This page provides links to the QORG optical catalogue of radio/X-ray objects plus a few informal treatises on what we know, or can know, about our Universe.
"... the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” -- J. B. S. Haldane
The QORG catalogue reveals a few galaxy-centered fields which are populated by QSOs/candidates more thickly than expected by the background density of such QSOs. The significance of the clustering is not straightforward to calculate, because QORG is heterogeneously populated according to the optical/radio/X-ray surveys available at the time of publication. Weak lensing appears to play a good part of any apparent coalescence of QSOs about the galaxies, but may not be the whole story. Some interesting-looking QORG galaxy fields are presented here. A photo collection of QSOs positioned within galaxy disks (on the sky) is here.
Is redshift primarily cosmological? The current wisdom says yes, but some published results show evidence for the converse, even if sidestepped by the authors. A graphic example is from an Alan Stockton paper, with my commentary, here. And then, of course , there is NGC 7603. There appears to be more going on than is currently modelled.
Is today's cosmology run by a new generation of flat Earthers? People have grown so used to the Big Bang interpretation of the Universe, that they have grown inured to a sense of absurdity at the scenario of things flying apart at high speed. My view is that a more general theory will remove the need for physical expansion. The key point is the so-called "accelerating expansion" of the universe. This "acceleration" is entirely dependent on a flat-universe (Euclidean) model, and researchers are at pains to use the recent WMAP CMB data to claim a flat universe. But their claims may be wrong, as were the claims of the flat-Earthers, long ago. The key is to look at the recent paradigm, now expired, that the universe was at critical matter density (ΩM=1.00). Up until 1998 all studies, based on a variety of analyses, supported this paradigm. Then, in 1998, the distant supernova studies found that this could not be right, and that the matter density ΩM~0.3 and so must be (as required by a flat universe, where total Ω=1.0) balanced with a (dark) energy density ΩΛ~0.7. Since then all studies, based again on a variety of analyses, support the new paradigm. How can this be? It shows there is a powerful social component to today's astronomy which is overpowering true disinterested analysis. Similarly, the paradigm of a flat universe has endured since the advent of inflation theory as promulgated by Alan Guth in 1977.
Why is a flat universe such a key concept? Before 1998 when the universe was believed to be matter-dominated, it was thought that universal expansion was near enough to critical speed (where the universe neither expands forever nor collapses) that it was unlikely that this should be a coincidence, but was likely an initial condition. Guth's inflation theory provided a mechanism whereby critical density, and thus a flat universe, was attained as the result of a causal process. Balloon-borne measurements in the late 1990s (BOOMERanG) measured fluctuations in the CMB, and the angular extent of those fluctuations was considered to give a direct indication of the geometry of the universe, which was "found" to be flat. Before 1998 it was thought that a universe that expanded forever would have a hyperbolic ("open") manifold, and a universe which would eventually collapse would have a spherical ("closed") manifold. So the matter-dominated universe, at critical density, and with a flat geometry, was a consistent model with various confirmations.
Since 1998 the standard model has become that of an open forever-expanding universe, but the old idea that this would entail a hyperbolic manifold has not come with it. Instead, "dark energy" has been introduced to keep the universe's geometry flat. So, why keep the universe flat? Answer: because the Big Bang requires inflation (to accomodate the horizon problem, matter ratios, etc), and inflation is held to be a process which perforce yields a flat manifold. So the Big Bang and a flat universe are inseparable parts of the same theory.
Are the hyperbolic universe and the spherical universe viable alternatives to the flat universe? Not only are they viable, they are essentially mandatory. These "non-Euclidean" geometries are known to be mathematically complete and consistent, and the key point is that mathematically integral constructs generally have actual physical counterparts. We should expect to find non-Euclidean manifolds somewhere. Not either, but both hyperbolic and spherical spaces should exist.
How can hyperbolic and spherical spaces yield a viable alternative to the Big Bang? Let's combine them in the simplest way possible and see if they account for the universe as we observe it. We hypothesize that the universe is bounded at the largest scales by spherical space, and that the spherical space contains a hyperbolic space. Is this possible? It's not only possible, but mandatory that a hyperbolic space be enclosed by a spherical, as hyperbolic space carries with it an asymptote as a boundary point, i.e. the line in the cone X02-X12-X22 ... -Xn2 = 0. It follows that the boundary ∂Hn is a sphere. What would such a space look like to live in? It would look much like our universe; in fact it accounts nicely for the latest observations. The relevant observation is that "nearby" (z<0.5) objects are fainter than expected, therefore they are further away, thus "expansion" has "accelerated". But in a hyperbolic universe, the "shells of space" at distance R are larger than the standard 4πR², and so objects there look smaller and fainter than in a flat universe. The two tweakable parameters in this model are the degree of hyperbolicity and the radius of a spatial-5D spherical universe which contains the hyperbolic space; these can be combined to match the observations elegantly, without need of accelerated expansion. Thus two large extra dimensions are required, either spatial or a time-space composite. These extra dimensions can also yield cosmological redshift without the need for physical expansion at all, much less accelerated expansion, thus the model is a "static" model of the universe. This static model is called the "Hypatia" model of the universe, and a brief presentation of it is here.
In January 1998 I posted this essay which introduced the Hypatia model. It had enthusiasm but little math, and the discussions on redshift are wrong or speculative. It was a humble beginning.
Eric Flesch 2006
For a superior presentation of the history and outline of the standard model, refer paper by B. Leibundgut: http://www.eso.org/~bleibund/papers/EPN/epn.html
© Eric Flesch 2006
Music by Trilobyte