in looking for them (wimps) though, obviously. All the same, I will try have a go at the stuff you've posted -- unlikely I will be able to make head or tail, lol ...


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## tinkerdan (Nov 13, 2019)

Ours was mostly support; supplying equipment to help determine the fragility of the device, so they could determine ways of packaging them before sending them out and then our device goes inside the package close to their device to monitor what the device is experiencing so that at delivery they can be certain that the device did not exceed predetermined damage levels during transit.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 13, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> Ours was mostly support; supplying equipment to help determine the fragility of the device, so they could determine ways of packaging them before sending them out and then our device goes inside the package close to their device to monitor what the device is experiencing so that at delivery they can be certain that the device did not exceed predetermined damage levels during transit.


You said. But that sounds very technical? I'm trying to weasel out of you what you do for a living, lol?


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## tinkerdan (Nov 13, 2019)

Wearing many hats. Including:
Engineering Support[Cad layout-schematic and printed circuit with limited mechanical drawing]
Customer Support[First line of defense in getting customer applications set up and connection problems solved.]
IT Manager[I set up the present internal network and help determine when we're in too much hot water and need a real expert in the office.]
I also make coffee in the morning--because I'm the first one here and I neeeeed the coffee.
Really the most technical stuff goes to the boss--he has all the Degrees.

Been here 30 years this year and when someone needs to know something or know where to find information about something, I'm like the head librarian: though it's just as easy to check the database.

Presently I work 2 1/2 days a week though occasionally I get a call on my day off to help a customer having unusual problems with equipment.

We make  high end impact and vibration detector/recorders that are used in a multitude of Shipping situations and have been used by AeroSpace(world-wide) and Military Applications also race cars and  amusement rides and accident reconstruction. Mythbusters once used one of ours to instrument their crash dummy to measure the impact it was experiencing.


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## RJM Corbet (Nov 14, 2019)

tinkerdan said:


> Been here 30 years this year and when someone needs to know something or know where to find information about something, I'm like the head librarian: though it's just as easy to check the database.


I doubt they're ever going to allow you to retire @tinkerdan. That's a very impressive resume! Thank you for the response


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## CupofJoe (Nov 16, 2019)

And then there is this...
Trouble with the Hubble Constant


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## tinkerdan (Nov 16, 2019)

Yes: Well; the problem might all lie somewhere in the math.








						Hubble's law - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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