Merged: Why the James Webb Telescope rewrites/doesn't the laws of Physics/Redshifts

[erwinl]

Could you tell me, why redshifted light does contain the information concerning the elements that emitted that light (and by which you can see that this light is redshifted), but that the CMB does not contain that info?

[steenkh]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Blame?

It could be right.

It could be wrong.

I don't ignore the CMB. I think its the energy lost from redshifting.

If it is right then most of your criticism of Lambda-CDM falls flat.

Just “thinking” that the CDM is energy lost from redshifting without presenting arguments for its spectrum, and uniformity is the same as ignoring it.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

I don't claim to have a theory of the CMB.

It is either the echo of a hot big bang, or it's not.

I do have a conjecture however. The CMB energy is the energy lost when photons redshift.

That conjecture is wrong. It is just another version of tired light, which is demonstrably wrong. It would necessarily produce blurring, which is not observed. We've been over this before, at length.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

That conjecture is wrong. It is just another version of tired light, which is demonstrably wrong. It would necessarily produce blurring, which is not observed. We've been over this before, at length.

The Helland/Clinger equation is what the FLRW lookback time integral reduces to when gravity and dark energy are absent.

Why should we expect that to be blurry?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by erwinl

Could you tell me, why redshifted light does contain the information concerning the elements that emitted that light (and by which you can see that this light is redshifted), but that the CMB does not contain that info?

The light from stars and galaxies has absorption lines in their spectra. Based on where they are, we can tell if its shifted.

The CMB has no such absorption lines. And there weren't really atoms back then. So... not sure I get the question.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

I said the distance relationship is"

d = -(1/(1+z)-1) c/H₀

You said I should write it as:

d = z/(1+z) c/H₀

Which means to me, that's not the Helland equation. That's the Helland/Clinger equation.

Agree?

Cool! Basic algebra is co-authorship now.

I can rewrite

E = mc²

to

m = E/c²

Now it's the Einstein-Myriad equation!

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Myriad

Cool! Basic algebra is co-authorship now.

I can rewrite

E = mc²

to

m = E/c²

Now it's the Einstein-Myriad equation!

Ok. You all might never let me live this down, but I get how that works. Divide both sides by c².

But I'm not actually sure how you get:

-(1/(1+z)-1) = z/(1+z)

Does the -1 get turned into -z/z or something?

[erwinl]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

The light from stars and galaxies has absorption lines in their spectra. Based on where they are, we can tell if its shifted.

The CMB has no such absorption lines. And there weren't really atoms back then. So... not sure I get the question.

If, as you say, the CMB is from before there were atoms, it can’t really be energy from the red shifting of light emitted by atoms. Or can it?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

The Helland/Clinger equation is what the FLRW lookback time integral reduces to when gravity and dark energy are absent.

Why should we expect that to be blurry?

You weren't talking about lookback times in the post I responded to, you were talking about the CMB coming from light produced by other light losing energy. That's another version of tired light, and tired light requires blurring.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by erwinl

If, as you say, the CMB is from before there were atoms, it can’t really be energy from the red shifting of light emitted by atoms.

g

Right.

Either the CMB is the oldest light in the universe, excess spillage from the beginning, or it's not.

If it's not, my conjecture is its energy comes from the energy lost by redshifting photons.

Any photon with a redshift >= 1 has lost half its energy. So there should be enough go around.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You weren't talking about lookback times in the post I responded to, you were talking about the CMB coming from light produced by other light losing energy. That's another version of tired light, and tired light requires blurring.

It requires blurring if the energy loss is a result of an interaction with something else in a known manner.

As Edwin Hubble writes in 1937:

Quote:

When first observed the red-shifts were immediately attributed to radial motion away from the observer, to recession of the nebulae. This interpretation still remains the only permissible explanation that is known. It is true that other ways are known by which red-shifts might be produced, but in each case they would be accompanied by other phenomena which would be conspicuous and, actually, are not found. We may state with some confidence that red-shifts are the familiar velocity-shifts, or else they represent some unrecognized principle of nature. We cannot assume that our knowledge of physical principles is yet complete; nevertheless, we should not replace a known, familiar principle by an ad hoc explanation unless we are forced to that step by actual observations.

https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/...bble/paper.pdf

Emphasis mine.

He says instead of adding a new principle of nature, we should prefer the known principles.

Because we chose to avoid adding a new principle of nature (light redshifts) we have been forced to add dark energy and inflation, which are new principles of nature.

Yes, we've gone over this before.

The Helland/Clinger equation says nothing about why light redshifts, just that it does.

[erwinl]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

g

Right.

Either the CMB is the oldest light in the universe, excess spillage from the beginning, or it's not.

If it's not, my conjecture is its energy comes from the energy lost by redshifting photons.

Any photon with a redshift >= 1 has lost half its energy. So there should be enough go around.

Then, if the CMB sort of ‘split off’ from red shifted light, shouldn’t there be some shadows of the absorption lines from that red shifted light?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by erwinl

Then, if the CMB sort of ‘split off’ from red shifted light, shouldn’t there be some shadows of the absorption lines from that red shifted light?

That's a good question.

There's this thing called the Lyman-alpha forest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman-alpha_forest

As I understand it, when light passes through a hydrogen cloud, a particular frequency is absorbed (or scattered?). Since light redshifts and changes frequency, different parts of its spectra will interact with hydrogen depending on how far its traveled. So based on the absorption lines in high-z galaxies, we can tell where there are hydrogen clouds in between us.

If the CMB were truly the background and behind everything, you'd think there would be the same forest of absorption lines. Not sure about the math on that though.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

It requires blurring if the energy loss is a result of an interaction with something else in a known manner.

No, Mike. It requires blurring, period.

Quote:

He says instead of adding a new principle of nature, we should prefer the known principles.

The problem isn't that you're adding a new principle of nature, it's that you're adding one that is already falsified.

Quote:

Yes, we've gone over this before.

But you still don't understand it.

Quote:

The Helland/Clinger equation says nothing about why light redshifts, just that it does.

And that's a problem, because it leaves the CMB unexplained, and would produce blurring that we don't see.

Red shifts without blurring require clock desynchronization. This is a hard logical requirement, no possible mechanism can get around this. Motion produces clock desynchronization. Universe expansion produces clock desynchronization.

Your theory doesn't. Your theory is therefore wrong.

[The Great Zaganza]

James Webb and Artemis are currently waging a war about bandwidth - the Moon Misson requires so much of the Deep Space Network's attention that Webb can't send its pictures and its data storage is filling up.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No, Mike. It requires blurring, period.

If you say so.

We assume light travels forever and never loses energy.

And then we observe light loses energy over vast distances.

I think its possible light loses energy over vast distances in a way that is presently unknown.

You don't.

Good talk.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

James Webb and Artemis are currently waging a war about bandwidth - the Moon Misson requires so much of the Deep Space Network's attention that Webb can't send its pictures and its data storage is filling up.

Source?

[The Great Zaganza]

https://www.space.com/james-webb-spa...communications

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

https://www.space.com/james-webb-spa...communications

Yikes. Thank you.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

If the CMB were truly the background and behind everything, you'd think there would be the same forest of absorption lines. Not sure about the math on that though.

Of course you're not sure about the math, because you haven't done it, even though it's not hard.

Here, I'll walk you through it. The Lyman alpha line is at about 121 nm. All the other lines are even shorter wavelengths. You can use an online calculator to figure out the temperature where blackbody radiation peaks at 121 nm, and you get almost 24,000 Kelvin. The CMB source has an estimated temperature much, much lower than this, somewhere around 3,000 K. At 3,000 K, the peak is at 966 nm. This means that there was very little radiation at 121 nm from the CMB source even when it was emitted. And over time, it just gets red shifted from there, reducing the intensity even further.

In other words, the Lyman alpha forest is too far into the tail of the CMB to be able to see. You need higher temperature sources in order to see it.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

If you say so.

It's not just me. Basically anyone who understands physics and has thought about the problem will tell you the same thing.

Quote:

We assume light travels forever

Yes, and we have no evidence to the contrary.

Quote:

and never loses energy.

No, we don't assume that.

Quote:

And then we observe light loses energy over vast distances.

We also observe that it does not blur.

Quote:

I think its possible light loses energy over vast distances in a way that is presently unknown.

Any mechanism that causes it to lose energy without blurring must also cause clock desynchronization. Again, this is a logical requirement of ANY mechanism, known or unknown.

If you can find another mechanism that will also desynch clocks, try it out. Your current theory doesn't. Therefore your theory is wrong, regardless of the details. I need not assume anything about those details in order to reach that conclusion.

Quote:

Good talk.

Not really, because you're not actually listening.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Yes, and we have no evidence to the contrary.

14 billion years is less than forever.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Of course you're not sure about the math, because you haven't done it, even though it's not hard.

Here, I'll walk you through it. The Lyman alpha line is at about 121 nm. All the other lines are even shorter wavelengths. You can use an online calculator to figure out the temperature where blackbody radiation peaks at 121 nm, and you get almost 24,000 Kelvin. The CMB source has an estimated temperature much, much lower than this, somewhere around 3,000 K. At 3,000 K, the peak is at 966 nm. This means that there was very little radiation at 121 nm from the CMB source even when it was emitted. And over time, it just gets red shifted from there, reducing the intensity even further.

In other words, the Lyman alpha forest is too far into the tail of the CMB to be able to see. You need higher temperature sources in order to see it.

Thank you.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Of course you're not sure about the math, because you haven't done it, even though it's not hard.

Here, I'll walk you through it. The Lyman alpha line is at about 121 nm. All the other lines are even shorter wavelengths. You can use an online calculator to figure out the temperature where blackbody radiation peaks at 121 nm, and you get almost 24,000 Kelvin. The CMB source has an estimated temperature much, much lower than this, somewhere around 3,000 K. At 3,000 K, the peak is at 966 nm. This means that there was very little radiation at 121 nm from the CMB source even when it was emitted. And over time, it just gets red shifted from there, reducing the intensity even further.

In other words, the Lyman alpha forest is too far into the tail of the CMB to be able to see. You need higher temperature sources in order to see it.

According to this:



http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../bkg3k.html#c1

the sun has a temp of 6000 K and peaks at about 500 nm.

A 3000 K source peaks at about 1000 nm.

But they both still emit light at 121 nm, right?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

According to this:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...mgmod/bkg3.gif

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu.../bkg3k.html#c1

the sun has a temp of 6000 K and peaks at about 500 nm.

A 3000 K source peaks at about 1000 nm.

But they both still emit light at 121 nm, right?

Negligible amounts. Seriously, look at those curves. Look what the intensity drops to at a wavelength around 1/8th the maximum. On those graphs, it's indistinguishable from zero by eye. And that's before any redshift, which just pushes it further down.

Conversely, we could look at the actual measurements of the CMB:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic.../File:Cmbr.svg
The peak in frequency is at a little over 5 cm^-1. Multiply that by 8 (since we're talking frequency instead of wavelength), and you'd need to go out to around 40 cm^-1 to find the first Lyman alpha absorption line, most would be at even higher frequencies. The CMB measurements just don't go up that far. The intensity drops too much, and there's too much other stuff that gets in the way by that point.

So no, we're not going to see the Lyman alpha forest from the CMB, not any time soon. It's not bright enough at high enough energies to see.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Negligible amounts. Seriously, look at those curves. Look what the intensity drops to at a wavelength around 1/8th the maximum. On those graphs, it's indistinguishable from zero by eye. And that's before any redshift, which just pushes it further down.

Conversely, we could look at the actual measurements of the CMB:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic.../File:Cmbr.svg
The peak in frequency is at a little over 5 cm^-1. Multiply that by 8 (since we're talking frequency instead of wavelength), and you'd need to go out to around 40 cm^-1 to find the first Lyman alpha absorption line, most would be at even higher frequencies. The CMB measurements just don't go up that far. The intensity drops too much, and there's too much other stuff that gets in the way by that point.

So no, we're not going to see the Lyman alpha forest from the CMB, not any time soon. It's not bright enough at high enough energies to see.

Understood. And by not any time soon, you mean it might be possible in principle, but our probes lack the resolution of those wavelengths by a wide margin?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Conversely, we could look at the actual measurements of the CMB:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic.../File:Cmbr.svg

I would add that those measurements are from COBE, on the same page you can see the difference betwen COBE and Planck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic...n-20130321.jpg

The latest measurements have more peaks than the simple black body spectrum.

There's also this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil_(cosmology)

Quote:

The "axis of evil" is a name given to the apparent correlation between the plane of the Solar System and aspects of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It gives the plane of the Solar System and hence the location of Earth a greater significance than might be expected by chance – a result which has been claimed to be evidence of a departure from the Copernican principle as assumed in the concordance model.

So another conjecture should be that the 2.7 K CMB is actually just a cloud of gas around our solar system. Then all the CMB anomalies like the cold spot and hemisphere differences are actually just measurements of gas clouds relatively close to home.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Understood. And by not any time soon, you mean it might be possible in principle, but our probes lack the resolution of those wavelengths by a wide margin?

In principle, yes it might be possible with much better instruments. But it's not just a question of detection sensitivity, it also depends on what other sources might be in those wavelength ranges, and whether you could disentangle the weak CMB signal from that other stuff. And maybe that too can be done, though it would make the problem harder still. Somebody in the field might be able to figure out exactly how much more sensitivity we would need, but for me that's a lot more work than I'm willing to put in on something purely speculative. It's enough for the moment to know why we can't see it now.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

In principle, yes it might be possible with much better instruments. But it's not just a question of detection sensitivity, it also depends on what other sources might be in those wavelength ranges, and whether you could disentangle the weak CMB signal from that other stuff. And maybe that too can be done, though it would make the problem harder still. Somebody in the field might be able to figure out exactly how much more sensitivity we would need, but for me that's a lot more work than I'm willing to put in on something purely speculative. It's enough for the moment to know why we can't see it now.

Understood. Thanks.

[hecd2]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

I would add that those measurements are from COBE, on the same page you can see the difference betwen COBE and Planck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic...n-20130321.jpg

The latest measurements have more peaks than the simple black body spectrum.

Nonsense. What you are looking at there is the anisotropy in the CMB temperature. There is more detail going from COBE to WMAP to Planck because each later experiment had higher angular resolution. At any point in the CMB , it is the most perfect black body spectrum. It cannot be produced by "a cloud of gas".

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

I would add that those measurements are from COBE, on the same page you can see the difference betwen COBE and Planck:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic...n-20130321.jpg

The latest measurements have more peaks than the simple black body spectrum.

No. Those plots are NOT showing more peaks. Those plots are showing very slight variations in the temperature as a function of direction.

Quote:

So another conjecture should be that the 2.7 K CMB is actually just a cloud of gas around our solar system. Then all the CMB anomalies like the cold spot and hemisphere differences are actually just measurements of gas clouds relatively close to home.

Unlikely. First, there's no candidates for gasses (or any other material) which are perfect black bodies over microwave ranges. On top of that, this mystery substance must also be completely transparent at all other optical ranges. And if it's local, then the problem isn't explaining why there are anisotropies, it's why those anisotropies are so small. They should be much, much LARGER than we observe if they're due to some local gas. Which, again, must be some pretty magical substance.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by hecd2

Nonsense. What you are looking at there is the anisotropy in the CMB temperature. There is more detail going from COBE to WMAP to Planck because each later experiment had higher angular resolution. At any point in the CMB , it is the most perfect black body spectrum. It cannot be produced by "a cloud of gas".

A cloud of gas can't produce a black body spectrum at 2.7 K?

If one were to contemplate a universe that is not expanding and thus did not begin with a hot big bang, one of the many immediate and important questions to ask would be, what’s up the CMB then?

Here are three conjectures for the 2.7K CMB in a non-expanding universe:.

1. The energy lost when a photon redhshifts is later observed as the CMB
2. The photons missing from spectra due to the hydrogen clouds that make up the Lyman-alpha forest are scattered in random directions
3. There is a cloud of gas around our solar system that is 2.7 K

Conjecture 1 requires some new kind of physics, where the photon is able to decay into two photons, or possibly transfer energy to the vacuum which is re-emitted later, both somehow avoiding changes in momentum and causing blurry effects.

Conjecture 2 is kinda weird even for my standards, but its always been in the back of my mind for some reason.

Conjecture 3 doesn’t really require any new physics as far as I can tell. Seems to me it could also be tested in a pretty straight forward manner. Make a CMB probe and shoot it out as far as we can and see what changes. Voyager style.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No. Those plots are NOT showing more peaks. Those plots are showing very slight variations in the temperature as a function of direction.

Right. Thanks for the reminder. It's more like every pixel in the Planck data represents its own black body, rather than there being a single cohesive one. Right?

Quote:

Unlikely. First, there's no candidates for gasses (or any other material) which are perfect black bodies over microwave ranges. On top of that, this mystery substance must also be completely transparent at all other optical ranges.

Huh. "this mystery substance must also be completely transparent at all other optical ranges". You're kind of describing dark matter here. Like a halo around our solar system.

Not sure why I never thought of that. Conjecture number 4 then.

Quote:

And if it's local, then the problem isn't explaining why there are anisotropies, it's why those anisotropies are so small. They should be much, much LARGER than we observe if they're due to some local gas. Which, again, must be some pretty magical substance.

Indeed.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

A cloud of gas can't produce a black body spectrum at 2.7 K?

No gas we know of is capable of doing that. Or even getting close.

Quote:

Here are three conjectures for the 2.7K CMB in a non-expanding universe:.
[*]The energy lost when a photon redhshifts is later observed as the CMB

Already falsified. This would produce blurring. No blurring is observed.

Quote:

[*]The photons missing from spectra due to the hydrogen clouds that make up the Lyman-alpha forest are scattered in random directions

Already falsified. The absorption spectra is very non-blackbody (sharp lines), so the emission spectra will also be very non-blackbody.

Quote:

[*]There is a cloud of gas around our solar system that is 2.7 K

Not plausible. Gas would need to be made of unobtainium.

Quote:

Conjecture 1 requires some new kind of physics

No. Conjecture 1 is a logical impossibility. Red shifts without clock desynch requires blurring, regardless of the mechanism. We can see that there's no blurring.

Quote:

Conjecture 2 is kinda weird even for my standards, but its always been in the back of my mind for some reason.

It's weird because it's not possible. Emission spectra have to match absorption spectra. It's a hard requirement from the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Quote:

Conjecture 3 doesn’t really require any new physics as far as I can tell.

Provided you don't classify unobtainium as "new physics". I do.

Quote:

Seems to me it could also be tested in a pretty straight forward manner. Make a CMB probe and shoot it out as far as we can and see what changes. Voyager style.

You'll just say that this cloud is even further out.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Not plausible. Gas would need to be made of unobtainium.

Dark matter particles?

Quote:

You'll just say that this cloud is even further out.

I mean, it probably won't happen in my lifetime, but a CMB explorer or even two sent in opposite directions getting to where the Voyagers are now might reveal something unexpected.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Right. Thanks for the reminder. It's more like every pixel in the Planck data represents its own black body, rather than there being a single cohesive one. Right?

Yes.

Quote:

Huh. "this mystery substance must also be completely transparent at all other optical ranges". You're kind of describing dark matter here. Like a halo around our solar system.

Not sure why I never thought of that. Conjecture number 4 then.

Actual dark matter is transparent at ALL ranges (that's part of the definition of the term), not just everything but microwave. If your theory is that what we now incorrectly call dark matter is actually transparent at all other ranges but perfectly opaque at microwave, then you've got a lot of explaining to do. Why can't we detect the stuff? Why doesn't it show up on earth, if it's surrounding the solar system? Why doesn't it stick to ordinary matter, since ordinary matter should be able to interact with dark matter via microwaves? That sort of dark matter should be easy to find. We haven't found it. Occam's razor: it doesn't exist. Dark matter isn't opaque to microwaves. The CMB is from something else.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Actual dark matter is transparent at ALL ranges (that's part of the definition of the term), not just everything but microwave.

Understood.

Can I first point that "actual dark matter" is a bit comical because we really don't know what it is?

And it's cold dark matter. I get that.

Isn't 2.7 K cold enough? Does it have to be absolute zero?

Quote:

If your theory

Conjecture 4.

Quote:

is that what we now incorrectly call dark matter is actually transparent at all other ranges but perfectly opaque at microwave, then you've got a lot of explaining to do. Why can't we detect the stuff?

We do. As the CMB. And...

Quote:

Why doesn't it show up on earth, if it's surrounding the solar system?

I think it does. We've already gone over my dark matter particle conjecture in another thread.

Electrons have mass and charge. So do positrons. When they meet, they radiate energy equal to their masses, and then no longer exist.

Allegedly.

What happened to their charge? What happened to their kinetic energy?

My DM conjecture is that the radiation we get from them combining is their charge and/or kinetic energy, but the particle and anti-particle pair remain, electrically neutral, with the mass of 2 electrons.

That would mean, any one that's every seen an electron-positron pair in a cloud chamber has seen a dark matter particle burst apart and reform elsewhere with their own eyes.

Quote:

Why doesn't it stick to ordinary matter, since ordinary matter should be able to interact with dark matter via microwaves? That sort of dark matter should be easy to find. We haven't found it. Occam's razor: it doesn't exist. Dark matter isn't opaque to microwaves. The CMB is from something else.

It doesn't stick to ordinary matter because its an electron and positron pair.

Anyways, it's just a conjecture. I don't marry these things.

But as far as a "magical gas that surrounds solar systems and galaxies", you gotta admit, it sounds a little like dark matter, eh?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Can I first point that "actual dark matter" is a bit comical because we really don't know what it is?

That's an overstatement. We already know what some dark matter is. Neutrinos are dark matter. There aren't enough neutrinos to account for all the dark matter we think is out there, but they definitely qualify as dark matter.

Quote:

Electrons have mass and charge. So do positrons. When they meet, they radiate energy equal to their masses, and then no longer exist.

Allegedly.

What happened to their charge? What happened to their kinetic energy?

Seriously?

Their kinetic energy contributes to the radiated energy. An electron and a positron annihilating at high velocities will radiate more energy than an electron and a positron annihilating at low velocities. And since electrons and positrons have equal and opposite charge, their charges cancel when they annihilate. Charge is conserved in the process.

Quote:

My DM conjecture is that the radiation we get from them combining is their charge and/or kinetic energy, but the particle and anti-particle pair remain, electrically neutral, with the mass of 2 electrons.

Well, no. First off, we can tell this isn't the case because we can measure the energy released when electron-positron annihilation occurs are low velocities. The emitted energy can be explained by mass conversion, but the kinetic energy is far too low. So that's absolutely not happening. Oh, and their charge is part of their rest mass energy, it's not some separate thing.

Second, if your theoretical neutral particle is really electrically neutral, then how does it interact with microwave radiation, and why only microwave radiation? Neutrons (which are also electrically neutral) can weakly interact with electromagnetic fields because they have a magnetic dipole moment, but an electrically neutral magnetic dipole isn't going to act like a black body. And it's not hard to detect either.

Quote:

But as far as a "magical gas that surrounds solar systems and galaxies", you gotta admit, it sounds a little like dark matter, eh?

Except that if it can absorb microwave radiation, then it would be easily detectable. If it can't absorb any radiation, then it's hard to detect. So dark matter that doesn't absorb microwaves fits with our observations. Dark matter that does absorb microwaves does not fit with our observations. Bit of a difference, eh?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Well, no. First off, we can tell this isn't the case because we can measure the energy released when electron-positron annihilation occurs are low velocities. The emitted energy can be explained by mass conversion, but the kinetic energy is far too low.

It seem to me that due to Coulomb's law when those two charge are close enough they could easily be going about 70% the speed of light which would give them a kinetic energy equal to their rest masses.

Quote:

Second, if your theoretical neutral particle is really electrically neutral, then how does it interact with microwave radiation, and why only microwave radiation? Neutrons (which are also electrically neutral) can weakly interact with electromagnetic fields because they have a magnetic dipole moment, but an electrically neutral magnetic dipole isn't going to act like a black body. And it's not hard to detect either.

Except that if it can absorb microwave radiation, then it would be easily detectable. If it can't absorb any radiation, then it's hard to detect. So dark matter that doesn't absorb microwaves fits with our observations. Dark matter that does absorb microwaves does not fit with our observations. Bit of a difference, eh?

I'm not suggesting it interacts with or absorbs microwaves. The conjecture is that DM particles emit them.

[hecd2]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

It seem to me that due to Coulomb's law when those two charge are close enough they could easily be going about 70% the speed of light which would give them a kinetic energy equal to their rest masses.



I'm not suggesting it interacts with or absorbs microwaves. The conjecture is that DM particles emit them.

Instead of making speculation after speculation attempting to second guess professional physicists, each one of which can only be held for a maximum of a millisecond unless you’re profoundly ignorant of physics, why don’t you put a little of the energy you’ve expended in the last couple of years talking nonsense into learning some actual physics. What you are doing is not productive and it’s not clever.