Land Mammal

A new bird flu strain (H7N9) infecting humans has emerged in China. 3 infections were confirmed yesterday, 2 of whom died, in Shanghai. 4 new cases in a serious condition were confirmed today, in 4 different cities in the same province, north of Shanghai . Only 1 of the 4 had occupational contact with poultry. None of the contacts of the 7 confirmed cases have shown signs of the virus, so it looks as if (thus far) there's no human to human transmission. However, two sons of one of the fatalities have been in hospital with 'serious pneumonia', one dying. It's not confirmed they were infected, but they obviously were. However, this family were butchers, so could have been infected from the same animal source. It would be much more serious if they's passed the infection on to each other. Up to now, the main concern about an avian flu 'jumping species', and causing a global pandemic in humans, has been H5N1, which emerged about 10 years ago and has caused 360 known human infections, with a 60% mortality rate. Only a handful of H5N1 infections are believed to have been human to human. It's early days, but H7N9 seems to have a higher infectivity rate. It can't become a global pandemic until it starts passing from person to person. Even then, transmission has to occur easily, for it to have pandemic potential. There have been 4 global flu pandemics in the past hundred years. By far the worst was the 1918 'Spanish flu', which may have killed 50 million people. This is believed to have been a purely avian flu, while the other, much milder flus ( Asian, Hong Kong, and the recent Mexican Swine flu) were avian/porcine/human hybrids. There is no way of knowing whether this outbreak has the potential to become a global pandemic, but experts have described developments as 'worrisome'.

I'm sure you could google it for yourself. Here's one paper. It's very technical, and I don't pretend to understand most of it, but you'll get the drift. Starts off with quasars, then Seyferts, and then superclusters. I think you'd be better off just taking my word for it. Red shift isotropy is a myth. http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0512/0512276.pdf

No, galactic red shifts vary according to the direction in the sky. Red shift isotropy is a myth. The model matches observations better than the Big Bang model, as can be seen in 'Summary of observations and explanations', in the opening post. The ratio of elements is irrelevant. Despite much searching, scientists have been unable to find a 'Great Attractor' to account for 'peculiar motion'. It is another myth.

My view is that the Great Body would be far more massive than all the galaxies in the observable universe. It would also be far more ancient, and would be travelling through space at very high velocity, probably influenced by the gravity of other Great Bodies. You are absolutely correct, pwagen. This is the Gravity Model's greatest challenge. But, they would have to be at exactly the same distance from the Great Body to show no red shift. In reality, they'd be slightly ahead, or slightly behind us, so would have a small red shift. Galaxy surveys are usually conducted in regions where viewing conditions are optimal. They're not conducted in regions where viewing is most obscured by the Milky Way. Let's suppose that the 'attitude' of the Milky Way in space is such that the disc faces the Great Body. Galaxy surveys would be conducted in directions where there was least obscuration. Those directions would be towards, or directly away from, the Great Body. They wouldn't be conducted in regions B and D in your illustration, but those are the directions where you'd find anomalously small redshifts. Nevertheless, astronomers have detected galaxies with anomalously small red shifts, dependent on the direction in space. The discrepancies are not great, up to 33% less than their distances (judged by intrinsic luminosities) would suggest, but this is supportive of the Gravity Model. I believe much greater discrepancies await to be discovered

In the Gravity Model, the greater the distance between galaxies (those in a straight line going through the observer's galaxy, from the Great Body), the greater the red shift. Galaxies at a distance of 'X' in front of the observer, should have about the same red shift as those at a distance of 'X' behind the observer. However, the universe is not a straight line. Galaxies at a distance of 'X' to the left or right, or 'up' and 'down' of the observer would have a smaller red shift. Big Bang theory states that the red shift is isotropic, which means that galaxies at a distance of 'X' in any direction, should have the same red shift. However, this is not borne out by observations, which show that galaxies at the same distance (judged by their intrinsic luminosities) in different directions have different red shifts. This is incompatible with Big Bang theory, but is what would be expected in the Gravity Model.

No, they'd only be blue shifted if they were 'catching up' with the observer. As the effect of Jupiter's gravitational pull on them is weaker than on the observer's fragment, they'd be receding from the observer. When the recession is due to the observer travelling with greater velocity than the observed object, this also creates a red shift, although it's maybe a little harder to visualize.

I understand very well what red shift means. It's a Doppler effect. The wavelength of light is stretched as objects recede from the observer. In the 'string of pearls' example, the effect would be miniscule, but evident,. nonetheless. Fragments closer to Jupiter would be moving towards it more quickly, due to its stronger gravitational pull on them, so their light wavelength would be stretched, creating a redshift. Strictly speaking, objects whose light is reflected, rather than intrinsic, don't show a red shift, but that's an irrelevant, academic point.

Quite wrong. Everything is moving in the direction of the Great Body, but this causes everything to be redshifted, as I've already explained twice. This may give the impression that galaxies are all moving directly away from each other, but this is a false impression.

I explained how gravity increases the distance between galaxies in the opening post. Galaxies closer to the Great Body than the observer are moving towards it at greater velocity, so are receding. Galaxies further away from the Great Body than the observer are moving towards it more slowly, so they also are receding. Redshifts everywhere.

So they say. And causing the galaxies to accelerate, too. Gravity is the only known force of nature to cause acceleration. Why invoke the existence of a completely new force of nature about which absolutely nothing is known to explain galactic acceleration, when it can be explained by the gravitational pull of a huge body in space? Answer: because the gravity explanation would be the final nail in the coffin of Big Bang theory, which must be preserved at all costs.

In order to explain the acceleration of galaxies, an observation which is the opposite of what Big Bang theory predicted, cosmologists have invoked the existence of a mysterious 'dark energy' which is drawing all the matter in the universe towards it. No explanation is given to explain what this newly postulated force of nature is, or how it exerts its effects. It is simply yet another 'fudge factor' that has been introduced to keep the Big Bang show on the road. However, an alternative explanation might be that the galaxies are under the influence of the only known force of nature capable of causing such acceleration - gravity. This would require the existence of a super-massive, non-luminous body in space (presumably a black hole) to which all the galaxies in the observable universe were being drawn. If such a body existed, it seems unlikely that it would be the only such body in the universe, just as the Milky Way is not the only galaxy. There might be billions of such supermassive bodies, each drawing billions of galaxies towards them. This would mean that that which we call 'the observable universe' is merely a finite system of galaxies among many such finite systems in the 'universe at large'. The galaxies in our own observable universe might be under the influence of more than one 'Great Body', but their movments might equally well be caused by a single Great Body. So, in deference to Occam's Razor, I would propose a single Great Body. If such a model could explain other observations such as the fact that the galaxies all seemed to be moving away from each other, then would it not deserve to replace the increasingly baroque and untenable Big Bang theory which requires us to believe so many unorthodox and unproven assumptions about the universe? I believe it should. A simple 'thought experiment' reveals how the 'Gravity Model' would result in almost all the observable galaxies being redshifted. In 1994, comet Shoemaker-Levy was broken up by Jupiter's gravity into 22 discernible fragments up to 2km in diameter. The fragments were described as being like a 'string of pearls'. Imagine five of those 'pearls' in a line numbered 1 to 5 with 1 closest to Jupiter and 5 farthest away, with equal spacing between them. You, as the observer, are on number 3, the middle fragment. You have at your disposal, the most exquisitely sensitive scientific instruments capable of detecting minute differences in redshift, velocity and acceleration. You would see that the other four fragments were all redshifted. Fragments 2 and 4 would have the same redshift value. Fragments 1 and 5 would also have the same redshift value but their redshift would be higher than that of 2 and 4. In other words, the farther away a fragment is, the greater its redshift. This is not because the space between them is expanding, but because of the differential influence of Jupiter's gravitational pull with regard to the proximity of the fragments. Increasing redshift with increasing distance - exactly what we see when we look at the galaxies. Your instruments would also tell you that the fragments were accelerating. However, it could be argued that the galaxies are not a two dimensional string of pearls. This is true. But, in whatever direction you look, the galaxies you see would either be closer to or farther away from the Great Body than yourself, and so would be redshifted. Nevertheless, this presents the Gravity Model with its most serious challenge. Big Bang theorists claim that the universe is isotropic. This means that galaxies at a given distance from the observer would be moving at the same velocity away from the observer in every direction. However, this idea that the universe is isotropic is simply not true. Various research groups have found that the recessional velocity of galaxies with similar intrinsic luminosities varies according to the direction in the sky in which the galaxy is to be found. One study adjudged minimum values to be around two thirds of the maximum. One might have expected a greater discrepancy. It may be that galaxies which lie in the direction of the Milky Way's galactic plane, and are therefore not seen, would provide more extreme values. Another observation which Big Bang theory cannot explain is the 'peculiar' motion of galaxies. Galaxies are not simply moving away from the observer, they are also moving across the sky. This transverse component of their motion is called 'peculiar motion'. The gravity of huge superclusters of galaxies has been suggested as an explanation for peculiar motion, but no such superclusters have ever been found. In the Gravity Model, the galaxies will not simply be travelling towards the Great Body in a straight line. Instead, they will be spiralling towards it, and the 'peculiar' motion is the transverse component of their spiral path. The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) is explained as relic radiation from the Big Bang. I have read that the 2.7K temperature of the CMBR could be caused by hydrogen clouds, but that astronomers have not been able to detect enough clouds to account for it. If the observable universe is a finite system, as it must be in the Gravity Model, then the question arises as to what lies beyond it. The answer must be that it is a hydrogen field, since galaxies cannot condense out of nothingness. This hydrogen field would envelop the observable universe and presumably radiates at 2.7K. It is the source of galaxies and astronomers have observed giant highly flattened 'pancakes' of hydrogen containing up to 10 to the power of 14 solar masses. It seems likely that these are the precursors of large clusters of galaxies, and they are being drawn into the observable universe by the gravity of the Great Body. Thus, galaxies are being continously created. The Gravity Model creates a cosmos with two regions - the region closer to the Great Body than the observer, and the region farther away from it than the observer. For brevity's sake, I will call these regions 'inside' and 'outside'. One might expect that the galaxies in either region would exhibit subtle differences, either individually or collectively. Galaxies old and young coexist in the same regions in space, but it is tempting to think that there would be a statistically significant excess of old ellipticals 'inside', and younger galaxies 'outside', although I am not aware of any research that indicates this. Galaxies 'inside' would be travelling at greater velocity, and would be pulling away from their neighbours to a greater degree than galaxies 'outside'. This might result in their being fewer galaxies per square degree 'inside' than 'outside'. At the same time, galaxies 'inside' would be converging towards the Great Body and this could produce the opposite effect. The Great Body will have an enormous influence on galaxy formation, but this influence will be weaker 'outside', and this, too, could result in subtle differences between the two regions. It has been a long standing puzzle that there is a statistically significant difference in the number of galaxies which can be seen in each square degree of the northern and southern skies. This cannot be accommodated within the Big Bang model, and is something of an embarrassment, so little is heard about it. A possible explanation for it might be the differences between the two regions. Orbiting systems, such as the rings of Saturn, or a spiral galaxy, often exhibit striation effects. The galaxies are not orbiting the Great Body, but their spiral path towards it could be described as 'quasi-orbital' and would exhibit similar striation effects. The large scale structure of the observable universe seems to consist of very long filamentary galactic superclusters and enormous voids. It is hard to envisage how this could come about in a Big Bang universe, but is consistent with the idea that striation effects would be evident in the Gravity Model. Big Bang theory also creates difficulties for itself with regard to the 'age of the universe paradox' and the 'light horizon' problem. To solve the latter, inflation theory was born. This tells us that when the universe was between 10 to the -35 and 10 to the -32 seconds old, it underwent a faster than light 10 to the power of 50 expansion - to the size of a grapefruit. The Gravity Model does not create these problems. SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS CMBR (BB) Relic radiation from the Big Bang (GM) Hydrogen field. EXISTENCE OF GALAXIES (BB) Big Bang density fluctuations (GM) Condensate from hydrogen field. REDSHIFT OF GALAXIES (BB) Expansion of space (GM) Gravity of Great Body. INCREASING REDSHIFT WITH INCREASING DISTANCE (BB) Expansion of space (GM) Gravity of Great Body. ACCELERATION OF GALAXIES (BB) Dark energy (GM) Gravity of Great Body. REDSHIFT ANISOTROPY (BB) Not explained (GM) Galaxies at the same distance from the observer in different directions are at different distances from the Great Body. DIFFERENCE IN NUMBER OF GALAXIES BETWEEN NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN HEMISPHERES (BB) Not explained (GM) Observable universe in the direction of the Great Body is older than in the opposite direction. 'PECULIAR' MOTION (BB) Undiscovered 'Great Wall' of galaxies (GM) Transverse component of the spiral path of the galaxies towards the Great Body. AGE OF UNIVERSE PARADOX (BB) Not explained (GM) No explanation necessary. LIGHT HORIZON PROBLEM (BB) Inflation theory (GM) No explanation necessary.