G Anthony

Because runaway processes are associated with "exponential" growth, using an "exponential" equation, regardless of its classification as growth or decay, has resulted in the assumption that accelerating expansion rate must result in the "Big Rip". My previous reply is intended to correct this false notion.

Presumably, when the universe formed from Alan Guth's inflaton, its hyperbolic gravitational field began to collapse into a parabolic one (see post of Sept. 19, 2011). That collapse continues to this day. But, the process is almost done. There cannot be an infinite amount of gravitational energy sequestered in the hyperbolic field that would be available to fuel acceleration of the expansion rate via such a transformation. That is, transition to a lower energy parabolic field must provide a distinctly limited supply of extra impetus. Surely, after 13.72 billion years, the spring has almost run down by now. If the expansion rate is called h, and its present value is called P, then h = P at any given time, including the present. The simplest equation for the expansion rate’s effect on P would be an exponential decay expression, P = h0e-rt, where h0 is an initial value for the expansion rate, h, r is the rate of increase in this expansion and t is time. We can get an estimate of a value for h0 from Alan Guth’s formulation of the theory of simple inflation. The present values of both the expansion rate, P1, and acceleration rate, r, are observable. We can set t = 1, for the present value of t. So, we can summarize all relevant observations with this simple equation or the associated exponential expansion equation, R = R0ert, where R is the putative “radius” or scale factor of the universe. The current value (at t = 1) of the expansion rate is H0, the Hubble “constant”, so P1 = H0. Exponential decay equations exhibit what is called a “dormancy” period or final plateau region. The hyperbolic curve levels off near zero and continues to subside gently almost linearly for an indefinite time. The current state of the universe may be consistent with this dormant period. The conclusion here is that acceleration may continue for a long time while slowly decreasing nearer to zero. In other words, even with acceleration of the expansion rate, there does not necessarily have to be a “Big Rip” wherein the fabric of the cosmos is irreparably torn apart as expansion proceeds beyond a certain point.

Black holes are singularities. This means that they must exist as point masses, according to general relativity. The gravitational field around a point mass must have a hyperbolic potential profile, not a parabolic one as assumed by Newton’s Law of Gravity. A hyperbola is characterized by asymptotes that define the extreme behavior of the curve far from the origin. Hyperbolic curves merely approach, but never reach the asymptotes. Proper parabolas, on the other hand, approach and reach their extreme values eventually. For instance, a proper parabola will actually pass through the origin, but the equivalent hyperbola never will. The hyperbolic gravitational field around a black hole has significant consequences. These effects include a much slower fall-off of the gravitational potential as one proceeds to larger distances from the origin. The mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of most spiral galaxies is a few million solar masses at most. But, the mass of the entire galaxy is several hundred billion solar masses. So, it would seem that the mass of the central black hole is insignificant relative to the galaxy as a whole. But, since the gravitational fields of the black hole and of the galaxy must be perfectly aligned and co-axial, the fields must superpose, reinforce and merge as one. So, the effective mass of the central black hole must be in the hundreds of billions of solar masses. The consequence of this is that the gravitational field experienced by any given star or group of stars near the periphery of a spiral galaxy must be declining as 1/r, by the definition of a hyperbola, not as 1/r2, according to Newton’s Law. This explains the MOND effect, the residual gravitational potential constant that was observed by Mordehai Milgrom in 1983 for stars near the peripheries of spiral galaxies. MOND stands for Modified Newtonian dynamics, a proposed revision of Newton’s Law. I call it the “MOND effect” to distinguish it from MOND itself because when the hyperbolic gravitational field is considered, no modification of Newton’s Law is required. Instead, a footnote must be appended to acknowledge that a hyperbolic field can exist around black holes. Another consequence is that there is no need to hypothesized “Dark Matter”. The rotational distribution effects around galaxies and the behavior of galactic clusters and super-clusters is explained by the hyperbolic black hole gravitational field effect. The behavior of colliding galaxies having hyperbolic gravitational fields that are in the process of merging is also explained. Since the hypothesis of the existence of a huge point mass called an “inflaton” is used to explain numerous characteristics of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) and the expansion of the universe, it makes sense to consider that the universe was once immersed in a hyperbolic gravitational field. The inflaton itself can be said to have existed before the Big Bang (BB). So, its hyperbolic gravitational field must have existed then too. The question arises: What happened to the hyperbolic field after the BB? At the instant of the BB, the hyperbolic field must have begun to collapse or transition from a hyperbolic field to a parabolic Newtonian filed. This transition should still be occurring, the process requiring the entire lifetime of the universe to complete. The hyperbolic field is inherently more intense than the equivalent parabolic field, so the transition to the weaker field must be releasing potential energy. This energy will show up as kinetic energy in the form of the accelerating expansion rate of the universe. So, the source of “Dark Energy” is gravitational, as a positive cosmological constant, Lambda, implies. No “quintessence” field is needed, just as no “Dark Matter” is needed to explain the MOND effect.

I said 'So, the singular nature of a black hole is not just conjecture. It is fact, by general relativity. In order to dispute it, one must also dispute GR. This has huge implications to the hypothesis of "Dark Matter" and hypothetical "Dark Energy".' - - - - - - See the thread "MOND, Prelude to Critique of the Universe" and the thread "Critique of the Universe" under the Speculation category. I sincerely believe this and other moves to this category are far too easy and greatly overused. It is a form of censorship because confinement to Speculation is like banishment to Corsica. Napoleon was able to recover and return once, but not the second time. He was assassinated there by arsenic poisoning, it is said. By moving a thread to Speculation, some moderators must be hoping that the stuff they dislike (no hint by means of reply, no prior warning, notice or rationale is ever given - and there is no appeal) will just die there or be torn apart, eaten alive and poisoned with disrespectful replies. I may get banned for this remark, I would not be surprised. There is no such thing as totally free speech, it is all too true. But, there is more than just a hint of bias by some moderators. The thrust of my Stephen Hawking post is that there is more to black holes than meets the eye (pun intended). Since for all intents and purposes they must be considered to be point masses and therefore "singularities" in the logical and mathematical sense, we must not truncate the definition of "singularity" because the implications may be uncomfortable. A point mass singularity must also have a singular gravitational field. That is, the field must increase asymptotically with inverse distance to the "origin" or the center of gravity. This is the definiton of a hyperbolic gravitational potential field. Hyperbolas, in order to be hyperbolas, must asymptotically approach the graphical "ordinate" as well as the "abscissa". This means the gravitational acceleration will never fall all the way to zero, not even at "infinity". Parabolic Newtonian gravitational fields share this property, but their centripetal acceleration falls much much more quickly, as 1/r^2, as distance increases. Falling off only as 1/r, the hyperbolic field is substantively larger at large r - at and beyond the periphery of every galaxy. By the way, the "periphery" is self defining. So, the residual MOND acceleration value is essentially constant from galaxy to galaxy unless one moves beyond the boundaries of clusters and superclusters. In fact, it defines these boundaries. I do not defend MOND. I defend Milgrom. He is a pro. He has done meticulously careful work. His result deserves more respect. The respect that it deserves is not that he has discover4d MOND, but that he has pinpointed the hyperbolic black-hole field (HBH) effect. Cosmologists are always wrong, but never in doubt. - Lev Landau The gravitational fields of any supermassive black hole and its associated galactic disk are perfectly and precisely co-axial. This means that the gravitational fields will be indistinguishable from a distance, say, at and beyond the periphery of the disk. The fields merge into one, especially at the coaxial center. The fields must reinforce each other. So, the effective mass of a supermassive black hole at the center will not be just a few hundred to a few million suns, it will be a few tens of billion suns. So, when computing the gravitational acceleration at the periphery, one must assume at least M = 1011 solar masses. The major difference, therefore, is the assumption of the field being proportional to a hyperbolic 1/r term or to a Newtonian 1/r2 term. Let us not haggle details. Let us regard this as a postulate. Mordehai Milgrom is a pro. He is a careful worker. And, he is right. But, his demand for a revision of Newton's Law is not Kosher. And, Dark Matter dies. Dark Energy is dead too. Because when the hyperbolic field concept is applied to the global universe and it is postulated that this field must have existed PRIOR to the BB and must now be collapsing or transitioning to a Newtonian field, any and all evidence for dark energy is explained away. Dark Energy and Dark Matter were once rightly called hypotheses. They have now achieved the status of DOGMA. I would have thought that the care that I gave to composing those MOND and Critique posts (in Speculation) would red-flag to the reader that I have a brain larger than a poppy seed. My above point concerning 1/r versus 1/r2 is virtually self evident. If there is argument here, it is with GR and with the accepted etiquette of respect for a postulate, not with me.

I reject it too. I only refer to MOND because Milgrom's residual centripetal acceleration constant that he says must apply at and beyond the peripheries of spiral galaxies is a hard observational result. It must be explained. Milgrom's modification of Netwonian dynamics begs the question: it is not an explanation. It is only a label. One can quibble over labels. Leave me out. As far as Dark Matter is concerned, I report only what Milgrom says he discovered after carefully considering data from many many spiral galaxies. He is a pro. He is a careful worker. I am saying only that he ignores the fact that nearly all spiral galaxies and most other types have supermassive black holes embedded in them. This makes a huge difference. Black holes and their interaction with the whole mass of the galactic disk will behave like a non-Newtonian entity having a gravitational potential that falls off as 1/r, not as 1/r^2 with effective M > or = 10^11 solar masses, in most cases. Comparing a graph of this hyperbolic versus a Newtonian parabolic potential profile one sees that there is a virtually constant difference at large r. This is the source of Milgrom's residual centripetal acceleration constant that he says he sees in most of the galaxies he studied. I am not arguing with Milgrom's findings. Far from it. I say he is probably right. But, he needs to consider the implications of the existence of relativistic supermassive black holes. This comment is just that, a comment on the cosmological meaning of relativity in regard to black holes in galaxies. Milgrom proposes a new model for gravity. He calls it modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). But, MOND will require a rewrite of general relativity, one of the most validated theories in all science (only quantum mechanics is better verified). My comment leaves GR intact. My comment is simple, direct and jibes with the facts while being more parsimonious than MOND. Milgrom wants to add his tiny, residual acceleration constant to Newton's Law. All I am saying is that it would be better to take into account the non-Newtonian hyperbolic black hole gravitational potential that general relativity says simply must exist in almost all spiral galaxies and also in other types of galaxies that may harbor black holes. Galaxies that do not happen to show the MOND effect probably do not have supermassive black holes, or else their black holes have formed so recently that there has not been enough time for the effect to propagate all the way to and beyond the periphery. Furthermore, the hyperbolic field effect must apply to the global, not merely the local, universe. It must have existed prior to the BB. It is the only thing that we can say that must have existed before Alan Guth's "inflation". When inflation got underway by means of statistical or probabilistic processes, this relativistic hyperbolic field must have begun to collapse or transition to a parabolic Newtonian field according to a time dependent process that is still going on. Subtle relativistic effects and gross direct effects of this ongoing process explain Dark Energy and Dark Matter completely way. They are unnecessary.

Statistics and Probability. Mathematicians. Quantum Theory.

The following comments concern Astronomy and Cosmology only. They are not speculative. The following comments are not my own personal opinion. They do not constitute my own original research. If one carefully reads the papers submitted to ArXiv astrophysics from after 1998, one sees that Saul Perlmutter's and Adam Riess's supernova research groups were not independent (as claimed) and that they were in serious communication. Perlmutter and Riess actually wrote a paper together. They say that the data that the two groups got regarding the distances to supernovae type 1a and other bright extremely distant objects was not concordant at first. In order to force the two data sets to conform, they admit that they had to apply a mutual "adjustment". This artificial factor was used by both groups to bring the data of each set into alignment with the other so that a smooth plot could be made that included all the data points. The sense of this artiface alone is the sole "evidence" that they both cite for an accelerating rate of expansion of the universe. They might have applied the adjustment factor to the other data set in the opposite sense. Then, the universe expansion rate would have been seen as decelerating. There was a choice to be made. A cynic might hazard a guess as to why they made the choice that they did. In college, we had to write laboratory reports on the textbook experiments that we did in lab. We were warned against manufacturing data. Our professors all said that this kind of "fudging" is a big "NO NO". Ethical standards are not just for students. Still, as professionals who certainly are good scientists, Permutter and Riess, no doubt, think that they were perfectly well justified in applying their adjustment factor and did so in all honesty. But, the result is the same. Furthermore, Mordehai Milgrom's discovery of the MOND effect (modified Newtonian dynamics) does not acknowledge that spiral galaxies almost always contain supermassive black holes in their nuclei. Black holes are enormous relativistic point masses with infinite density. Such "singularities" must have singular gravitational fields also. Such field potentials decline as 1/r or hyperbolically, not as 1/r2 or parabolically, as assumed by Newton's Law of gravity. The difference between the relativistic black hole hyperbolic gravitational potential and the Newtonian parabolic one accounts for Milgrom's proposed residual centripetal acceleration constant that he found for stars near the peripheries of spiral galaxies. So, the invention of unfalsifiable "Dark Matter" to acount for the MOND effect is as unnecessary as the belabored construction of the "Dark Energy" ediface to account for Perlmutter's and Riess's putative "acceleration". So, given the truly doubtful nature of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, what do we do about the "missing mass" necessary to account for the flatness apparent in the anisotropy shown by the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB)? The easiest way is to postulate that the global universe is about 22 times as massive as our little telescopes can discern. The signal strength or amplitude pattern, the frequency nodes, statistical distributions and identifiable extra contributions (as from the SZ effect) to the CMB implies that our current inventory of matter and energy in the universe accounts for only about 4.5% of its total mass. So, 100%/4.5% = 22.2. That is, the mass of the universe must be around 22 times bigger than we can tell from our limited perspective here on Earth. If the universe is that much bigger and more massive than conventional wisdom admits, it goes a long way toward accounting for the CMB characteristics, the other red-shift effects, the gravitational lensing effects and most SZ effects that are being used to give credibility to acceleration and Dark Energy. If the universe's own global hyperbolic gravitational field effect, the transition from which must pervade the whole total universe (not just our local space) is acknowledged as a vestige from before the Big Bang inflationary era - even the sense of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect is explained parsimoniously. In other words, Dark Energy and Dark Matter are subject to Occam's Razor as mere whiskers on the chin of astrophysics. It should be pointed out that there have been many monumental scams in science before. Piltdown Man and Cold Fusion come to mind. Remember, many reputable scientists fell for these frauds completely for long periods of time. Clearly, we must be wary of any kind of massive pseudoscience which may still be going on today! As far as dark matter is concerned, I report only what Milgrom says he discovered after carefully considering data from many many spiral galaxies. I am saying only that he ignores the fact that nearly all spiral galaxies, and most other types, have supermassive black holes embedded in them. This makes a huge difference. Black holes and the whole mass of the galactic disk will behave like a non-Newtonian entity having a gravitational potential that falls off as 1/r, not as 1/r2. Comparing a graph of this hyperbolic versus a Newtonian parabolic potential one sees that there is a virtually constant difference at large r. This is the source of Milgrom's residual centripetal acceleration constant that he says he sees in most of the galaxies he studied. I am not arguing with Milgrom's findings. Far from it. I say he is probably right. But, he needs to consider the implications of the existence of relativistic supermassive black holes. This comment is just that, a comment on the cosmological meaning of relativity in regard to black holes in galaxies. Milgrom proposes a new model for gravity. He calls it modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). But, MOND will require a rewrite of general relativity, one of the most validated theories in all science (only quantum mechanics is better verified). My comment leaves GR intact. It is simple, direct and jibes with the facts while being more parsimonious than MOND. One does not observe the rotation of galaxies directly against the background of other galaxies. They rotate too slowly. One observes red-shifts from stars in different regions of each galaxy. Plotting rotational velocities got this way versus distance from the center of a galaxy, one should see a monotonic drop in velocity to near zero as one approaches large r. Instead, velocity reaches a constant nonzero plateau. This contradicts Newton's Law of Gravity. Milgrom wants to add his tiny, residual acceleration constant to Newton's Law. All I am saying is that it would be better to take into account the non-Newtonian hyperbolic black hole gravitational potential that simply must exist in almost all spiral galaxies and also in other types of galaxies that may harbor black holes. Galaxies that do not happen to show the MOND effect probably do not have supermassive black holes, or else their black holes have formed so recently that there has not been enough time for the effect to propagate all the way to and beyond the periphery. Yes, Perlmutter and Riess both depended on the same Lambda/Cold-Dark-Matter model of the universe that uses the Friedmann equations as a basis. So, they really didn't have to coordinate their results. But, they did. And, they used the model to predict the model, the ultimate retrodiction. The same thing is done when cosmologists use the model to interpret gravitational lensing effects, the SZ effect and other observations that they say give credibility to dark energy and dark matter. I do not say there is any attempt at fraud here. In fact, I say that they are clearly acting as honest scientists. But, the scientists who reported positive cold fusion results were all honest too. They did not realize that there were inherent flaws in the neutron detection devices that they employed to observe "fusion" in deuterium oxide electrolysis cells using palladium electrodes. Honest scientists fall for pseudoscience too. But, fudge is fudge and no-one is immune to wishfull thinking. Perlmutter and Riess wished for a more exciting result and they got it. Cosmologists are always wrong, but never in doubt. - Lev Landau Dear Gentle Readers, Moderators are attempting to move many legitimate posts to the holding cell called the "Speculation Forum" because they contain conclusions gained from analysis of standard science that runs counter to their own personal views. This is CENSORSHIP plain and simple. Please lodge objections to staff@scienceforums.net

Admit that some critics have some valid points. But other valid points have been made. There is something called modern medicine too. Then, there is "alternative" medicine. Many of the therapies of alternative medicine really work. Many of the therapies of alternative cosmology really work too. Alan Guth made a giant contribution to modern cosmology. Singularities as point masses are cental to "inflation-like" solutions to the flatness and horizon problems which had vexed astrophysicists for years prior to Guth. If these paradoxes had been so simple that they could have been dismissed in a few sentences, they would have been. There have been numerous attempts to refine Guth's inflation but the original formulation still stands the test of time, so far. It is not as if there is no precident for singularities. Point masses and point charges are common in quantum mechanics. Guth's proposal implies that the universe was a quantum object, that is all. If it was a quantum entity in the past, then it still is. Then, all of the conundrums of quantum theory will apply to it. Shall we apply the Copenhagen Convention or shall we apply the Many Worlds Interpretation? Should we consider that there could be a quantum universe, an anti-universe and interference universes all superposed to make a total global universe that satisfies the missing mass problem? This would solve certain other problems with the "Standard Model". Black hole singularities are extrapolations from general relativity (GR) that are not "renormalizable" and resist easy quantization except to use the Schroedinger tactic of simply assuming them as postulates. Yes, there are difficulties imaginng what happens when matter falls into a black hole toward the center of mass when time must slow to as near zero as one may like. This is the meaning of the phrase "tends to infinity". It means only that the quantity may be considered to be as close to infinitely large or small as one may need for any given purpose. The profile of an infinitely deep gravitational field potential (in a 2D plot, for instance) is represented by an hyperbola having the abscissa as an asymptote. It is as easy to graph as a parabola that has no asymptote. The graphical parabolic gravitational potential is a representation of Newton's Law of Gravity. The hyperbolic gravitational potential results from relativistic consideration of black holes. The black hole singularity is part and parcel of GR. To rule them out, one must rule out GR. Singularities (and infinities) are distasteful to mathematicians because little more can be done with them - they are mathematical dead ends. But, Schwartzchild and others found that such singularities must be real. And, considering that black holes must have non-Newtonian hyperbolic gravitational fields, certain problems, conundrums or paradoxes of modern cosmology disappear without the invention of ad hoc Dark Energy or Dark Matter. See the thread "MOND", Prelude to "Critique of the Universe" and the thread Critique of the Universe. Also see http://www.lonetree-pictures.net . In addition, the thread Stephen Hawking Retracted His Paradoxical View is pretty cute.

Stephen Hawking retracted his paradoxical view that information must be lost when matter falls into a black hole. In place of this idea, his revised mathematics (validated many times by numerous workers) shows that information persists but is confined to the surface or "event horizon" of the black hole. "Hawking radiation" may then be emitted by such a black hole and the information becomes available again. The singularity that is predicted by general relativity (GR) results from extrapolation of GR to the logical extreme. But, it is still logical. The logic cannot be tickered with without destroying the whole ediface. The trouble with singularities is only that one cannot do anything more with them, mathematically. They are a dead end. One can still say that matter therein must be compressed to infinite density, though. But, what does this mean? If matter is compressed to infinite density, the gravitational field associated with its very existence becomes infinite as well. By GR, this means that as mass falls into a black hole, time itself must slow down whereupon its pace declines toward zero. The only weird thing about black holes is this effect. But, the very same thing is seen when temperature is reduced to near absolute zero when a perfect crystal is studied in the laboratory. One can only extrapolate along a straight line leading toward "zero" degrees Kelvin. One can never reach zero in the lab. The connection to black holes is direct. What this really means is that matter inside all black holes is still crashing down toward the "center of gravity" but it will never actually get there, not even after 14.72 bilion years. But, the center itself exists as the center of gravity as long as an event horizon can be defined. As such, it possesses a gravitational field that has a very unique profile of potential versus radius. The event horizon surface of a black hole is associated with a certain entropy linked to its surface area. It is also linked to a certain temperature which assures that information is still present and that Hawking radiation may be emitted therefrom. Such radiation may take hundreds of billions of years to significantly affect the mass that is retained in the black hole, however. But, this is just a detail. Search "Stephen Hawking entropy black hole". There is a class of thermodynamics called "black hole thermodynamics". Hawking and Beckenstein used quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics to define SBH, the total entropy of a black hole. So, the singular nature of a black hole is not just conjecture. It is fact, by general relativity. In order to dispute it, one must also dispute GR. This has huge implications to the hypothesis of "Dark Matter" and hypothetical "Dark Energy". See the thread "MOND, Prelude to Critique of the Universe" and the thread "Critique of the Universe" under Astronomy and Cosmology.

As far as Dark Matter is concerned, I report only what Milgrom says he discovered after carefully considering data from many many spiral galaxies. I am saying only that he ignores the fact that nearly all spiral galaxies and most other types have supermassive black holes embedded in them. This makes a huge difference. Black holes and the whole mass of the galactic disk will behave like a non-Newtonian entity having a gravitational potential that falls off as 1/r, not as 1/r2. Comparing a graph of this hyperbolic versus a Newtonian parabolic potential one sees that there is a virtually constant difference at large r. This is the source of Milgrom's residual centripetal acceleration constant that he says he sees in most of the galaxies he studied. I am not arguing with Milgrom's findings. Far from it. I say he is probably right. But, he needs to consider the implications of the existence of relativistic supermassive black holes. This comment is just that, a comment on the cosmological meaning of relativity in regard to black holes in galaxies. Milgrom proposes a new model for gravity. He calls it modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). But, MOND will require a rewrite of general relativity, one of the most validated theories in all science (only quantum mechanics is better verified). My comment leaves GR intact. My comment is simple, direct and jibes with the facts while being more parsimonious than MOND. One does not observe the rotation of galaxies directly against the background of other galaxies. They rotate too slowly. One observes red-shifts from stars in different regions of each galaxy. Plotting rotational velocities got this way versus distance from the center of a galaxy, one should see a monotonic drop in velocity to near zero as one approaches larger r. Instead, velocity reaches a constant nonzero plateau. This contradicts Newton's Law of Gravity. Milgrom wants to add his tiny, residual acceleration constant to Newton's Law. All I am saying is that it would be better to take into account the non-Newtonian hyperbolic black hole gravitational potential that general relativity says simply must exist in almost all spiral galaxies and also in other types of galaxies that may harbor black holes. Galaxies that do not happen to show the MOND effect probably do not have supermassive black holes, or else their black holes have formed so recently that there has not been enough time for the effect to propagate all the way to and beyond the periphery. Yes, Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess both depended on the same Lambda/Cold-Dark-Matter model of the universe that uses the Friedmann equations as a basis. So, they really didn't have to coordinate their results. But, they did. And, they used the model to predict the model, the ultimate retrodiction. The same thing is done when cosmologists use the model to interpret gravitational lensing effects, the SZ effect and other observations that they say give credibility to dark energy and dark matter. I do not say there is any attempt at fraud here. In fact, I say that they all are clearly acting as honest scientists. But, the scientists who reported positive cold fusion results were all honest too. They did not realize that there were inherent flaws in the neutron detection devices that they employed to observe "fusion" in deuterium oxide electrolysis cells using palladium electrodes. Honest scientists fall for pseudoscience too. But, fudge is fudge and no-one is immune to wishfull thinking. Perlmutter and Riess wished for a more exciting result and they got it.

A point mass having the size of many hundreds or even thousands or millions of suns will have a very different gravitational field from the normal star, planet or galaxy because its mass is not distributed in 3D space - it must exist as a 1D singularity. Singularities do not possess the usual parabolic gravitational field potential that is assumed by Newtonian Dynamics. Such a black hole field must have a shape that is infinitely deep as the origin or center of mass is approached since general relativity says a black hole has infinite density with all its mass compressed into a single point. An infinitely deep gravitational potential has the 2D profile of a hyperbola, not Isaac Newton's parabola. The gravitational attraction around a black hole must fall off with distance from the center as 1/r, r being the distance. Newtonian Dynamics assumes that the field potential is parabolic, falling off as 1/r2. The fact of this difference is huge. So, when the centripetal acceleration of stars in the periphery of spiral galaxies is computed, it does not agree with ordinary Newtonian Dynamics because the centers of most spiral galaxies contain supermassive black holes. The mass of the galactic disk must actually contribute to the effective mass of the black hole in the nucleus, making the 1/r relationship even more pervasive. The acceleration difference between the 1/r versus the 1/r2 relations, at large r, is virtually a constant, just as Mordehai Milgrom observed in 1983. The MOND effect is real. But, the inference of "Dark Matter" is unnecessary to explain the MOND effect, nor is a modification of Newton's Law. There is no Dark Matter. No WIMPs or "weakly interacting massive particles" will ever be found in any particle accelerator now or in the future. The theories of subnuclear physics do not have to be rewritten to accomodate an odd new particle. General Relativity does not have to be revised. Newtonian Dynamics survives with only the ADDITION of a footnote. When a black hole is involved, Newton's Law of Gravity must include a term in 1/r as well as, perhaps (as in galaxies) one in 1/r2. That is all.

There is a proof of the singular nature of black holes, but it is being ignored. This proof was mentioned in an old paper by Michael Rowan Robinson. It can be found in ArXiv from after 1998. I ran across it by accident and I do not remember the title or year of publicatiion. I e-mailed him to ask if he could remember the paper where he made the comment. In his comment, he said that it has been suggested that black holes, precisely and only because they are relativistic singularities, must possess an hyperbolic gravitational field. A singularity, as a single point mass with infinite density, must have a gravitational field that also tends to infinity as one approaches the center. The 2D profile of such a field potential, therefore, must be a hyperbola. Normally, when an object exists in spacetime, it presents with an overall parabolic field profile according to Newton's Law of Gravity. Such a field will fall off as 1/r2. But, a hyperbolic gravitational field will fall off much much more slowly, as 1/r. In 1983 Mordehai Milgrom announced that he had discovered a new twist in Newton's Law of gravity. He studied a statistically significant number of spiral and other types of galaxies that had redshift measurements made of the rotational velocity distribution of their component stars. When he plotted velocity of these stars versus distance from the center, velocity did not fall to near zero as it should have at large r. Newton's Law was wrong! Of course it was. Milgrom's galaxies had supermassive black holes embedded within them. According to general relativity (GR) the central black hole and even also the associated matter in the disk induced a hyperbolic gravitational field in spacetime even very far from the center, that is, as r tended to infinity. A hyperbolic field will tend to zero only very slowly at large r compared to a Newtonian parabolic field. In fact, there is a near constant difference between a parabolic Newtonian field and a relativistic black-hole hyperbolic field generated by the same mass, as r tends to infinity. This near constant difference accounts for Milgrom's very small residual centripetal acceleration constant that he used to mathematically summarize his findings as an addition to Newton's Law. Hence, he called his model "modified Newtonian dynamics" or MOND. He did not respect the implications of supermassive relativistic black holes in the nuclei of his galaxies. In 1983, most scientists hardly even knew of them. So, Dark Matter was proposed to account for the MOND effect. But, Dark Matter is unnecessary. No enormous clouds of hypothetical "weakly interacting massive particles" or WIMPs are needed to account for the MOND effect. No fundamental change in Newton's Law of Gravity is needed either. This has huge implications to the so-called Lambda/Cold-Dark-Matter model of the universe that is based on the Friedmann equations and the FLRW metric. Science is missing an opportunity here. The existence of the MOND effect proves the nature of supermassive black holes as true singularities. One can mathematically prove that relativistic singularities must exist by means of the treatment of general relativity given by Schwartzchild and others. But, here is observational (experimental) proof that is as hard and undeniable as such proof ever gets. It is more important to find more ways to verify an all-encompassing theory like general relativity than it is to find ways to validate one particular favored model of the universe by inventing Dark Matter (and Dark Energy) to fix the gaping holes. This is the true meaning of the MOND effect. See http://www.lonetree-pictures.net for more.

Sounds like censorship to me. It's a silly idea. There are already mechanisms to handle mis-categorized posts. Next, we will be judging posts on the basis of other criteria besides being "overly" argumentative like being contrary to conventional wisdom. Shall we ban unorthodox views? Editors commonly use their perception of the consensus view to decide whether to accept a paper or article. Shall we require that all posts conform to the consensus? Are we to be editors or moderators? Censors or just guardians of civility and good behavior? People do not have to read any given post. They can censor it for themselves. Like the song says "Paranoia strikes deep." But, megalomania strikes deeper.

This is not just an academic issue. In order to make the universe appear to be "flat" in measurements of the anisotropy in the CMB, the estimated amount of matter and energy in our inventory of "stuff" in the universe is only about 4.5% of the total necessary to achieve this "flatness". To make up for the rest, Dark Energy and Dark Matter have been invented. But the discussion here highlights a problem. We can make up for the "missing mass" simply by postulating a larger universe than has been estimated. So, 100/4.5 = 22.2, that is, the universe needs to be 22.2 times larger than estimates have concluded to make the CMB appear "flat". If the universe is, in fact, this much larger, then Dark Energy and Dark Matter are unnecessary. Also, the gravitational lensing effects and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect and other consequences of a more massive universe would be accounted for. Since the actual size of the universe is so speculative, how can we discount this? How can we be so sure that acceleration of the universe expansion rate, Dark Energy and Dark Matter are real? It is far more parsimonious to postulate a bigger universe than to hypothesize Dark Energy and Dark Matter, with their unintended implications. Actually, these are complications that raise more questions than they answer.

As far as dark matter is concerned, I report only what Milgrom says he discovered after carefully considering data from many many spiral galaxies. I am saying only that he ignores the fact that nearly all spiral galaxies and most other types have supermassive black holes embedded in them. This makes a huge difference. Black holes and the whole mass of the galactic disk will behave like a non-Newtonian entity having a gravitational potential that falls off as 1/r, not as 1/r2. Comparing a graph of this hyperbolic versus a Newtonian parabolic potential one sees that there is a virtually constant difference at large r. This is the source of Milgrom's residual acceleration constant that he says he sees in most of the galaxies he studied. I am not arguing with Milgrom's findings. Far from it. I say he is probably right. But, he needs to consider the implications of the existence of relativistic supermassive black holes. This comment is just that, a comment on the cosmological meaning of relativity in regard to black holes in galaxies. Milgrom proposes a new model for gravity. He calls it modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). But, MOND will require a rewrite of general relativity, one of the most validated theories in all science (only quantum mechanics is better verified). My comment leaves GR intact. It is simple, direct and jibes with the facts while being more parsimonious than MOND. One does not observe the rotation of galaxies directly against the background of other galaxies. They rotate too slowly. One observes red-shifts from stars in different regions of each galaxy. Plotting rotational velocities got this way versus distance from the center of a galaxy, one should see a monotonic drop in velocity as one approaches large r. Instead, velocity reaches a constant plateau. This contradicts Newton's Law of Gravity. Milgrom wants to add his tiny, residual acceleration constant to Newton's Law. All I am saying is that it would be better to take into account the non-Newtonian hyperbolic black hole gravitational potential that simply must exist in almost all spiral galaxies and also in other types of galaxies that may harbor black holes. Galaxies that do not happen to show the MOND effect probably do not have supermassive black holes, or else their black holes have formed so recently that there has not been enough time for the effect to propagate all the way to and beyond the periphery. Yes, Perlmutter and Riess both depended on the same Lambda Cold Dark Matter model of the universe that uses the Friedmann equations as a basis. So, they really didn't have to coordinate their results. But, they did. And, they used the model to predict the model, the ultimate retrodiction. The same thing is done when cosmologists use the model to interpret gravitational lensing effects, the SZ effect and other observations that they say give credibility to dark energy and dark matter. I do not say there is any attempt at fraud here. In fact, I say that they are clearly acting as honest scientists. But, the scientists who reported positive cold fusion results were all honest too. They did not realize that there were inherent flaws in the neutron detection devices that they employed to observe "fusion" in deuterium oxide electrolysis cells using palladium electrodes. Honest scientists fall for pseudoscience too. But, fudge is fudge and no-one is immune to wishfull thinking. Perlmutter and Riess wished for a more exciting result and they got it.

Solid fuel rockets are different. My good buddy and I once made a solid fuel rocket out of a CO2 cartridge stuffed with match-heads and using a "Jet-Ex" hobby cannon fuse. I insisted that we hunker down in a basement door stairwell and take cover after we lit the long fuse. Good thing. We launched our "rocket" from a short length of plumbing pipe to guide it and get it on its way. Our device turned into a pipe bomb. Schrapnel flew everwhere and broke a window on my house. I was digging pieces out of our home's wooden siding and from the garage wall for weeks. I told him we shouldn't just cut off the match heads without removing the cardboard inside the tips. He wouldn't listen. The cardboard clogged the nozzle and turned our rocket into a neighborhood hazard. Don't do what we did. It is hard to get some chemical oxidizers but, potassium permanganate is a good one that some swimming pool suppliers sell as an anti-bacterial additive to the water, like certain chlorine containing substances. Mixing permanganate and glycerin in a small jar or test tube will produce a firework effect something like a Roman candle if you wait a few minutes for the mixture to heat up spontaneously. It is hard to imagine how you could develop this into a solid fuel rocket, however. Get a good college chemistry textbook and look up oxidizers and reducers. It may even discuss how solid fuel rockets are actually made. There have been so many accidents on the launching pad that the trick will be to not kill yourself. Fooling around without much knowledge of exactly what you are doing is a good way to do just that. I survived. I became an inorganic chemist. Making my own fireworks, firecrackers, rockets and the like were my first attraction to science in general, so I would not discourage you except to warn you of the danger. So, get help. See a high school chemistry teacher or a college chemistry professor who will guide you to safe ways to proceed. Aluminum is the fuel, not aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide is often called alumina. It is quite inert. It contains oxygen, but is not considered to be an oxidizer. You can melt it in an oxy-hydrogen torch with some chromium oxide to make artificial ruby. If you used pure alumina, you would get artificial sapphire. There is a trick to this however. Mix powdered aluminum with Fe2O5 (magnetic ferrous ferric oxide) and you can make a sparkler type of firework. Old-timer railroad men remember when they used to weld steel rails using a mixture like this which will produce a fairly good quality molten iron. It would be only a temporary fix because it is quite brittle and not as strong as steel.

First, let's get the terms oxidizers and reducers straight. The fuels you mention would be classed as reducers or reducing agents. Yes, to power a rocket, you need an oxidizer. Mere air or compressed air might do if you do not need a high impulse rocket engine. Air is 21% oxygen. You can electolyze water using a car battery or a battery charger. You'll need to rig some way to collect the oxygen that is generated at the anode. Compress it using a shop compressor, but pure oxygen is dangerous and might ignite the lubricating oil. BOOM! Any sort of bottle that you might use to contain this compressed oxygen must be able to withstand the pressure, of course. And it should not be so heavy that it would weigh down your rocket. Sugar and margarine? Why? Aluminum foil would also be a reducer or fuel. If you are going to electrolyze water, why not collect the hydrogen gas that is produced at the cathode? Compress it like you would the oxygen. Then, you need to design and fabricate a little rocket engine along the lines NASA uses. Look up John Goddard. Don't re-invent the wheel. This is a real project, you know. It is feasible. You need to scale your rocket so that it is large enough to work but not so large as to be a danger to yourself or to others. Actually, be aware that if you make a mistake it may your last. This is not something I would do on a lark. You need to have a significant purpose. No purpose, no project.

If one carefully reads the papers submitted to ArXiv astrophysics, one sees that Saul Perlmutter's and Adam Riess's supernova research groups were not independent and that they were in serious communication. Perlmutter and Riess actually wrote a paper together. They say that the data that the two groups got regarding the distances to supernovae and other bright extremely distant objects was not concordant at first. In order to make the two data sets conform, they admit that they had to apply an "adjustment". This artificial factor was used to bring the data of one set into alignment with the other so that a smooth plot could be made that included all the data points. The sense of this artiface alone is the sole "evidence" that they cite for an accelerating rate of expansion of the universe. They might have applied the adhjustment to the other data set in the opposite sense. Then, the universe expansion rate would have been seen as decelerating. There was a choice to be made. A cynic might hazard a guess as to why they made the choice that they did. In college, we had to write laboratory reports on the experiments that we did in lab. We were warned against manufacturing data. Our professors all said that this kind of "fudging" is a big "NO NO". Ethical standards are not just for students. Still, as professionals who are good scientists, Permutter and Riess no doubt think that they were perfectly well justified in applying their adjsustment factor and did so in all honesty. But, the result is the same. Furthermore, Mordehai Milgrom's discovery of the MOND (modified Newtonian dynamics) effect does not recognize that spiral galaxies almost always contain supermassive black holes in their nuclei. Black holes are enormous relativistic point masses with infinite density. Such "singularities" must have singular gravitational fields also. Such fields decline as 1/r - hyperbolically, not as 1/r^2 or parabolically, as assumed by Newton's Law of gravity. The difference between the hyperbolic gravitational potential and the Newtonian parabolic one accounts for Milgrom's residual centripetal acceleration constant that he found for stars near the peripheries of spiral galaxies. So, the invention of unfalsifiable "Dark Matter" to acount for the MOND effect is as unnecessary as the construction of the Dark Energy ediface to account for putative "acceleration". So, given the doubtful nature of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, what do we do about the "missing mass" necessary to account for the flatness apparent in the anisotropy shown by the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB)? The easiest way is to postulate that the universe is about 22 times as massive as our little telescopes can discern. The signal strength, statistical distribution and identifiable extra contributions (as from the SZ effect) to the CMB implies that our current inventory of matter and energy in the universe accounts for only about 4.5% of its total mass. So, 100/4.5 = 22.2, that is, the mass of the universe must be around 22 times as big as we can tell from our limited perspective here on Earth. If the universe is that much bigger and more massive, it would account for the CMB characteristics, the red-shift effects, the gravitational lensing effects and the SZ effects that are being used to give credibility to acceleration and Dark Energy. In other words, Dark Energy and Dark Matter are subject to Occam's Razor as mere whiskers on the chin of astrophysics. It should be pointed out that there have been monumental scams in science before. Piltdown Man and Cold Fusion come to mind. Remember, many reputable scientists fell for these frauds completely for long periods of time. Clearly, we must be wary of any kind of massive pseudoscience which may still be going on today!