I am really looking forward to what may be revealed by this.
The James Webb Space Telescope - creation.com
The James Webb Space Telescope - creation.com
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The James Webb Space Telescope
- Thread starter Aaron
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First, The Michelson-Morely experiment failed to detect the motion of the earth. So Einstein's theories explained the result by discarding the ether and asserting the constancy of the speed of light in reference to the observer. This put the heliocentric and geocentric models of the universe on equal footing.
Many attempts were made to prove that heliocentricity was true and geocentricity was false, right up until the early 1900's. All such attempts were unsuccessful. The most well-known of these is the Michelson-Morley experiment which was designed to measure the change in the speed of light, due to the assumed motion of the earth through space, when measured in different directions on the earth's surface. The failure of this experiment to detect any significant change played an important role in the acceptance of Einstein's theory of special relativity.
The theory of special relativity holds as a basic assumption that the speed of light will always be the same everywhere in the universe irrespective of the relative motion of the source of the light and the observer. The ability of special relativity to successfully explain many non-intuitive physical phenomena which are manifested by atomic particles when moving at speeds greater than about one-tenth the speed of light seems to corroborate this assumption. Thus, the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment (and all other experiments of similar intent) to detect any motion of the earth through space is understood by modern science in terms of relativity rather than geocentricity.
Einstein's theory of general relativity adds further to the debate. It asserts that it is impossible for a human observer to determine whether any material body is in a state of absolute rest (i.e., immobile in space). It claims that only motion of two material bodies relative to one another can be physically detected. According to this theory the geocentric and heliocentric viewpoints are equally valid representations of reality, and it makes no sense whatsoever scientifically to speak of one as being true and the other false. This shift in emphasis from an either-or argument to a synthesis and acceptance of both viewpoints is summed up by the well-known astronomer, Fred Hoyle, as follows:
The theory of special relativity holds as a basic assumption that the speed of light will always be the same everywhere in the universe irrespective of the relative motion of the source of the light and the observer. The ability of special relativity to successfully explain many non-intuitive physical phenomena which are manifested by atomic particles when moving at speeds greater than about one-tenth the speed of light seems to corroborate this assumption. Thus, the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment (and all other experiments of similar intent) to detect any motion of the earth through space is understood by modern science in terms of relativity rather than geocentricity.
Einstein's theory of general relativity adds further to the debate. It asserts that it is impossible for a human observer to determine whether any material body is in a state of absolute rest (i.e., immobile in space). It claims that only motion of two material bodies relative to one another can be physically detected. According to this theory the geocentric and heliocentric viewpoints are equally valid representations of reality, and it makes no sense whatsoever scientifically to speak of one as being true and the other false. This shift in emphasis from an either-or argument to a synthesis and acceptance of both viewpoints is summed up by the well-known astronomer, Fred Hoyle, as follows:
The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and heliocentricity] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view.... Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is 'right' and the Ptolemaic theory 'wrong' in any meaningful physical sense.[1]
Relativity is the theory which is accepted as the correct one by the great majority of scientists at present. However, many science teachers and textbooks are not aware of this, and it is not uncommon to find heliocentricity taught as the progressive and "obviously true" theory even today.
Then Edwin Hubble observed equal red shifts in the light from all distant galaxies, which could be an indication of distance or velocity. That put our local neighborhood in the center of the phenomenon, a most 'unwelcome' hypothesis.
…Such a condition would imply that we occupy a unique position in the universe, analogous, in a sense, to the ancient conception of a central Earth.…This hypothesis cannot be disproved, but it is unwelcome and would only be accepted as a last resort in order to save the phenomena. Therefore we disregard this possibility...the unwelcome position of a favored location must be avoided at all costs...such a favored position is intolerable….Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position…must be compensated by spatial curvature. There seems to be no other escape . . .
https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept04/Hubble/paper.pdf (p.40)
https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept04/Hubble/paper.pdf (p.40)
The WMAP and Planck surveys of the largest and oldest feature of the universe revealed an alignment with Earth's ecliptic plane.
So I am really interested in what may be revealed by this deeper and more powerful look at the heavens.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~huterer/PRESS/CMB_Huterer.pdf
Intrigued by this zoo of structures on different scales, you walk over to the opposite end of the huge Main Hall to get a sense of the big picture. And you are shocked to see vast patterns within all those stars and galaxies that seem to line up with the direction of the Sun’s motion through the universe. Even stranger, some aspects of the cosmic geometry seem more flattened than spherical, and line up nearly perpendicular to the plane along which the planets race around the Sun.
In reality, you would need a very special kind of vision to see the alignments cosmologists have begun to find in the geometry of the universe. Seeing them requires sophisticated mathematical analysis that enables us to explore the finest details of how the universe is put together.
Careful analyses have confirmed these alignments exist. But we don’t know whether they are bizarre coincidences or if something more fundamental is at work.
The origins of the universe’s structure lie in the first moments after the Big Bang. But how could the early universe possibly have “known” about the solar system’s geometry when it developed 4.5 billion years ago? Could such a bizarre alignment have arisen in the early universe, or is the answer in the solar system itself — some as-yet-unknown factor that skews our observations?
The quest for an answer has whetted the appetites of cosmologists to understand the structure of the universe on its largest scales. Moreover, solving the mystery of cosmic alignments may ultimately require us to revise some bedrock assumptions of modern cosmology and what happened in the first moments after the Big Bang.
Intrigued by this zoo of structures on different scales, you walk over to the opposite end of the huge Main Hall to get a sense of the big picture. And you are shocked to see vast patterns within all those stars and galaxies that seem to line up with the direction of the Sun’s motion through the universe. Even stranger, some aspects of the cosmic geometry seem more flattened than spherical, and line up nearly perpendicular to the plane along which the planets race around the Sun.
In reality, you would need a very special kind of vision to see the alignments cosmologists have begun to find in the geometry of the universe. Seeing them requires sophisticated mathematical analysis that enables us to explore the finest details of how the universe is put together.
Careful analyses have confirmed these alignments exist. But we don’t know whether they are bizarre coincidences or if something more fundamental is at work.
The origins of the universe’s structure lie in the first moments after the Big Bang. But how could the early universe possibly have “known” about the solar system’s geometry when it developed 4.5 billion years ago? Could such a bizarre alignment have arisen in the early universe, or is the answer in the solar system itself — some as-yet-unknown factor that skews our observations?
The quest for an answer has whetted the appetites of cosmologists to understand the structure of the universe on its largest scales. Moreover, solving the mystery of cosmic alignments may ultimately require us to revise some bedrock assumptions of modern cosmology and what happened in the first moments after the Big Bang.
So I am really interested in what may be revealed by this deeper and more powerful look at the heavens.
