Wow!  Hope they are right!

I would be much more interested in a discussion of some way to verify (or deny) string theory. There must be some macro-world effect that could only be explained by string theory.  

"Cool...I guess creationism is for those who can't handle the math..."

To believe we are created just means that we have hope for something after our short time on earth.  Nothing more.  Math (as we currently understand it and use it) is just a tool.  The search for knowledge is something that either was created in us or we accidentally acquired.  If it was created in us, then we are destined to use it for the betterment of our world.  That's not the case if it's just some by-product of natural selection.  So which viewpoint really fits with scientific progression?  The best thing (scientifically speaking) about being a creationist is that I can have my cake and eat it too!  Alan, great article; and, it's blogs like yours that keep us all on our toes and thinking about all the wonderful things our life on this earth has to offer.  And to all you people out there with the negative karma, come on, lighten up.  We just made a new discovery.  Let's celebrate.  

hello,there is an interesting point about the lensing which may lack a needed equation,which has to be about the distance light travels in accordance with the gravity and its strength or why does the light not travel at 32/ft/sec,as would any other object? also would this lead to a paralaxx of the distant galaxies due to the dark matter present there in?yes this is somewhat an interesting article but presents a huge number, of the matter present in the universe, although undisclosed. yes this is interesting and thankyou all

I do not believe so...this could be just a ripple effect of light from this close object.
And pulsars can be an object quickly revolving around a bright star.

Hey,that was a really cool discovery that ya'll made.I really understand the law of Einstein.Sceince is really cool if you like it.I think ya'll need to try juct a little bit harder tho, if you found this then you can find somethin else.

:)  “this Big Bang crap”....who came up with that?  Oh ya,  Jesuit Priest Lemaître shared that one with Earth.  Hmmm....sounds like another story I read somewhere...anyway, check him out:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

Chris and others!  How awesome is this discussion!  This is what science is all about!  The discoveries, the debates, the theories, and why not, the beer drinking!  Stargazing party at my house tonight, Skyy and Redbull Plasmabombs for everyone!
P.S. Thanks, looking in the plasma model, what fun

"I dont get it, whats the point... oh wow something pretty in the sky, will it affect our daily life, will it matter in the long run? We will all live, we will all eventually die. Accept The Fact. " - Marcos Reyes, Michigan

i say to you, and to all those who post irrelevant, and almost ignorant, comments - if you don't care, then why bother reading the article or posting any comments?  If it's not your cup o' tea, then why are you here?  intelligent people are trying to have intelligent discussions about the article or topics otherwise relating to it.

if you don't get it, pick up a book or two or few hundred.

cheers to the neverending quest of all knowledge.

"1.  At this moment in time that image is most likely not even there anymore.  The distance light has had to travel to "see" the image makes the objects incredibly older than our solar system."

  Does that make the physics behind its existence (current or former) any less worthy of knowing?

  Gravity bends light, even today, even here. It's been observed during solar eclpses. (just not in the form of an Einstein Ring) Or does the fact that those events, when observed, are invariably over 8 minutes old, render them irrelevant?

  (Of course, some say that certain physical constants themselves may have changed sightly over time...and it will also take observations of the deep universe to confirm or refute those ideas.)

  Old does not equal irrelevant. Ask any archeologist or palentologist.

Its all just pretty pictures boys and in the big picture means absolutely nothing. All this money spent staring at the stars and dreaming, when no one alive will ever visit Mars, much less anything out there beyond Mars. No one alive will have even a great great great grandchild who will either, and in all likelyhood the reign of man will last perhaps another century or two before we pollute ourselves to death, or worse. How about we start spending all that brain power and all those millions that we now waste dreaming on making sure kids have shoes, coats and food, and old people have medicine, and decent housing when they retire and become infirm? How about we spend some of that money ensuring everyone can get decent medical care in this country, and use some of that brain power to discover better and cleaner fuel sources. Pondering the stars is fine, but pandering them is obscene...

RE:

"(2) Arp's stuff leads to our galaxy being at the the center of the universe."

We should not try to evaluate Arp's observations or the Plasma Universe point of view through the lens of conventional theories.  This is nonsense.  The Plasma Universe perspective demands that it be considered with a clean slate of assumptions.  I'm not quite sure how you arrived at this conclusion here, but it's erroneous.  There are no such ramifications of Arp's findings, and if there were, you can be sure that I would dismiss Arp just as you are.  Before you allow yourself to so easily jump to conclusions that appear to falsify his findings, you should first consider that his observations might not be "chance" observations.  We have to allow for ideas to possibly be true before we attempt to disprove them.  Otherwise, our skepticism stops being a philosophy and becomes just a prop for conventional wisdom.

RE:

"Arp makes broad claims about plasma that just aren't verified. For instance, there is a 'cold hydrogen" gas cloud 100's of LY's in size approaching our galaxy that is only visible in the radio spectrum. A spectrum that doesn't speak of "electric plasma" at all."

Electric currents surely can generate radio waves.  And plasmas in the laboratory generate electric currents with no problem.

Your assumption that filamentary space plasmas can only be fluid-like jets of matter ignores the fact that (1) the jets are not gases, but rather plasma -- which can respond to electrodynamic forces within the laboratory, and (2) some of the jets are highly collimated over many thousands of light years.  And again, we know from the laboratory that electrical currents are always accompanied by helical magnetic fields around them (Maxwell's Equations demand as much), which can account for this extreme collimation.  The point is that what one person *assumes* represents a fluid-like "jet" of material, another person can just as legitimately infer is an electrodynamic filamentary plasma just like the ones we see in novelty plasma globes.

Plasmas do not *have* to behave electrodynamically, and this is where the field of magnetohydrodynamics becomes involved, but it's important to note that there are conditions for the assumption that plasmas in space can be modeled as fluids.  Quasi-neutrality, for instance, is the assumption that for a given volume of space, the overall charge balance can be assumed to be zero.  Quasi-neutrality is an important assumption within astrophysics today -- and yet, it is still just an *assumption*.  And one could say that over the history of science, the quasi-neutral box has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.  Wise people will dig deeper into the issue and identify the trend.

RE:

"Also, you [don't?] see him taking about the famous 1918 experiment with a South African solar eclipse to prove that a gravity field bends light exactly as Einstein predicted it would...do ya?"

And this is where I must plead with you to DIG DEEPER.  If you do, you may be shocked to learn that the 1919 eclipse that made Einstein famous was in fact a fraud.  Eddington apparently selectively withheld some of the photographic plates that did not bode well for Relativity.  This has become an accepted fact within the scientific community by now.  Although there are several high profile instances of fraud related to proofs for Relativity, we must dig deeper and not just assume that a few bad apples represent a faulty paradigm.  There's plenty of other evidence to be considered in the debate.

The important thing to realize is the big picture: this image of the Einstein ring is no "proof" for anything because it is hardly selective.  There are multiple interpretations for the image and data associated with it.  And that's that!

RE:

"Arp doesn't even do his own research because he can't. He is an engineer..not a scientist. Non of his extravagent claims are verifiable. Although I did see his picture of a quasar that was toward the outer region of a much closer galaxy and apparently in the foreground. The picture isn't what it appears to be, the quasar is so brilliant it is shining through the galaxy."

Halton Arp is a rather famous astronomer.  He has an atlas of peculiar galaxies, and many of those galaxies are referred to by their Arp number within the astrophysical community.

Arp's theories were rejected by Chandrasekar (sp?), who happened to be the one peer-reviewing his work.  Chandraseskar helped to define black hole theory.  It should come as no huge surprise then that he was unhappy with Arp's findings.  The real question is: why was Chandrasekar allowed to even peer-review Arp's paper?  Isn't there such a thing as conflict-of-interest within the astrophysical community?  It seems rather blatant to me.

As for the quasar that's supposedly shining through a galaxy, this is by no means a settled matter.  It is not so clear-cut that Arp deserves the unfortunate treatment that he has received (he lost his telescope time!).  You act as if we *know* that this is the case.  In fact, x-ray and radio imagery generally confirms the existence of bridges between these objects that are supposedly separated by billions of light years.

RE:

"However, additional discoveries have countered Arp's claims and he has refused to budge.  He is destined to remain merely a critic."

Actually, I've seen two different studies that confirm his statistics.  I would be wary of looking up Halton Arp on wikipedia, by the way.  I'm not sure if that's what you're doing, but Wikipedia represents conventional wisdom, and nothing else.

RE:

"Face it, the community is most apt to side with the majority opinion until overwhelming evidence changes that stance.  Instead of ranting about the need for such evidence, uncover it yourself.  Make the community a believer and support, not an enemy."

There is a *vast* amount of evidence that supports the Plasma Universe point of view already.  *VAST*, and far beyond what you realize.  It doesn't seem that way to you because you and others are making a subconscious decision to not read about it.  People do not read technical materials that they disagree with, and you typically know whether or not it's fringe before you pick it up or spend money on it.  It is a major problem with our culture.  We were supposed to be a culture of innovation, and we've somehow convinced ourselves out of the need for dramatic innovation *before* we developed a real theory of everything.  What is it about understanding just 5% of the universe that gives you so much confidence that we're right?  I ask myself this question every day.

But, the thing is, science is not like a democracy.  We don't vote on reality, and you will find no answers by appealing to authority because the Plasma Universe point of view has been backed by some of the most famous scientists in history (Kristian Birkeland and Hannes Alfven being the two big names).  Anthony Peratt, whose resume makes all of us look like we're in grade school, also supports these concepts.  But, what you're not realizing is that the Plasma Universe perspective is eminently understandable.  You can purchase a copy of "The Electric Sky" by Don Scott, and you will probably understand the large majority of it even as a layperson.  You do not *have* to appeal to authority.  It is purely your *choice* to do so.  You could also just pick up the book and learn what it is.

---

Let me show you guys something else.  This image of the supposed double Einstein ring is so fuzzy that I find it amazing that people consider it to be proof of much of anything.  Look at these pictures ...

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1995/02/image/a/

If we zoomed into the Double Ring, would we in fact find something similar to the Cartwheel Galaxy?  That seems like a very legitimate question to me, and in an ideal world, we would be more cautious before creating press releases declaring that we've found more proof for Relativity.

beam me up scotty no intelligent life here

Looking for the beginning or the end of eternity from the middle is an endeavor of conjecture with unlimited possibilities. We can't even trace the big bang back to a starting point. God doesn't throw dice. God plays billiards. Everything is changing. If you don't agree with me, just wait. In time even I will change.

How beautiful. Even if we can't know precisely what it is, I think we should all sit back and appreciate how breathtaking the universe is and how little we actually know compared to what we think we know...

It always amuses me to hear that relativity is "just a theory" (just like evolution is "just a theory"), implying that beyond theory is "fact" or "truth". Actually, all science consists of theories, and theories can never be proven, only falsified. It is true that scientists often blur these definitions in the public mind, by presenting the current consensus as "truth". That does science no favours in the long run.

The subject matter of this article and most of the responses is so far above the head of 99.999% of Americans or humans really, that an open public discussion like this is almost moot. Most of the responders surely must realize that they are in a debate among themselves, a group of half a dozen maybe?
A couple of simple points were made though that really sum it all up: scientists have today's space scientists have formulated complex theories which are based upon assumption after assumption. Theories built upon assumption supported by speculation. what a waste of brainpower.
And: Say that we had answers for alomost all of sciences space questions, would that even come close to giving us the answer to life's most important questions? I dare say not.
We humans should concentrate our mindpower more to philosophy. We probably have the answers to all of the universe's riddles locked in our brains right now but just can't access them. A full understanding of our soul and mind and spirit would open all the doors to the universe. We would not need Mars missions or radio telescopes.

The more you search the Universe the more you'll see the handy work of the one greater than you or i...Almighty God...KEEP SEARCHIG..He will blow your minds with His Creation.

what if we we find the end of the universe and look outside of it and discover that the universe is just a grain of sand on a distant giant beach

I enjoy the open discussions on current theories and this forum only enforces how important peer review is.  Like Galileo, whose scientific ideas where ahead of his time and not considered valid, even blasphemous and heretic by the church, truth still prevailed centuries later.  New theories replace old ones, radical ideas and physical laws become accepted.  In other words, the truth always prevails as we learn more about our physical universe.  So don’t worry Chris, soon your belief on the plasma universe will be the new accepted explanation.

Randy
Light doesn't have mass. The reason light can't escape a black hole is because the black hole is so massive it bends the path of light into an infinite circle.

Chris
Gravity is a weak force that can act over very long distances. The electrostatic force is a stronger force, but does not act over very long distances. In fact, the electrostatic force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two charged objects. This is why electrostatic forces can't have much effect on the interactions of distant celestial systems, and gravity can. Write back to m_y_k_e@hotmail.com

Great article, interesting. Chris, I have no idea what you were typing about but your use of big words is hot!
I love the undiscovered territory! Keep reaching!

Science "Critics" are good for the overall advancement of our understanding, that much is correct. And new ideas or theories are always cropping up and either being substantiated in time or forgotten about, this is just the natural evolution of Science.

That being said, a public forum (IE: the front page article on a new discovery with an internet board of both educated and non educated individuals) is NOT the place to write page after page of criticism of a scientific idea or theory. I'm not attacking your stance Chris, only the place where you choose to stand for it. Provide information and links so people can look for themselves and learn more if interested, but realize that there are a lot of people who will not choose to learn more, and are looking for any excuse to say "science is wrong and bad" and will use the educated sounding arguments of others to back their claims, without furthering their own knowledge or anyone else's.

Remember that having both knowledge and the freedom to share it comes with great responsibility. A casual observer will look at this story and wonder how people can know such things, and hopefully be inspired to learn a little about the scientific process and maybe one out of a thousand viewers will go on to actively contribute to our understanding later on. This feeling should be publicly nurtured and allow the seed of curiosity to be sown, because the scientific method as a whole is NOT wrong, even if everything we think we know about the universe may be in error, the only way we will know one way or another is with science. With imagination, testing and observation.

There are others in the public that have little faith in that process, and try to spread their poisonous beliefs, and roll their eyes at science when theories compete, rather than delight that we live in a universe where multiple ideas can exist until one is tested to be more accurate than another, as well as the gray areas between. If you really want to recruit believers in a new theory, don't fish blindly, instead  inspire the readers to learn more themselves, then take your real debate to even a moderately more advanced forum where people who are already versed in the sciences can critique or support your ideas. try www.physicsforums.com or other sites where you can enter an advanced debate.

Don't attack science news in public, as we are in such short supply as it is. Read back through these pages at the people who are making comments that we shouldn't be spending money on science. These people are not nutjobs, they are real people with valid concerns, and these people vote.

Why don't we who are visionary to the possibility of science debate with THEM why they should change their way of thinking? Or would we rather see more budget cuts, more politics, and science news pushed further into the margins? Please, everyone use your knowledge and your voice responsibly.

Randy, Light is a particle and a wave. It wcan be viewed in both forms. Light travels at a constant speed in the vacume of space, and no matter how fast you travel, light always travels at the same speed. It does not conform to the same rules as say a bullet. Even though light a photon has a "mass" per say, it acts like a wave as well which does not follow the same rules as normal matter. Relative, at any position, light always travels at 186,000 Miles/Sec.

i like reading these types of articles, i guess to make my blood boil. i think all the scientific study is to satisfy peoples curiosity. it doesnt prove or do anything,period. it doesnt feed the hungry or provide medicine to the sick. if scientists are so smart how come they cant figure those things out first. oh yeah their looking at stars. i think its a waste of time, money , energy, and resources. fix what needs fixing here first then go there.

...and God is still behind all of it.  

I think dark matter is where the spirit world lives.

What makes me sad, is that scientists, promote their THEORIES as fact.  Scientists really have no way to prove what they say, it is all guessing, on what othes have guessed (That is the deffinition of a theory).  These scientists truely need to be ashamed of themselves, as THEY know that what they say CAN'T be proven, and YOU scientists in fact are lying to people.  Another sad observation is, who funds these research projects?  How much money is going into them, while we here on earth have billions of people starving, our children not getting the education they need, what about saving earth from global warming, and what about our elderly, even you scientists are going to be one someday.  Why not use the monies wasted on galaxies billions of light years away, and help those here on earth now, and leave the heavens to God and the angels.  Course, if you read the book of John in the New Testament of the Bible, and meet Jesus, then someday you WILL BE IN those heavens you waste your time and money on, because that's the only way you are going to truely see it and get there.  Wouldn't you agree, that this earth and the people who live on it now and in the future need you, and would benefit more from your intelligence, than some universe so far away it matters not.  Come back from the far, far away galaxies, to our world, and become part of the real world, and help where it is needed most.

I apparently got into the middle of the arguement.  Will someone please take the time and effort to state what the opposing views of this argument are. It would make it a lot easier to find out what side I'm on. LOL

Chris Reeve:  You by and large are guilty of making extravagent claims with no real references. Lets see some of these studies you are secretly privy to. And I was wrong about Arp. I meant Don Scott the electrical engineer who in fact is not a scientist.

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/Tour.html  check out the "gecko" image of radio emissions around Jupiter along with that whole article. I sure don't see any fantastic flux tubes connecting from elsewhere.

The biggest hole is their claim is that the sun is powered by electric currents from the galaxy and not hydrogen fusion.  They don't even have a real explanation as to why gravity (due to the suns mass) isn't the confining feature that allows fusion. They have no explanation for super novea or why red giants exist. They obviously don't believe in "ionizing radiation". They believe that "the laboratory" alone is enough "proof" for their claims about the WHOLE UNIVERSE !!  They secretly want to bring GOD into this mess at some point too I imagine!

Oh, where are your references for the Arthur Eddington experiment on gravity and bending of light? This I got to see since you have dug so much deeper than most! At best the electric universe is subject of sci-fi I imagine.

wow, some folks really know some of this science stuff. can they do an oil change though? guage a spark plug? find the fuel filter on their contour?

This is obviously a real phenomenon. It’s hard to believe that some people don’t want to accept the obvious because of religion or society or a lack of intelligence.
If a black hole can consume all light and the sun can bend light from Venus (which has been proven) Then why is it so hard to believe that a galaxy can bend light? Most galaxies have a black hole’s at the center and they are far more massive then the sun.
Gravity is just a space time warp so anything light, mass, electro magnet force or time will be affected by it. Light does not have mass it is just affected by gravity kind of like looking at a penny in a pond then placing an object that floats but will warp the view of the penny. Space has to be a medium or our pace shuttles would not be able to navigate in space. And just like any other medium it is affected by gravity. This in it self suggest the dark matter therory. Just because Einstein could not figure out the unified theory does not mean that his theory of general relativity is wrong.      

RE:

"Okay...really... throw away the copies of "what the bleep do we know!?" and start being rational.  Einstien wasn't happy with his theories, cause he hadn't completed his work on a unified theory.  Arp is as interesting as star trek fanfiction.  Just because somebody throws convention on its head does not mean that particular somebody is right.. "

Many of you guys appear to be missing the point.  It is Halton Arp's *observations* that are interesting.  Sure, he tried to explain them too.  But, be aware that a big part of what you guys are arguing over is *observations*.  We should tread very carefully when we decide to reject such things and substitute them with theories based upon invisible matters.  If ever there was a defnition of pseudo-science, that's pretty much it.

RE:

"I.E. Copernicus was not the only scientist with new ideas that died "alone and mad."  In fact it was probably due to the fact that there were a thousand other idiots throwing around inane ideas effectively crying wolf and drowing out any kind of truth.  Every theory has holes, including your precious Arp; the difference being is that hard science actually attempts to explain the holes rather than simply ignoring them."

Actually, this is not quite true.  What of the solar wind's continued acceleration, even as it passes the planets?  Ignored.  No credible explanation offered.

What of the fact that both the Stardust and Deep Impact Cometary Missions dramatically contradicted conventional cometary theory?  Why did the Deep Impact  impactor generate *two* flashes at the time of impact?  Ignored!

What of the fact that the Sun's atmosphere is 100x hotter than the Sun's surface?  Astrophysicists try to argue for a concept called magnetic reconnection.  The thing is, there's no reason why magnetic reconnection cannot be verified within the laboratory.  After a few decades now of postulating its existence, have they done so?  NO!  Ignored.

Have you seen this ball lightning study? ... http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0101/0101089.pdf.  These guys observed firsthand elemental transmutation within a super-simple ball lightning experiment.  Did the astrophysicists care?  Not in the slightest.

Have you seen this study on absolute dating? ... http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/time.html.  These guys demonstrated that nuclear decay rates can be affected by the cycles of the stars, the Sun and the Moon.  Did anybody pay attention and consider that dates may not be as reliable as we imagine?  Not at all.

Only ten years ago, it was believed that upper atmosphere lightning was akin to UFO's.  Since then, the phenomenon has been observed and photographed numerous times.  The problem is that lightning is supposed to be the result of a closed electrical system between the ground and the storm clouds.  Lightning leading into space suggests that the Earth is actually trading electrical charge with space.  Has lightning theory been modified?  Not at all.  Have conventional scientists started considering that the Earth may acquire and trade electrical charges with foreign bodies during encounters?  Never once!

We can see some very unusual craters on the Moon -- namely Tycho and Aristarchus -- whose "debris fields" are not debris fields at all.  They have either no meaningful depth or represent excavations.  Did that cause anybody within conventional circles to re-think how those craters were formed?  Nope.

Where are the explanations from hard science?  They simply do not exist.  Like I've said, everything will seem quite nice and tidy if you don't dig deeper.  Science is most threatened not by that which can be demonstrated to be untrue -- but rather by that which appears to be true, but actually is not.

RE:

"The simple fact of the matter is that hard science is hard work and there isn't nor will there be in our or our great great grandchildrens lifetime, a unified theory."

Did your parents ever tell you that you could not be something when you grew up?  Didn't think so.  So, why are you telling your children the same thing?

RE:

"Anyway...stick to Hawking, stick to Einstien, read the journals, and let the astrophysicists do the astrophysics."

Yikes!  Hawking's theories are largely discounted, even within conventional circles now!!!  If you only read what's popular in science, you are around ten or twenty years behind the curve!

We've been letting the astrophysicists do the astrophysics for many decades now.  We've poured amazing amounts of money into their programs and they've yet to generate theories that are predictively useful.  We are seeing no decrease in the number of expressions of surprise; in fact, if you're paying attention, you'll see that the surprise is growing all of the time!  They get away with it by postulating stories that sound like science fiction novels.  Space stories are typically published on the basis of how absurd they sound ... Wandering black holes that could destroy us, the universe expanding until it's no longer observable, or multiple dimensions that could unlock the key to our inability to understand our surroundings.  People, this is fun stuff to think about, but where does it get us?  I'm telling you that laboratory plasma physicists have had great successes duplicating many of the features we observe of space phenomenon.  Are you going to believe people who play with beautiful equations all day like Sydney Chapman did?  Or, are you going to believe the guys in lab coats who have the ability to tell you which equations are real?

Chris must be an alien, (a mean this as a compliment) perhaps the real manifestation of Spock...
How could anyone have such a commanding control of any topic, and the patience of a saint to boost...
The discussion / debate is great.
As to those who wonder why we "waste" time on these sorts of topics, I doubt we will continue to be able to cloth and feed the 6+ billion souls on this planet if we revert to pre-industrial technology.  I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but as with any sort of this type of scientific research and exploration, "spin off" technology is always created that helps with our day to day existence...

This picture could be an infinite number of things. I find it kind of disturbing that we can take a picture millions if not billions of light years away and come to the conclusion right away, "It has to be a double Einstein Ring."

For all we know this could be a naturally occuring phenomenon that happens very often. This "Double Einstein ring" could really be anything. Whether explained by the Plasma Universe or the theory of relativity.

Anything can be explained, remember that, but until we can actually travel that distance and figure out actually whats going on, let's not be hasty and lable it a "Double Einstein Ring."

People have been coming up with theories for thousands of years, explaining, and labeling. You know the world was once the Center of the Universe. Why? Because it was popular. But it was wrong.

Einstein had to be one of the smartest men ever to live. That dosn't mean he was right about everything. And like Chris said, this type of thinking, with popular science, is taking us no where. Read the facts, and ask yourself, "Does this make sense?" Be objective.

I'm not agreeing with Chris. I'm not agreeing with Einstein. I'm saying that if we are going to travel our solar system or even beyond, sometimes we need to accept what makes more sense. Something like Dark Matter that cannot be proven or something that can.

 I sure love astronomy, but it's mostly guesswork. And figure in the human ego factor, and a great deal of what "scientists" are telling us about the Universe may not be true at all. What makes Einstein such a hero to me is his ability to see things differently than most other people did at his time...in science and art, it is almost always people like that who make the big leaps in knowledge.
As Mr E. said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Quite true; do your homework, and come to your own conclusions; maybe you'll be closer to correct than some Harvard dude with a PhD, but no imagination...Stick Man

I truly feel sorry for the small minded bible belt people who don't understand the significance of anything outside of their church. It's blatantly obvious that observations in the universe are critical in explaining how we got where we are today ( cosmologically speaking)

BTW, Chris definitely has some good ideas himself.  He helped clear up some questions I've been having about the dark energy/matter theories.

The most exciting aspect of these kinds of discoveries is how far we keep coming. Our minds are so magnificent. One idea sparks ten related ideas and exponentially we endup orbiting that farthest galaxy taking snapshots with our Dark-enery powered optical implants. Please, mesmerize me!

densell wrote:
"just as a triangle has FINITE length sides but our
system of mathematics (radicals) can not define the END as finite, we have a long way to go to explain OUR Universe...."

 You seem to have some mathematical misconceptions.  Sounds like you are confused about irrational numbers.  Try the "math forum" pages at Drexel University.

Michael Ferguson...surely you aren't that gullible..are you? Chris Reeve et.al. is a prime example of what happens to many when the educational system has failed them and delusions about what "they" would like the universe to be .. or IS, results.

So Chris, how do you explain the fact , as graciously mentioned by Mike of Anchorage, that the electrostatic force does not act over infinite distance...just google it and you will see the graphs.  Gravity tends to infinity...electic forces do not.

What if we learned everything and were able to realize all these topics only existed to try to seperate us from what is truly most important of all, ourselfs as individuals and the steps taken by each to show our appreciation for what we have, and most of all not causing pain with deception and lies.

When's the last time you did something nice for another? and why did that person need you to do that for them rather than do if for themselves?

RANDY IN LAS VEGAS -

It's not a matter of light having mass that allows it to become distorted.  It's about light traveling across the "fabric of space" which allows it to appear distorted around objects with heavy gravitational pull.

A 2-dimensional example might go something like this:  Stretch out a large sheet of paper and place a marble somewhere on the surface to represent the earth.  Then place a softball somewhere else on the paper to represent the sun.  The weight of the softball will distort the sheet enough to draw the marble towards it, symbolizing gravity.  

In space, the same thing happens 3-dimensionally.  The gravitational pull of a massive object distorts the space around it.  While it has no mass, light particles still follow the fabric of space, even when it has been distorted by gravitational pull.  Theoretically, light travels at a constant rate and never varies.  So while it might be pulled from its path, it never slows.

The dark matter theory is partially based on the amount of gravitational pull needed to distort light.  The amount of visible matter in the galaxies pictured in the article is not enough to distort the light to the extent shown in the image.  50 - 60% of additional dark matter could be one explanation.

There are scientists who dispute Einstein's theory that the speed of light is constant, however.  A quick Google search brings up a ton of stuff on the subject.

I know my explanation is very basic, and I'm sure almost everyone else out there can do a better job, but I hope it helps to answer your question.

KGary:  An interesting point about light escaping black holes.  If there is a unified theory then all matter, motion, heat, gravity, magnetism, strong force, etc. are just  expressions of energy.  Photons, as now accepted, are both matter and wave, or at least exhibit characteristics of both.  What is incredible, and parallel to Arp (at least in my view), is that some unknown, junior, who cares what he has to say scientist named Bose had a theory but couldn’t get published by the mainstream.  He sent his paper to Einstein who developed it into the theoretical existence of matter in a new state.  This new state is called Bose-Einstein Condensate and has now been achieved in the lab.  Common elements are super-cooled to the point that they stop behaving like particles and begin behaving like waves.  That’s really simplified, btw.  This suggests, to me, that all matter has wave properties, but these are generally overshadowed by more prominent properties.  Think weak forces hear.  Every bit of matter around you has an incredible weak force that has no measureable effect on any of the matter around you.  Electric force (chemical) is far more prominent on a scale like your desk or computer or coffee and makes weak force not even worthy of a footnote.  Or how about gravity.  The suggestion that every particle also has a (miniscule) wave component turns a lot of conventional physics on it’s ear, but half a dozen or so elements have been transformed to BEC.  This, apparently happens when the matter is still in a form recognizable as atomic.  In a black hole, by theory, matter has been stripped of this structure and instead of a grid of atoms being super-cooled to BEC and exhibiting wave characteristics we get the stuff of atoms packed into a tighter grid, with even less room to act like particles.  What does this expression of energy behave like?  Is it effected by gravity in a conventional sense or does is slide unimpeded along lines of gravitational flux effected dramatically, instead by weak force, which would be ‘astronomical’ in this kind of configuration.  Some kind of wave, that only exists in these extreme conditions, may be able to escape the gravity well and then, elsewhere, convert back to more standard matter.  Some wild theory that will never be tested in a lab, unless we can find a way to create a gravity well capable of sucking in this entire star system but for the laboratory safeguards.  If it is possible then Arp’s matter factories might be the springs that these wells feed.

I equated Bose and Arp.  I think both are visionary but lack the finesse to explain the theories their observations lead them to.  That’s not to run either down, that kind of finesse is certainly rare, as is the kind of creative thinking that they both obviously possess.

Chris:  You quoted me but I didn’t get why.  It looks most like you just want to be contradicted.  My point with the Jello is that there are different ways to get the same effect.  Generation leading to redshift is just as legitimate as distance/speed-directional shift.  I support the idea of generation.  Cool wasn’t cold and old, it was “Wow!!”  I can understand how you could get to be nothing but defensive, I’ve read the string of stupid/ignorant posts, here and in similar locations.  I usually don’t waste the time to post but did here because I am intrigued by you and your thought process.  I could do without the cultishness of your defenses of Arp, though.  I also can’t see how you have the time to reply so often and at such depth.  I also don’t see why you take the time to respond to some of the people you do.  Do you really think you’re going to teach them anything.  (Not to be insulting to most out there, but this material generally takes years of study to develop the idea that you really don’t know enough to “get it” so a few minutes on the keyboard will be about as effective as a monologue to the wall.  The wall receives no benefit, even though the material was great.)  Some people will simply never appreciate anything about the picture except that it’s pretty.

Michael, please don't call people names, only small minded people do that.  Those of us who choose to believe in something besides ourselves do so with hope and faith.  We look at space and see the wonder and splendor there.  What's wrong with that?

The following are page by page accounts of Eddingtons famous result of the bending of starlight in the suns' gravity field. Read for yourselves.


http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000034.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000035.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000036.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000037.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000038.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000039.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000040.000.html

remember lack of knowledge does not equal lack of intellengce. sometimes you need outsiders to look in. very successful people have invented wondrous things. so think of this - we are no more than a corpuscle, red cell, or even a single strand in the dna of a living being. what if. happy new year to all

Wayne , NM.."Those of us who choose to believe in something besides ourselves do so with hope and faith.  We look at space and see the wonder and splendor there.  What's wrong with that?"

Plenty!  Hope and faith is not reality. Read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and you will definitely understand why I say that.  But, maybe you are to ingrained in your  "hope and faith" that reading such and enlightening book isn't going to happen.

You can't judge the credibility of an argument from the number of views a thread gets in a science forum.  That's insane.  In the science fora I frequent, it's often the stupidest things that get the most views.

The vast majority of people are never going to get the education required to evaluate and compare contrasting theories in science.  Many experts can't do it unless it's in a sub-sub field with which they are acquainted.  Does this mean that people can't accept ANY theories unless they have listened to and carefully evaluated EVERY SINGLE competing idea that alleges to be a theory?

The best thing an interested party can do is this:  try to understand what the actual dominant theories are in science as best you can.  The salient distinction between legitimate gadflies and crackpots is this:  the gadflies tend to actually understand the theories they are supplanting.  If you find a critic of standard science who shows a clear understanding of the thing he is criticizing, then the critic is worth listening to in more detail (if you have the time).  Otherwise, you could waste a good deal of time trying to understand something that isn't worth knowing.

Amusing articles:
http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html#power
http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html#hypothesis

Thanks Fallible. It is still a wonder and mystery to me why "electric universe" types exist at all given that they have been educated with the same physics as anyone else. Could it be ...money?? Attract the unsuspecting and ignorant to "buy their books?".

It's like the media,  send money and I will tell stories all day

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