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  Cosmologists Debate Universe Expansion - July 2019

Sometimes I wonder whether some cosmologists, when knowing their current
model is lacking, would be susceptible to considering EUT.

 Wendy Freedman and Adam Riess recently made their case for different expansion rates of the universe at a meeting of top cosmologists in Santa Barbara, California, In July 2019.


Attached is a news story about that meeting; following are a few excerpts and a few of my comments.I am not a cosmologist but the link is here for anyone to reach their own conclusions.

Except:

'
Ahead of the conference, a team of cosmologists calling themselves H0LiCOW had published their new measurement of the universe's expansion rate. By the light of six distant quasars, H0LiCOW pegged H0 at 73.3 kilometers per second per megaparsec — significantly higher than Planck's prediction.
'
My comment:

When they are using quasars, which are used wrong when a hydrogen atom's emission line is treated as the velocity of the massive quasar, I am not surprised this mistake might not agree with another mistake. Two wrongs don't make a right.

excerpt:
'
[He] laid out the evidence, gathered by himself and others, that the universe is currently expanding too fast — faster than theorists predict when they extrapolate from the early universe to the present day. "If the late and early universe don't agree, we have to be open to the possibility of new physics," he said.
'
Saying 'open to new physics' clearly admits failure.

excerpt:
'
For six years, the SH0ES team claimed that it had found a discrepancy with predictions based on the early universe.

This extra ingredient added to the familiar mix of matter and energy would yield a richer understanding of cosmology than the rather bland Lambda-CDM theory provides.

To those trying to understand the cosmos, a crisis is the chance to discover something big. Lloyd Knox, a member of the Planck team, spoke after Riess. "Maybe the Hubble constant tension is the exciting breakdown of Lambda-CDM that we've all been, or many of us have been, waiting and hoping for," he said.
'
My comment:

I am surprised at such a blunt admission of failure, with 'many' cosmologists hoping for a breakdown in the model for their 'bland' theory to then fix it.

It's known to be broken and EUT could begin the replacement.

I am also surprised this story included this funny but perhaps revealing conversation:
'
In the seminar room, Barry Madore sat down by me and another reporter and asked, "So, where do you think all this is heading?" To the middle, apparently. "You know that song, 'Stuck in the middle with you?'" he said. "Do you know the lyrics before? 'Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.'"
'

excerpt:

'
Graeme Addison, an expert on baryon acoustic oscillations, said in an email after the conference, "My feeling is that the Hubble discrepancy is a real problem, and that we are missing some important physics somewhere. But the solutions people have put together so far are not super convincing."
'
my comment:

This person sees a real problem with no convincing solution offered.

excerpt:

'
This past Monday, in a paper posted on arxiv.org, Riess and company argued that Freedman and her team's calibration of TRGBs relied on some low-resolution telescope data. They wrote that swapping it out for higher-resolution data would increase the H0 estimate from 69.8 to 72.4 — in range of SH0ES, H0LiCOW and the other late-universe measurements. In response, Freedman said, "There seem to be some very serious flaws in their interpretation" of her team's calibration method. She and her colleagues have redone their own analysis using the newer data and, she wrote in an email, "We DO NOT find what [they] are claiming."
'

my comment:

Cosmologists are absolutely convinced the universe is expanding but are unable to give it a consensus value to establish credibility. After roughly a century (since around 1920), they cannot reach an agreement. 

Perhaps each sees the flaws in others' work; the result is they 'agree' they cannot explain the universe expansion.

The article's finish:

'
Meanwhile, the next data release from the Gaia space telescope, due in two or three years, will enable researchers to calibrate cepheids and TRGBs geometrically based on their parallax, or how far apart they look from different positions in the sky. The James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor, will also yield a wellspring of new and better data when it launches in 2021. Cosmologists will know the value of H0 — probably within the decade — and if there is still a discrepancy with predictions, by decade's end they could be well on their way to discovering why.
'

my comment:

They are stuck, unable to fix mistakes and replace wrong assumptions.
The hope is that new data will offer a way out of this burden of dogma. I expect new data cannot fix unquestionable beliefs.

They need an intervention.

link


After only a  minute or two:

The first comment started with 'David is heedless' and continued about these scientists are using the scientific method to explore solutions but the comment was removed quickly, before I could copy it. There was more but I can't remember it; I was surprised given this is the EUT facebook group.

I realized maybe I had gone over the top.


I added this comment.

I am sorry if this critique is too blunt for some. I am not convinced the universe is expanding and these cosmologists cannot agree on how to define it with a convincing data set and explanation.


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Here is the list of topics in this Cosmology Topic Group .

Ctrl + for zoom in;  Ctrl - for zoom out ;  Ctrl 0 for no zoom;
triple-tap for zoom to fit;  pinch for zoom change;  pinched for no zoom