Could this be a death blow? - Probably not....

[seanoz]

Here is one assumption of distance being reviewed without considering that the underlying assumptions of what a supernova is (an exploding Double Layer) may have always been wrong, I guess some of you may get a bigger chuckle than others here, as the clawing for answers is pretty revealing.

Mysterious supernova in a class of its own
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... opic=space

Can you guys fill me in on how it is that standard Candle stars are used as distance guides? With an eye to EU?

Sean.

[jjohnson]

For a lot of information, google "standard candles method" or similar. Wikipedia and many other sites discuss how standard candles are the way to estimate distances to stars which are beyond parallax range. The idea is that a Type 1 supernova always has the same maximum magnitude and similar light tail-off over time. If you know exactly how bright such a star event is, you should know how far away it is using the inverse square law and the Hubble constant for red-shift adjustment. Sounds great in theory, but I have a lot of doubts. One example of an enthusiastic link is here:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-release ... d-candles/

The trouble is that part of the foundation is based on Hubble red-shift relationships which are not settled in the eyes of many, and on relationships between the spectrum of a supernova and its absolute magnitude, which is very statistical. That doesn't mean it's wrong; it just is not statistically relevant based on measurable or known distances to a real star. People think, and hypothesize, and theorize, but confirmatory evidence (not proof) is hard to come by in a place as large as the one we are in.

Cepheid variables are another type of candle. These are variable magnitude stars which run through a cycle which is thought to very consistent in terms of peak magnitude. Again, knowing absolute brightness is supposed to correlate with real distance. Mmm hm. The truth is, we do not have good yardsticks for cosmological distance. Galaxies are different sizes and shapes. Stars are different sizes, different temperatures and of different compositions. Interposed dust lanes and "optical columns" or "depths" reduce light brightness by assumed amounts. Red shift as a sign of distance is a really iffy proposition, about which Hubble himself was always careful to say "if there is this relationship of red shift with distance" - which in turn relies on the implicit assumption that the universe really and truly is expanding.

Halton Arp has exposed some of this fibbing by showing highly red-shifted quasars in front of, or embedded in, galaxies which have much lower red shifts, and got himself exiled to Germany for his interest and painstaking research. That condition is deemed impossible by the Standard Model so they just crop the photos or change their contrast so that the isophotes or contours which include both high and low red shift objects together don't show. ("The way to solve any problem is to eliminate it!") Look up how to estimate the radius of a star that is only a point source of light in the telescope, and see how much work and how many assumptions have to be made!

That's right. It's turtles all the way down!

[nick c]

[url2=http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hb ... ce.html#c1]Distance Measurement in Astronomy[/url2]

Mainstream has more trust in the accuracy of these methods then most EU advocates will accept. The question is how standard are the "standard candles?"
Parallax is probably very accurate, however it is short range, of use only for stars in the Sun's neighborhood.

If you know the source strength, or absolute luminosity, of an astronomical object then you can calculate the distance from the observed luminosity using the inverse square law. Many methods are obtained to model the absolute luminosity of particular spectral types of stars and the nature of other objects in the universe. Particularly helpful have been the Cepheid variable stars, whose absolute luminosity is proportional to their period of variability. The Type-1a supernovae have been particularly useful since there is good reason to believe that they all have essentially the same absolute luminosity.


http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hb ... nd.html#c1

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Maybe those "good reasons" are not that good after all. Since the "good reasons" are based on the model of supernovae as a supermassive star that has spent its' nuclear fuel. By contrast the EU has supernovae as an exploding double layer resulting from a current overload. We have to question whether these supernova are all of the same or similar luminosity. Perhaps they are within reason, perhaps not, that is yet to be established. So this standard candle may not be so standard.

Nick

[jjohnson]

Right we are, Nick! Same page. There is no reason that I know of yet that says that a supernova, which we see as double layers based on Scott's and Thornhill's explanations, should always destruct with the same amount of energy every time, any place in the visible universe. The orthodox seem to take that as an article of faith, because they have been taught the traditional reasoning and logic, but they take a lot of things on faith that I think we are increasingly seeing being successfully argued against, by mathematicians, theorists, engineers and physicists alike. Unfortunately for orthodoxy, if you have to let go a lot of the things that have become entrenched since Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen Convention, and throw out the "gravity always dominates" theory, and associated dark matter and expanding universe and cosmological red shifts and standard candles and parts of relativity and so on, and recognize that the electric universe doesn't eliminate gravity; it complements it, then you have to begin almost from scratch and reinvent the whole damn wheel. There is a lot of friction on that axle! A lot invested. Lotta face. BUt as far as cosmological distances? We ALL have a lot to learn before we get any reliable accuracy there. It's a damned hard problem. Columbus didn't know how far it was to the West Indies, out over over the horizon, before he weighed anchor, either, and we're still just barely sitting at the dock!

[mharratsc]

The way that it reads to me is "All stars blow up and die the same way."

Even without a counter-theory to argue for- this is a rediculous proposition to make.


Mike H.