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To: wendy1946

I’m not sure including Eric Lerner and his “infinitely old universe” theory, fits your agenda.

I would like to see someone correlate the observational evidence for the theorists. Maybe Arp can get some movement.

His explanation of the cosmic microwave background being created by a “cosmic fireball” is pretty weak. You’d think in 10 years he would’ve come up with something better.


24 posted on 03/07/2011 2:29:35 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

Cosmic Background isn’t any sort of a major thing in Arp’s work. He’s noted for discovering pairs of things, typically galaxies and quasars, which radically differing redshifts and yet which are very clearly joined together and are part and parcel of the same things, i.e. he’s known for destroying the idea of interpreting cosmic redshift as recession velocity and hence also as distance.


25 posted on 03/07/2011 2:36:10 PM PST by wendy1946
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
The idea of an infinitely old universe is a reversion to beliefs from about the time of Newton. The universe was considered to be a 3-dimensional Euclidean universe, infinite in all 3 directions, and infinitely old.

As Stanley Jaki pointed out in The Paradox of Olbers Paradox, the Paradox should have convinced people that the universe was not infinite in either time or space.

Aside from the idea of a realized infinity being a philosophical absurdity, Olbers Paradox involves the fact that the night sky is dark. If the universe were truly infinite in space and time, everywhere you looked there would be a star (infinite in space), and old enough that the light from every star would have reached the Earth (infinite in time). The night sky would be as bright as the surface of the sun. Since the night sky is dark, the universe cannot be infinite in either space or time.

This doesn't resolve issues such as big bang vs. continuous creation, but it does put a finite limit on the age of the universe.

57 posted on 03/07/2011 4:01:28 PM PST by JoeFromSidney (New book: RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY. A primer on armed revolt. Available form Amazon.)
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