I didn't say that tired light wasn't a serious proposal. It was at one time, and scientists do occasionally check it. It's just that with everything that we know now, tired light has massive problems that do not match observations and wouldn't be able to without some sort of massive ad hoc adjustments. As I said, there's a reason it doesn't really make waves in astro or cosmo.psyreporter wrote: ↑June 22nd, 2022, 6:37 am As it appears from the quote of Boriev, I. A. (Russian Academy of Sciences), despite the lack of citations of his paper, tired light theory would seem more plausible from an outsiders perspective since it would provide a natural explanation for what is observed without the requirement for 'magical' (mysterious) aspects such as dark energy and dark matter. Most problems would fall away with tired light theory while inflationary theory depends on many 'absurd' fixes to hold on to the theory (according to some scientists).
Further, the claim that Albert Einstein made claims contrary to sound science for personal motives does not seem to follow from the facts that were presented in my previous citation. For example, Albert Einstein could only be convinced after a priest told him a 'beautiful creation story'.
The facts would make it appear that Albert Einstein attempted to adhere to sound science and considering that he suggested tired light theory as a serious alternative to the expanding Universe theory, two years after the media hype about his conversion into a believer of an expanding Universe during which time he consistently and strongly opposed the expanding Universe theory, indicates that he may have found the tired light theory to be a plausible theory, which - again from an outsiders perspective - is a strong clue considering that Albert Einstein was 'on top of it' while he was driven to the extreme due to a media hype about him that he didn't seem to have agreed with.
No, one wouldn't eventually reach the opposite end (unless there is some curvature too small for us to currently detect). The balloon analogy is just an analogy for why any point can look like a center to the point itself; and why what looks like the "edge" to one point can look like the "center" to the point in question. It's not meant to be taken far enough to be compared to the universe's actual shape as an analogy.psyreporter wrote:Thank you for the extensive information.
You argue that the Universe is like a balloon and that when looking into one direction one reaches an edge of what one is able to see while space continues beyond it and ultimately reaches the opposite end of the Universe like in a circle.
Indeed, the universe is remarkably flat (I have mentioned this a few times in my main posts above). In fact, this very flatness is evidence for inflation, as I'll eventually post about when I continue the post series. Inflation predicts an extremely flat universe: tired light would actually have a really difficult time accounting for it! This all goes back to the Friedmann equation, I think from Part 2 in this series of posts: it's an equation that has to be balanced so that k=0. Inflation does this no problem: it caused the universe to expand so much that any portion of it will look nearly perfectly flat, as if you zoomed in on a balloon to a microscopic scale (or I guess if you stood on the surface of Earth, according to Flat Earthers )psyreporter wrote:What evidence is there for curvature of the Universe?
A recent study indicated that the Universe is flat.
(2022) The Universe is flat
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-flat/
So with inflation it's not surprising to see that k=0. With tired light, it requires some explanation for why k=0 and not some other value.
Depending on what you mean by "valid." It's not to scale (not even a little bit), doens't label its axes (clearly the x-axis is time). The universe is not a conical shape if that's what you're asking. But that's not what the image is meant to convey. The imporant bit is time being the x-axis. The image wants you to walk away from it understanding how differently the universe looked like and what trends it was going through at different points in time.psyreporter wrote:What about the famous inflation image? Is it invalid?
inflation-edge-universe.jpeg