There’s a puzzling mystery going on in the universe. Measurements of the rate of cosmic expansion using different methods keep showing different readings. Darwin’s Natural Selection brought a crisis of faith to the Victorian Establishment and now a similar crisis faces the Scientific community.
The crisis centers about the Hubble constant. Named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble, this unit describes how fast the universe is expanding at different distances from Earth. Using data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Planck satellite, scientists estimate the rate to be 46,200 mph per million light-years (or, using cosmologists’ units, 67.4 kilometers/second per megaparsec). But calculations using pulsating stars called Cepheids suggest it is 50,400 mph per million light-years (73.4 km/s/Mpc).
If the first number is right, it means scientists have been measuring distances to faraway objects in the universe wrong for many decades. But if the second is correct, then researchers might have to accept the existence of exotic, new physics.
The trouble starts with Edwin Hubble himself. Back in 1929, he noticed that more-distant galaxies were moving away from Earth faster than their closer-in counterparts. He found a linear relationship between the distance an object was from our planet and the speed at which it was receding. Hubble realized that the universe was expanding, and it seemed to be doing so at a constant rate — hence, the Hubble constant. But in the late 1990s, when two teams of astronomers noticed that distant supernovas were dimmer, and therefore farther away, than expected. This indicated that not only was the universe expanding, but it was also accelerating in its expansion. Astronomers named the cause of this mysterious phenomenon to dark energy.
Calculating the constant on the basis of Planck satellite do not match the numbers crunched from observing Cepheids.These stars flicker at a constant rate depending on their brightness, so researchers can tell exactly how bright it is from their pulsations. From its dimness or brightness the astronomers can calculate their position. As in the case of triangulation method the astronomers used another point and using two readings came to mediating the data obtained. For this they had settled on the light of red giant stars. (These objects reach the same peak brightness at the end of their lives) These also behave like with the Cepheids, so astronomers can look at how dim they appear from Earth to get a good estimate of their distance and, therefore, calculate the Hubble constant. Their results have come this July and we have a number squarely between the two prior measurements: 47,300 mph per million light-years (69.8 km/s/Mpc). And the uncertainty contained enough overlap to potentially agree with Planck’s results. (Ack: LiveScience/One number shows something fundamentally wrong with our conception of our universe/Adam Mann)
Where did Science go wrong? We are considering the same cosmos right? God at one end has set these explosion of stellar material to take shape as eternal Mind has shaped. For me He is in control whereas Science sees it all as from far end of the telescope. And mathematics is a matter of numbers, but in his very world of existence the man of science seek answer for which he relies on data, value of which he has not got control since it is light years he is looking into. Vast space and time in which light operates do not tell the whole story. His own mind is fine-tuning his vision and collective memory along with many other impressions his life experience have deposited. Science expects his experiment to act according to what he has trained himself to think.
Like our memory and where our distortion occurred cannot be said.The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, for instance, has famously demonstrated that, in the process of recalling events, people can erroneously integrate imagined elements into their memories – even if these fictional memories can feel exactly like true memories.
Take the very nature of numbers. One plus one is two says mathematician. Add one man and woman is not two but a family of divided loyalties opinions and what have you given some 100 years. Give the same family a million of two years it is not a tight-knit family but nations divided over ideological differences.
Science shall of course go back to their readings and suggest another hypothesis to finetune their understanding on cosmos
Benny
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