20110126

Red Shift vs CONSERVATION

As is well known, the Big Bang Theory is no friend of the Fifth Assumption of Science, CONSERVATION (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed).   The BBT, as in all cosmogonies, relies on the opposing assumption, creation, which hypothesizes that some things can be created out of nothing.  Below, Bill Howell describes a 2001 website by creationist Robert V. Gentry that, ironically, uses CONSERVATION to criticize the BBT.  Gentry quotes quite a few experts who point out that the BBT fails to account for the energy lost during the red shifting process (the calculated energy for red light is lower than it is for white light).

Hello Dr. Borchardt-

I stumbled into another anti-BB theory site (http://www.orionfdn.org/papers/index.htm).  I’m still working my way thru the 10 papers it contains and am not sure where it’s all going, but the 2nd one gets into the Doppler-shift v Cosmological expansion issue you’ve mentioned and the 4th paper reminded me of your explanation for the CBE.  Specifically, the excerpts below describe how Hubble & Peebles recognized a problem with cosmological redshifting with respect to the Law of Conservation of Energy.  Seems like your explanation for CBE is a plausible explanation for the loss of energy that redshifting implies.  Anyway, I thought you might be interested.

… in 1936 Hubble wrote [2]:

"Obviously since the product [energy × wavelength ( = Planck's constant × c )] remains constant, redshifts, by increasing wavelengths, must reduce the energy in the quanta. Any plausible interpretation of redshifts must account for the loss of energy."

Just how this loss could be reconciled with energy conservation did not become a major topic in physics in Hubble's time. Nor has it since. Instead big bang's expansion factor a(t) has been ex cathedra granted the extraordinary ability to cause energy to disappear from the universe without providing an explanation as to how this happens. According to Peebles [3]:

"The second confusing point is the nature of the energy balance in the CBR. However, since the volume of the universe varies as a(t)3, the net radiation energy in a closed universe decreases as 1 / a(t) as the universe expands. Where does the lost energy go? . . . The resolution of this apparent paradox is that while energy conservation is a good local concept, . . . . there is not a general global energy conservation law in general relativity theory."

Harrison has likewise granted the same exemption. In his book, in a section titled, "Where has the energy gone?," he states [4]:

"Radiation, freely moving particles, and gases lose energy in an expanding universe. Where does the energy go? We take it for granted that light is redshifted and usually do not concern ourselves about where its energy has gone. . . .

"Science clings tenaciously to concepts of conservation, the most fundamental of which is the conservation-of-energy principle. . . .

"The conservation-of-energy principle serves us well in all sciences except cosmology. . . . To the questions where the energy goes in an expanding universe and where it comes from in a collapsing universe the answer is — nowhere, because in this one case energy is not conserved."


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are carrying out a great job. You should routinely keep posting. Thanks

Bill Howell said...

This extract from the 4th paper summarizes the discussion very succinctly:

“Expansion redshifts must be fictitious because they violate conservation of energy. And fictitious expansion redshifts can only mean that the big bang itself is a fictitious theory.”