Cold Dark Matter

Given my current interest in the non-existence of dark matter, it was interesting to come across this recent (2nd November 2020) article on the BBC website:

Durham University Prof Carlos Frenk's prize a 'huge honour'

A cosmologist who helped shape understanding of dark matter and the structure of galaxies has been awarded a top physics prize. Prof Carlos Frenk has been awarded the 2020 Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for theoretical physics by the Institute of Physics (IoP). The Durham University researcher was one of the originators of the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theory. It is the second year in a row a Durham professor has won the award. A university spokesman said research carried out by Prof Frenk and his Durham colleagues had "created an internationally-renowned capability for predicting the observable properties of galaxies in a CDM universe".

Following up on this mention of cold dark matter, I discovered that there are two other proposed forms of this elusive substance: hot dark matter and warm dark matter. I kid you not. Not only do some cosmologists postulate dark matter but they haggle over whether it is cold, warm or hot. Currently, most of the money is on cold dark matter (CDM). Reading the BBC article, you'd have no idea that there is a crisis in cosmology but then again if you read the BBC exclusively you'd have no idea about anything. It really is an execrable news outlet.

However, now I'm finding out more about the doubts surrounding dark matter, YouTube is throwing up some relevant links. Here is one that I came across today from Sabine Hossenfelder:

There are variations on even the CDM universe. For instance, this article postulates a Lambda-CDM model:

Dark matter and dark energy may really be one "dark fluid" with negative mass 

The Standard Model of particle physics is currently our best understanding of how the universe works – but it only describes about five percent of everything in it. The rest is made up of what we call dark matter and dark energy, which are so far only known through their gravitational interactions with regular matter. Now, an astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a "dark fluid" with negative mass that fills the universe.

In a way, dark matter and dark energy are both placeholder concepts, plugging holes between the Standard Model and what we actually observe. For instance, the observed movement and distribution of galaxies doesn't make sense if their mass is limited to the stuff we can see. Since the 1930s, this hidden extra mass has been dubbed dark matter.

Dark energy is a more recent concept. The observation that the expansion of the universe seems to be accelerating was only made in 1998, when it was discovered that more distant objects are moving away from us faster than those closer by. The mysterious force that drives this, which we still know very little about, is now referred to as dark energy.

Taken together, dark matter and dark energy form the basis of our current standard model of Big Bang cosmology, the Lambda-CDM model. The Lambda in that name denotes dark energy as a kind of cosmological constant, while CDM stands for "cold dark matter," which seems to be the most accurate theory of the stuff – it's "cold" because it moves relatively slowly and interacts fairly weakly with ordinary matter.

Dark matter and dark energy have always been treated as separate entities, but are they in fact two sides of the same coin? That's the core idea behind the new theory put forward by Oxford astrophysicist Jamie Farnes, which may expand on the Lambda-CDM model.

Well, cosmology is in an interesting state at the moment with several competing theories. I like the description of dark matter and dark energy as being both placeholder concepts, which is pretty much what they are. They've been put in place while we wait for something sensible to replace them. Now, in addition to dark matter and dark energy, we have dark fluid with negative mass (whatever that means). Things are getting sillier and sillier.

ADDENDUM: November 24th 2020

Just to emphasise the madness, the following article from Quanta Magazine begins:

The Search for Dark Matter Is Dramatically Expanding

Physicists plan to leave no stone unturned, checking whether dark matter
tickles different types of detectors, nudges starlight,
warms planetary cores or even lodges in rocks.

The following graphic from the article identifies the main suspects:

The Real Crisis in Cosmology

I was delighted to discover a series of videos today that questions whether there ever was a so-called Big Bang that marked the creation of the observable universe. The videos are presented by Eric J Lerner who in 1991 wrote a book titled The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe. Almost thirty years on, he has not softened his position and in fact he maintains that additional information garnered during that time has eroded the credibility of the Big Bang theory even further. 

The article about him in Wikipedia begins:

Eric J. Lerner (born May 31, 1947) is an American popular science writer, and independent plasma researcher. He wrote the 1991 book The Big Bang Never Happened, which advocates Hannes Alfvén's plasma cosmology instead of the Big Bang theory. He is founder, president, and chief scientist of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. In January 2020, Eric Lerner proposed the "Galactic Origin of Light Elements" (GOLE) hypothesis, an alternative model to the Big Bang theory, to help explain the beginnings of the universe.

His series of videos on YouTube are as follows (episode notes are copied from the YouTube channel):

1. Episode 1  In the first episode of the series, Lerner focuses on the new work he presented at the January, 2020 meeting of the American Astronomical Society showing that the Big Bang theory of the origin of light elements has been increasingly refuted by data on the abundance of both lithium and helium.

2. Episode 2  In episode 2 of the Real Crisis in Cosmology, LPPFusion Chief Scientist Eric Lerner shows that the abundance of light elements—helium, deuterium and lithium—can be explained without a Big Bang through the Galactic Origin of Light Elements (GOLE). Helium originates in thermonuclear reactions in stars in forming galaxies, while deuterium and lithium are formed by collisions of cosmic rays with hydrogen, helium, carbon and oxygen nuclei. Theories formulated over 30 years ago have made correct predictions, some of which have been confirmed only in recent years. Lerner shows how these theories, combined with more recent observations that most cosmic rays collide with the stars that accelerated them,  solve a growing mystery of why there are so many more high energy neutrinos than high energy gamma rays. The certainty that large amounts of light elements were produced by galactic processes makes the contradiction between Big Bang predictions and observation even worse. Therefore the universe could never have gone through a period of simultaneous high temperature and high density. In other words, the Big Bang never happened. 

3. Episode 3  In episode 3 of the Real Crisis in Cosmology, LPPFusion Chief Scientist Eric Lerner shows that the largest objects in the universe, vast conglomerations of superclusters of galaxies, are much too large to have formed in the 14 billion years since the hypothesized Big Bang. The universe is too old for a Big Bang!

4. Episode 4  In episode 4 of the Real Crisis in Cosmology, LPPFusion Chief Scientist Eric Lerner explains observations that show that Dark Matter does not exist. The Big Bang hypothesis needs Dark Matter. But we can shed some light on this matter, making it clear it isn’t there.

5. Episode 5  In episode 5, LPPFusion Chief Scientist Eric Lerner explains how cosmic evolution occurred without a Big Bang. Based on theories first developed by Physics Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfven, this evolution can be understood as occurring through electromagnetic and gravitational processes that are well understood here on Earth, without any mysterious dark energy, dark matter or inflation.

Having watched all five episodes now, I'm happy to say that Lerner is completely dismissive of the idea of dark matter, dark energy and inflation. I've never felt comfortable with these contrived notions of how the universe works and now here is a cosmologist who has a plausible alternative to explain things.

UTM COORDINATES

My previous post, titled Number 33, Truman and the Bomb, turned out to be more appropriate to my Alternative Media blog to which I copied it afterwards. However, my very first image in that post featured a reference to UTM COORDINATES that I hadn't heard of before. See Figure 1. I thought an investigation of this system of coordinates would be an appropriate follow-up post to the previous one.

Figure 1

So what is the UTM coordinate system? UTM is an acronym standing for Universal Transverse Mercator. To quote from this source:

UTM is the acronym for Universal Transverse Mercator, a plane coordinate grid system named for the map projection on which it is based (Transverse Mercator). The UTM system consists of 60 zones, each 6-degrees of longitude in width. The zones are numbered 1-60, beginning at 180-degrees longitude and increasing to the east. The military uses their own implementation of the UTM system, called the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS). One system is no more or less accurate than the other. They are just two different ways of positioning a point. Many experienced users prefer UTM over latitude/longitude when using 7.5' topographic quadrangle maps. Ocean-going sailors and other marine users almost always use latitude/longitude because navigation charts are optimized for this method.

A two page PDF file is available for download here and the graphic in Figure 2 is taken from it. Note the nuclear test site is in the 13th zone. From Figure 1 the UTM coordinates are:

 13S 363231.08738201  3727353.1773228

Figure 2

Wikipedia does a better job of explaining it. The S in the 13S does not refer South as one might expect but to a latitude zone, each zone being designated by different letters.

A position on the Earth is given by the UTM zone number and the easting and northing planar coordinate pair in that zone. The point of origin of each UTM zone is the intersection of the equator and the zone's central meridian. To avoid dealing with negative numbers, the central meridian of each zone is defined to coincide with 500000 meters East. In any zone a point that has an easting of 400000 meters is about 100 km west of the central meridian. For most such points, the true distance would be slightly more than 100 km as measured on the surface of the Earth because of the distortion of the projection. UTM eastings range from about 167000 meters to 833000 meters at the equator.

In the northern hemisphere positions are measured northward from zero at the equator. The maximum "northing" value is about 9300000 meters at latitude 84 degrees North, the north end of the UTM zones. In the southern hemisphere northings decrease southward from the equator, set at 10000000 meters, to about 1100000 meters at 80 degrees South, the south end of the UTM zones. For the southern hemisphere, its northing at the equator is set at 10000000 meters so no point has a negative northing value.

The position of the nuclear test site is thus about 3727.353 kilometres north of the equator and about 363.231 kilometres from the western edge of Zone 13 with the central meridian of that zone being located at 500 kilometres. Thus the site is about 126.769 kilometres east of the central meridian. The system certainly takes some getting used to but it's easy enough once you understand it.

Number 33, Truman and the Bomb

One might think that the topic of 33 might be more suitable for my Mathematics blog but I don't want to treat 33 in purely mathematical terms here and so I'm posting to this blog. There's a great deal that can be said about the 33 in a non-mathematical context but I want to limit this post's scope by just focussing on Truman and the atomic bomb. Let's begin with Trinity.

Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The White Sands Proving Ground, where the test was conducted, was in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range. The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. Source. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: Source

So here is our first encounter with 33 in the form of the latitude, 33° N (rounded down to the nearest degree), at which the first atomic test took place. Next we look at the latitudes of the two Japanese cities on which atomic bombs were unleashed. Hiroshima is located at a latitude of 34° 23' N and Nagasaki at 32° 46' N, making for an average of 33° 35' N. Thus we have our second encounter with 33 in the form of the average latitude (again rounded down to the nearest degree) of the two targeted cities. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

Next we'll turn our attention to the person who authorised the bombings. This was of course Harry S. Truman who was the 33rd president of the United States. Now it's getting a little spooky because here we have our third encounter with the number 33 as we count the number of the presidents since George Washington. However, we're not yet finished with Truman.

On October 19, 1945, Truman was given the 33rd degree of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite for the southern jurisdiction. He is the only President to have received this distinction, which he considered with satisfaction to be the culmination of his Masonic career. Source.

Definitely spooky and this marks our fourth encounter with 33 surrounding Truman and the atomic tests. On January 20th 1945, Truman became the 34th president but when he was given this Masonic rank he was still the 33rd president. It's interesting to note that Truman regarded himself as the 32nd president when he took office:

Any official list of presidents will show Harry Truman as the 33rd President of the United States. Not everyone agrees with this, however. The most notable dissenter as to the number assigned to the Truman administration was none other than Harry Truman, himself.

Truman, who was not averse to sharing his thoughts on any subject, disagreed with counting Grover Cleveland’s two non-consecutive terms. “If you count the administrations of Grover Cleveland twice because another President held office between Cleveland’s first and second term,” said Truman, “you might try to justify the designation of me as thirty-third President. But then why don’t you number all the second terms of other Presidents and the third and fourth terms of President Roosevelt, and where will you be? I am the thirty-second President.”

Despite this argument, the official proclamation, dated April 13, 1945, issued by President Truman on the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to Roosevelt as the thirty-second president. Source.

Was Harry trying to be disingenuous? Perhaps. The facts are clear however, and Harry as the (official) 33rd president of the United States authorised the detonation of the first atomic bomb on American soil at the 33rd degree of latitude and later authorised the dropping of atomic bombs on two Japanese cities: one on the 34th degree of latitude and the other on the 32nd degree of latitude, making for an average of 33 degrees. Later that same year he would become a 33rd degree Mason.

The following quote, from Jacques R. Pauwels, author of The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, is a fair assessment of what Truman really was up to: 

Sixty-five years ago, Truman did not have to use the atomic bomb in order to force Japan to its knees, but he had reasons to want to use the bomb. The atom bomb enabled the Americans to force Tokyo to surrender unconditionally, to keep the Soviets out of the Far East and – last but not least – to force Washington’s will on the Kremlin in Europe also. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated for these reasons, and many American historians realise this only too well.

So Harry murders hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians, is awarded the highest honour in Freemasonry later in the year and slept well at night for the rest of his life I presume. So it goes. 

Truman found time to relax and rest in his post-presidential years. He was never far from his favourite bourbon and enjoyed clanking glasses with the old friends, political allies, and dignitaries who came through Independence. While his health permitted, he took regular walks around town. He traveled some, including a 1953 auto trip to New York during which a policeman stopped him on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for making an illegal lane change. It was Truman's only attempt at a long drive after leaving the presidency. Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972, of old age rather than any specific sickness. Source.