Did the Universe Start in a Big Bang? How did we arrive at this idea?

We discuss here briefly the origin of the now widely accepted idea of a Big Bang that created the Universe. It started with the 1929 paper by Edwin Hubble and the graph he prepared showing that the velocity (speed) with which a galaxy is seen to be moving away (from the observer on earth) increases as the distance of the galaxy increases. As scientists thought more about this finding - someone said, "Oh, there must have been a Big Bang". And so, it has been ever since. A simple explanation of Hubble's law is also given here by invoking the idea of an Absolute Time (actually advanced by Newton in his Principia). Finally, we also ponder about the age of the Universe, deduced from modern estimates of the Hubble constant: about 71 km/s/Mpc which yields about 13.8 billion years.
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Table of Contents
Topic No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Topic Hubbles discovery in laymans terms Text of Hubbles original 1929 paper Hubbles original data replotted Simple Explanation for Hubbles law Tidbits about Einsteins blunder The Hubble Constant and Age of the Universe Man made the Big Bang? When? Page No. 3 12 20 22 27 34 45

Oldest Known Planet

Photograph courtesy NASA/Brad Hansen (UCLA)/Harvey Richer (UBC)/Steinn Sigurdsson (Penn State)/Ingrid Stairs (UBC)/Stephen Thorsett (UCSC) http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/origins-universe-gallery/#/oldest-knownplanet_240_600x450.jpg Bright-blue Earth looms over the oldest known planet in the Milky Way. The ancient planet is thought to be about 13 billion years old, more than twice as old as Earth and a mere billion years younger than the estimated age of the universe. Its discovery, made using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is evidence

that planets began forming soon after the big bang and may be very abundant in our galaxy.
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Dear All: I had a long chat this afternoon with an elderly friend of mine (much older than me and a former colleague at the GM Research Labs where we both used to work). He is one of the recipients of the Gita group emails and he was quite intrigued about the discussions going on in these emails. Anyway, very soon we were talking about Big Bang and if the universe was actually created in a Big Bang. I explained the experimental evidence for the Big Bang, as first provided in a paper by the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble, in 1929. Even Einstein was stunned by Hubble's finding that the universe was expanding. Einstein was always quick to dismiss any attempts to prove his theory (of relativity) wrong by pointing out possible errors in the experiments. But, in this case, Einstein was dumbfounded. In fact, Einstein is on record stating that the "cosmological constant" that he introduced into his General theory of relativity was the biggest blunder of his life. (In the General theory, Einstein accounts for the effects of gravity. This was ignored in the first theory published in 1905, which is called the special theory of relativity. The General theory of Relativity thus creates a new theory of the Universe, replacing Newtons.) http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k12/Numbers/Math/documents/ON_the_EXPANSION_of_the_UNIVERSE.pdf

What is the cosmological constant and what was Einstein's blunder? We will discuss that at some future time. However, it (the blunder) arose from the fact that Einstein believed, as did many others, as he explained later, that the universe is static. He arrived at this conclusion based on his own religious beliefs, as he freely admitted. This is what western religions teach us. Even today, there are many (religious) conservatives who believe the Universe is no more than about 6000 or 7000 years old based entirely on their religious beliefs. They do not give much credence to timescales of billions and trillions of years that we were talking about in our discussion of the length of one kalpa (one day of Brahma with equal durations of daytime
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and night time) and Brahma's lifetime. They do not subscribe to the idea of rebirth, or that the universe existed before, was destroyed, and recreated all over again. And, that this cycle will repeat over and over again. This type of thinking is totally alien to all the religions founded in the "western world". It is unique to "eastern" religions, especially what is today called Hinduism. Anyway, I was trying to explain to my friend the scientific basis for Hubble's conclusion of an expanding universe (which eventually forced even western astrophysicists, astronomers, and serious thinkers and philosophers, to pay attention to Hindu cosmology beliefs and not dismiss them totally). Hubble was observing distant galaxies using his telescope, located here on earth (in Southern California), one of the most powerful at that time. To Hubble, a galaxy was just like a point, or a small object. If you see an object to be moving, especially if you are astronomer, you get curious and want to measure the speed of that object. That is what Hubble did. He observed the light received from several distant galaxies and noticed that they seemed to be moving away from us. Then, he carefully determined the speed at which they were moving.

The Andromeda Galaxy. Courtesy: NASA

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Scientists use the term velocity, not speed, since the direction of motion is also important. If the object is moving away from us, it has a positive speed, or velocity. But, if it is moving towards us, it has a negative velocity. Now, you can appreciate the difference. What is negative about speed, if the object is moving? It is the directionality that we are talking about. How do we tell if an object is moving away from us or moving towards us? So, we use positive and negative signs, to denote the direction, and hence positive or negative values for the distance traveled. Hubble found that the distant galaxies are moving away from us. How did he determine this? It is called the redshift. He observed the light from the distant galaxies. The frequency of light changes, if the object emitting the light is moving. If it is moving away, the frequency shifts towards what is called the red end of the spectrum. It is from this "redshift" that Hubble was able to determine the velocity v of each galaxy that he studied as precisely as possible. The change in frequency is directly proportional to the velocity for v << c, where c is the speed of light. Simple Illustration of Redshift and Blueshift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

Illustration of the red shift. Absorption lines in the optical spectrum of a

supercluster of distant galaxies (right), as compared to absorption lines in the optical spectrum of the Sun (left). Arrows indicate redshift. Wavelength increases up towards the red and beyond (frequency decreases).
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(This redshift is due to what is called the Doppler effect. The frequency of a wave, for an observer, changes if the observer is moving relative to the wave. Light is an electromagnetic wave. We experience the Doppler effect, every day, when we hear the sound of siren, or horn, or a train whistle, as it approaches us or moves away from us. The pitch of the sound changes, i.e., its frequency changes. The same goes for the light from the distant galaxies that Hubble was observing. Doppler radar used by the police to catch speeding motorists works on the same principle.
http://books.google.com/books?id=GVlpKZ67DscC&pg=PA520&lpg=PA520&dq=redshift+gal axies+universe+correctly+interpreted&source=bl&ots=AvEF30KU1y&sig=YgOX8C9vzAf1Nw Je10b0vdJjz7o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CNGnT9PNIbGe6QHGuYjJBA&ved=0CG0Q6AEwCQ#v=o nepage&q=redshift%20galaxies%20universe%20correctly%20interpreted&f=false )

Then, Hubble decided to prepare a simple scatter graph, as we now call it. He could have just prepared a table of velocity values. This is what finance, business and management science majors do. They prepare tables and then bar graphs and calculate ratios and/or percentages. Hubble made a list of all the names of the galaxies (or numbers by which they are identified) and their velocities, V. In his table, he also listed the distance D at which the galaxy is located from the earth. Then, he did what only scientists do (and finance and business majors usually FAIL to do). He decided to prepare a scatter graph of velocity of galaxy V versus its distance D. He observed a nice upward sloping straight line trend. Hubble did observe the opposite behavior - some galaxies seemed to be moving towards the earth and the light showed what is called "blue shift". But, Hubble decided to overlook that. The overwhelming trend was: the higher the distance D of the galaxy, the higher the speed (or velocity) of the galaxy. In other words, the velocity-distance graph has a positive slope.

This means the universe is expanding! It is not static.

It is not the way it was when God created it (i.e., on the day God created it). It is dynamic and changing. Even galaxies are moving away from us and at unimaginably high speeds. Einstein could not challenge Hubble's finding. He could not tell him, Go look again and find out what you did wrong because my equations say the universe is NOT expanding.
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For the first time in his life, Einstein took the findings of an experimentalist seriously without challenging them. When he came to the USA and visited Hubble in his observatory (astronomy lab), for the first time, Einstein even looked through a telescope to see what Hubble had seen. Below is the famous photograph of Einstein actually doing this.

http://www.interactions.org/quantumuniverse/qu2006/discovering/einstein.html Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble (with pipe), and Walter Adams (l-r) in 1931 at the Mount Wilson Observatory 100" telescope, in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California. It was here in 1929 that Hubble discovered the cosmic expansion of the universe.

Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology Anyway, I have pasted below for "science enthusiasts" the link and also the full text of the original 1929 paper published by Hubble. It is actually a short paper. You can also see the graph he prepared about the velocity of the galaxies. The term radial velocity is used because we imagine the earth to
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be at the center of a huge sphere called the universe and different galaxies are like points on, or in, this sphere. Thus each galaxy is at some radial distance. The galaxy is moving along this radius, not perpendicular to the radius. If it did, it would be called tangential velocity! The main point is Hubbles graph in Figure 1 of his paper. Eventually, as more people saw this graph and thought about it, they conceived what is now called the BIG BANG theory of creation.

The gravity of galaxy cluster Abell 2218 bends and focuses the light from galaxies that lay behind it in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The effect distorts multiple images of the background galaxies into long, faint arcs. (Credit: NASA, A. Fruchter and the ERO (STScI), STScI-PRC00-08)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090220172053.htm If all galaxies are moving today, and at such tremendous speeds, what really happened? How did they acquire this speed? Galaxies are supremely massive objects. Our earth is massive. Jupiter is more massive than the earth. But the sun is even more massive. A galaxy has billions of suns, or stars. Hence, it is truly massive. Yet, it is found to be moving at mindboggling speeds (see page 16, some at more than 1000 km/s). Even a modern hypersonic aircraft cannot muster such a speed. Hubble himself quotes 3779 km/sec for one of the galaxies he studied. Is there some distance (or time) at which the velocities become zero? Then all galaxies must have been in one place with all the mass (of
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the entire Universe) concentrated together in one place. How did the galaxies start moving? What happened? Then someone said, playfully, or half-seriously, or mockingly, maybe there was a BIG BANG! The idea caught on and a new theory was born and the Universe as we know it is just one BIG BANG. But, wait. Yatah sarvaaNi bhootaani bhavantyaadi yugaagame l Yasmin ca pralayam yaanti punareve yugakshaye ll

l ll

The above verse is from Bheeshma uvaca part of Vishnu Sahasranamam. Sarvabhootaani Kaunteya Prakrutim yaanti Maamikaam l Kalpakshaye punas-taani kalpaadau visrujaamyaham ll 9.7 ll --The Bhagavad Gita, chapter 9, verse 7

l ll . ll
But, we can still read the Gita and the Vishnu Sahasranamam and reflect on how all this "modern" understanding relates to our age old beliefs and tradition, even in this "new" world in which we now live. Krishna says, "O Arjuna, son of Kunti, all livings beings (sarva bhootaani) return to Me (prakrutim yaanti Maamikaam) at the end of the kalpa (here it means lifetime of Brahma, or what is also called Mahakalpa). Then at the beginning of kalpa (after a long time has elapsed and even Brahma is no more), I release them once again. (There is more to prakrutim yaanti

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Maamikaam but that is for a later discussion; see commentaries at http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-09-07.html) Bheeshma says the same. He wants Yuddhishttira (and us) to meditate on that Supreme, from whom arise all the boothas at the beginning of each yuga or kalpa (yugaagame) and into Him they merge again at the end of each yuga (yugakshaye), or Mahakalpa. Bheeshma also wants us to hear the 1000 names that glorify Him and are used to sing His praises. So, we do have an alternative, or more expanded, view of the BIG BANG. If not, it must have been one of Baby Krishnas pranks. He let us all go with a BIG BANG and got this whole cosmos moving at the incredible speeds that astronomers like Hubble have been reporting. Very sincerely V. Laxmanan May 2, 2012 P. S. Everything pasted below is just for curious minds. But, do look at Hubbles Figure 1. That is the real origin of the idea of the BIG BANG.

"Why do the best of the sages reject even heavenly nectar and instead drink the water from My lotus feet?" Thinking so, Bala Mukunda (Baby Krishna, who grants Moksha, or liberation from the cycle of birth and death) eagerly sucks His own lotus foot. The sage Markandeya experienced total dissolution (Pralaya), was utterly tormented as he was being bounced around in the waters of the deluge and then saw the Baby Krishna seated atop a banyan tree, on the leaf, as shown; see discussion at http://www.scribd.com/doc/66516753/The-MarkaNdeya-Pralaya. Page 10 of 57

A Challenge to Finance, Business, and Management Majors

I had mentioned earlier that those in areas such as finance, business, and management are not usually in the habit of plotting scatter graphs after compiling their observations in the form of tables. Just see what Hubble was able to do by preparing a scatter graph of V versus D. Does the scatter in the data really support what we now call the Hubble law, or V = H0d? Yet, Hubble was bold enough to venture that idea and other astronomers/astrophysicists, including Einstein, accepted it. The now accepted value of the constant H0 is between 60 to 80 (in units of s-1 = km/s divided by km), almost one-seventh the value estimated by Hubble. We see tables upon tables of carefully compiled financial data on corporations, both big and small, from all over the globe, with annual revenues ranging from millions of dollars to several billions and even hundreds of billions. Lists such as the Fortune 500, Forbes 1000, Business Week 500 abound. Yet, to date, no serious attempts seem to have been made to analyze these data using scatter graphs such as those prepared by Hubble to discover universal laws that govern the financial or economic world. It is suggested that such efforts be made, especially considering the near total collapse of financial system in the USA in 2008, with more alarming trends on the horizon almost four years later; see attempts in this area. http://www.scribd.com/doc/54996915/GMRPAnalysis-2R The New GM, Analysis of Revenues-Profits Data for five consecutive quarters ending Q1 2011 http://www.scribd.com/doc/55219473/FordGMRPAnalysis-1R The New GM versus Ford http://www.scribd.com/doc/55141133/FordGMRPAnalysis The New GM versus Ford: Introducing a new measure of profitability
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http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~lxl/personal/images/science/hub_1929.html Note: The term Nebulae used here by Hubble is same as galaxy which become more popular in later years after Hubble wrote this paper.

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Volume 15 : March 15, 1929 : Number 3 A RELATION BETWEEN DISTANCE AND RADIAL VELOCITY AMONG EXTRA-GALACTIC NEBULAE By Edwin Hubble Mount Wilson Observatory, Carnegie Institution of Washington Communicated January 17, 1929 Determinations of the motion of the sun with respect to the extra-galactic nebulae have involved a term of several hundred kilometers which appears to be variable. Explanations of this paradox have been sought in a correlation between apparent radial velocities and distances, but so far the results have not been convincing. The present paper is a re-examination of the question, based on only those nebular distances which are believed to be fairly reliable. Distances of extra-galactic nebulae depend ultimately upon the application of absolute-luminosity criteria to involved stars whose types can be recognized. These include, among others, Cepheid variables, novae, and blue stars involved in emission nebulosity. Numerical values depend upon the zero point of the periodluminosity relation among Cepheids, the other criteria merely check the order of the distances. This method is restricted to the few nebulae which are well resolved by existing instruments. A study of these nebulae, together with those in which any stars at all can be recognized, indicates the probability of an approximately uniform upper limit to the absolute luminosity of stars, in the late-type spirals and irregular nebulae at least, of the order of (photographic) = -6.3.[1] The apparent luminosities of the brightest stars in such nebulae are thus criteria which, although rough and to be applied with caution, furnish reasonable estimates of the distances of all extra-galactic systems in which even a few stars can be detected.

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TABLE 1 NEBULAE WHOSE DISTANCES HAVE BEEN ESTIMATED FROM STARS INVOLVED OR FROM MEAN LUMINOSITIES IN A CLUSTER object S. Mag. L. Mag. N.G.C.6822 598 221 224 5457 4736 5194 4449 4214 3031 3627 4826 5236 1068 5055 7331 4258 4151 4382 4472 4486 4649 Mean ms r v mt ms .. .. .. .. .. .. 17.0 17.3 17.3 17.8 18.3 18.5 18.5 18.5 18.5 18.7 19.0 19.0 19.5 20.0 .. .. .. .. r 0.032 0.034 0.214 0.263 0.275 0.275 0.45 0.5 0.5 0.63 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.1 1.4 1.7 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 v + 170 + 290 - 130 - 70 - 185 - 220 + 200 + 290 + 270 + 200 + 300 - 30 + 650 + 150 + 500 + 920 + 450 + 500 + 500 + 960 + 500 + 850 + 800 +1090 mt 1.5 0.5 9.0 7.0 8.8 5.0 9.9 8.4 7.4 9.5 11.3 8.3 9.1 9.0 10.4 9.1 9.6 10.4 8.7 12.0 10.0 8.8 9.7 9.5 Mt -16.0 17.2 12.7 15.1 13.4 17.2 13.3 15.1 16.1 14.5 13.2 16.4 15.7 15.7 14.4 15.9 15.6 14.8 17.0 14.2 16.5 17.7 16.8 17.0 ------15.5

Mt

= photographic magnitude of brightest stars involved = distance in units of 106 parsecs. The first two are Shapley's values. = measured velocities in km./sec. N. G. C. 6822, 221, 224 and 5457 are recent determinations by Humason. = Holetschek's visual magnitude as corrected by Hopmann. The first three objects were not measured by Holetschek, and the values of mt represent estimates by the author based upon such data as are available. = total visual absolute magnitude computed from mt and r.

Finally, the nebulae themselves appear to be of a definite order of absolute luminosity, exhibiting a range of four or five magnitudes about an average value M (visual) = - 15.2.[1] The application of this statistical average to individual cases can rarely be used to advantage, but where considerable numbers are involved, and especially in the various clusters of nebulae, mean apparent luminosities of the nebulae themselves offer reliable estimates of the mean distances.
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Radial velocities of 46 extra-galactic nebulae are now available, but individual distances are estimated by only 24. For one other, N. G. C. 3521, an estimate could probably be made, but no photographs are available at Mount Wilson. The data are given in table 1. The first seven distances are the most reliable, depending, except for M 32 athe companion of M 31, upon extensive investigations of many stars involved. The next thirteen distances, depending upon the criterion of a uniform upper limit of stellar luminosity, are subject to considerable probable errors but are believed to be the most reasonable values at present available. The last four objects appear to be in the Virgo Cluster. The distance assigned to the cluster, 2 x 10[6] parsecs, is derived from the distribution of nebular luminosities, together with luminosities of stars in some of the later-type spirals, and differs somewhat from the Harvard estimate of ten million light years.[2] The data in the table indicate a linear correlation between distances and velocities, whether the latter are used directly or corrected for solar motion, according to the older solutions. This suggests a new solution for the solar motion in which the distances are introduced as coefficients of the K term, i. e., the velocities are assumed to vary directly with the distances, and hense K represents the velocity at unit distance due to this effect. The equations of condition then take the form rK + Xcos(alpha)cos(delta) + Y sin(alpha)cos(delta)+ Zsin(delta) = v. Two solutions have been made, one using the 24 nebulae individually, the other combining them into 9 groups according to proximity in direction and in distance. The results are
24 objects 9 groups

X Y Z K parsecs. A D Vo

- 65 +226 -195 +465

+/+/+/+/-

50 95 40 50

+3 +230 -133 +513

+/- 70 +/-120 +/- 70 +/- 60 km./sec. per 10[6]

286deg. +40deg. 306 km./sec.

269deg. +33deg. 247 km./sec.

For such scanty material, so poorly distributed, the results are fairly definite. Differences between the two solutions are due largely to the four Virgo nebulae, which, being the most distant objects and all sharing the peculiar motion of the cluster, unduly influence the value of K and hence of Vo. New data on more
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distant objects will be required to reduce the effect of such peculiar motion. Meanwhile round numbers, intermediate between the two solutions, will represent the probably order of the values. For instance, let A = 277deg. , D = +36deg. (Gal. long. = 32deg. , lat. = +18deg. ), Vo = 280 km./sec., K = +500 km./sec. per million parsecs. Mr. Stromberg has very kindly checked the general order of these values by independent solutions for different groupings of the data. A constant term, introduced into the equations, was found to be small and negative. This seems to dispose of the necessity for the old constant K term. Solutions of this sort have been published by Lundmark,[3] who replaced the old K by k + lr + mr[2]. His favored solution gave k = 513, as against the former value of the order of 700, and hence offered little advantage.
TABLE 2 NEBULAE WHOSE DISTANCES ARE ESTIMATED FROM RADIAL VELOCITIES object N.G.C.278 404 584 936 1023 1700 2681 2683 2841 3034 3115 3368 3379 3489 3521 3623 4111 4526 4565 4594 5005 5866 Mean + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + v 650 25 1800 1300 300 800 700 400 600 290 600 940 810 600 730 800 800 580 1100 1140 900 650 + + + + + + + + + + + vs 110 65 75 115 10 220 10 65 20 105 105 70 65 50 95 35 95 20 75 25 130 215 r 1.52 .. 3.45 2.37 0.62 1.16 1.42 0.67 1.24 0.79 1.00 1.74 1.49 1.10 1.27 1.53 1.79 1.20 2.35 2.23 2.06 1.73 mt 12.0 11.1 10.9 11.1 10.2 12.5 10.7 9.9 9.4 9.0 9.5 10.0 9.4 11.2 10.1 9.9 10.1 11.1 11.0 9.1 11.1 11.7 -----10.5 Mt -13.9 .. 16.8 15.7 13.8 12.8 15.0 14.3 16.1 15.5 15.5 16.2 16.4 14.0 15.4 16.0 16.1 14.3 15.9 17.6 15.5 -14.5 ---------15.3

The residuals for the two solutions given above average 150 and 110 km./sec. and should represent the average peculiar motions of the individual nebulae and of the groups, respectively. In order to exhibit the results in a graphical form, the solar
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motion has been eliminated from the observed velocities and the remainders, the distance terms plus the residuals, have been plotted against the distances. The run of the residuals is about as smooth as can be expected, and in general the form of the solutions appears to be adequate. The 22 nebulae for which distances are not available can be treated in two ways. First, the mean distance of the group derived from the mean apparent magnitudes can be compared with the mean of the velocities corrected for solar motion. The result, 745 km./sec. for a distance of 1.4 x 10[6] parsecs, falls between the two previous solutions and indicates a value for K of 530 as against the proposed value, 500 km./sec. Secondly, the scatter of the individual nebulae can be examined by assuming the relation between distances and velocities as previously determined. Distances can then be calculated from the velocities corrected for solar motion, and absolute magnitudes can be derived from the apparent magnitudes. The results are given in table 2 and may be compared with the distribution of absolute magnitudes among the nebulae in table 1, whose distances are derived from other criteria. N. G. C. 404 can be excluded, since the observed velocity is so small that the peculiar motion must be large in comparison with the distance effect. The object is not necessarily an exception, however, since a distance can be assigned for which the peculiar motion and the absolute magnitude are both within the range previously determined. The two mean magnitudes, -15.3 and -15.5, the ranges, 4.9 and 5.0 mag., and the frequency distributions are closely similar for these two entirely independent sets of data; and even the slight difference in mean magnitudes can be attributed to the selected, very bright, nebulae in the Virgo Cluster. This entirely unforced agreement supports the validity of the velocity-distance relation in a very evident matter. Finally, it is worth recording that the frequency distribution of absolute magnitudes in the two tables combined is comparable with those found in the various clusters of nebulae.

Velocity-Distance graphs such as Figure 1 in Hubbles 1929 paper are now called Hubble diagrams. The velocity v is plotted in kilometers per second (km/s) and distances are plotted in astronomical units called Megaparsec (Mpc), where 1 Mpc = 3.09 1019 km = 3.26 million light years. One light year is the distance light will travel in one year at the fixed speed of 300 million meters per second (or 299,792,458 m/s, exactly). http://heasarc.nasa.gov/docs/cosmic/glossary.html
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Velocity-Distance Relation among Extra-Galactic Nebulae.

Figure 1: Radial velocities, corrected for solar motion, are plotted against distances estimated from involved stars and mean luminosities of nebulae in a cluster. The black discs and full line represent the solution for solar motion using the nebulae individually; the circles and broken line represent the solution combining the nebulae into groups; the cross represents the mean velocity corresponding to the mean distance of 22 nebulae whose distances could not be estimated individually.

The results establish a roughly linear relation between velocities and distances among nebulae for which velocities have been previously published, and the relation appears to dominate the distribution of velocities. In order to investigate the matter on a much larger scale, Mr. Humason at Mount Wilson has initiated a program of determining velocities of the most distant nebulae that can be observed with confidence. These, naturally, are the brightest nebulae in clusters of nebulae. The first definite result,[4] v = + 3779 km./sec. for N. G. C. 7619, is thoroughly consistenct with the present conclusions. Corrected for the solar motion, this velocity is +3910, which, with K = 500, corresponds to a distance of 7.8 x 10[6] parsecs. Since the apparent magnitude is 11.8, the absolute magnitude at such a distance is -17.65, which is of the right order for the brightest nebulae in a cluster. A preliminary distance, derived independently from the cluster of which this nebula appears to be a member, is of the order of 7x10[6] parsecs. The constant K highlighted here is Hubbles estimate of what is now called the Hubble constant. K = 500 km/s/Mpc (km/s per Mpc).
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New data to be expected in the near future may modify the significance of the dpresent investigation or, if confirmatory, will lead to a solution having many times the weight. For this reason it is thought premature to discuss in detail the obvious consequences of the present results. For example, if the solar motion with respect to the clusters represents the rotation of the galactic system, this motion could be subtracted from the results for the nebulae and the remainder would represent the motion of the galactic system with respect to the extra-galactic nebulae. The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space. In the de Sitter cosmology, displacements of the spectra arise from two sources, an apparent slowing down of atomic vibrations and a general tendency of material particles to scatter. The latter involves an acceleration and hence introduces the element of time. The relative importance of these two effects should determine the form of the relation between distances and observed velocities; and in this connection it may be emphasized that the linear relation found in the present discussion is a first approximation representing a restricted range in distance.

[1]Mt. Wilson Contr., No. 324; Astroph. J., Chicago, Ill., 64, 1926 (321). [2]Harvard Coll. Obs. Circ., 294, 1926. [3]Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 85, 1925 (865-894). [4]These PROCEEDINGS, 15, 1929 (167). *****************This ends Hubbles original 1929 paper**************** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law The following is verbatim quote extracted from the Wikipedia article cited, including the diagram.

Hubbles law
The linear relationship between the velocity V of a galaxy and its distance D can be expressed as V = H0D. The constant H0 is the slope of the straight line and is
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now referred to as the Hubble constant. This law was actually first derived from the General Relativity equations by Georges Lematre in a 1927 article where he proposed that the Universe is expanding and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, i.e., the Hubble constant.[2][3][4][5][6] Two years later Edwin Hubble confirmed the existence of that law and determined a more accurate value for the constant that now bears his name[7]. The recession velocity of the objects was inferred from their redshifts, many measured earlier by Vesto Slipher (1917) and related to velocity by him.[8] 1 megaparsec (3.091019 km), Mpc

Fit of redshift velocities to Hubble's law; patterned after William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation. Berlin: Springer published in association with Praxis Pub., Chichester, UK. ISBN 3-540-72534-2.Various estimates for the Hubble constant exist. The HST Key H0 Group fitted type Ia supernovae for redshifts between 0.01 and 0.1 to find that H0 = 71 2(statistical) 6 (systematic) km s1Mpc1,[21] while Sandage et al. find H0 = 62.3 1.3 (statistical) 5 (systematic) km s1Mpc1.[22]

The law is often expressed by the equation v = H0D, with H0 the constant of proportionality (the Hubble constant) between the "proper distance" D to a galaxy (which can change over time, unlike the comoving distance) and its velocity v (i.e. the derivative of proper distance with respect to cosmological time coordinate; see Uses of the proper distance for some discussion of the subtleties of this definition of 'velocity'). The SI unit of H0 is s1 but it is most frequently quoted in (km/s)/Mpc, thus giving the speed in km/s of a galaxy 1 megaparsec (3.091019 km) away. The reciprocal of H0 is the Hubble time.
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A recent 2011 estimate of the Hubble constant, which used a new infrared camera on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to measure the distance and redshift for a collection of astronomical objects, gives a value of H0 = 73.8 2.4 (km/s)/Mpc. An alternate approach using data from galactic clusters gave a value of H0 = 67.0 3.2 (km/s)/Mpc.[11][12]

1600 1400 1200

Velocity, v (in km/s)

1000 800 600

V = 500 d

400
200 0 -200 -400 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

Distance, d (in Mpc, 106 parsec)

Figure A: Velocity-distance plot for Hubbles original data from Table 1 of the 1929 paper. (The notations v and r are used by Hubble.) These represent the data for galaxies at distances of up to 2 Mpc. Notice the negative velocities for some galaxies at distances of less than 1 Mpc. Hubble decided to overlook this data and focus only on the data for galaxies moving away. Also, superimposed on to the data is the graph of V = 500d, with the constant K = 500 being Hubbles estimate for the slope of the V-D graph. Current estimates for the slope (called the Hubble constant) are between 60 to 80 s-1 or km/s per Mpc.
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2500

Velocity, v (in km/s)

2000

V = 500 d
1500

1000

500

0
0 1 2

Distance, d (in Mpc, 10 parsec)

Figure B: Velocity-distance plot for Hubbles original data from Table 2 of the 1929 paper. These represent the data for galaxies at distances of up to 4 Mpc. Also, superimposed on to the data is the graph of V = 500d, with the constant K = 500 being Hubbles estimate for the slope of the V-D graph. Current estimates for the slope (called the Hubble constant) are between 60 to 80 s-1 or km/s per Mpc. ****************************************************************** After the publication of the 1929 paper, Hubble published a few more papers (e.g. with Humason in 1931) confirming the velocity-distance relation with data obtained from even more distant galaxies, see links below. http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/ideas/hubble-work.htm http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/expand.html http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept03/Sandage/Sandage5_2.html http://apod.nasa.gov/debate/1996/sandage_hubble.html http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sandage2/paper.pdf http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_01.htm K = H0 = 64 km/s/Mpc, with V up to 30,000 km/s and D up to 500 Mpc (data from a 1996 publication).
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3 6

Simple Explanation for Hubbles law

All of us, whether we remember them now or not, learned the following simple relations relating space (s), or distance, time (t), and velocity (v), or speed, of an object, in our high school (or college) physics classes. The subscript 0 denotes the values of the appropriate quantities at time zero. s = v0t + at2 v = v0 + at v2 = v02 + 2as (1) (2) (3)

These results apply for a body moving with a constant acceleration a. At time t, the space (or distance) covered is given by equation 1, with v0 being the initial velocity of the body (the velocity with which it was launched into motion at time t = 0). The velocity v at time t is given by equation 2. The relationship between velocity and distance is given by equation 3. Of immediate interest to us is equation 2. This is a linear relation similar to that observed by Hubble, but it relates velocity v to time t. The graph of v versus t will be a straight line with a slope equal to the acceleration a. Hubble observes a linear relation between v and distance, not time t. How do we rationalize Hubbles law? It is obvious that the Universe is NOT behaving like a body described by these simple, well-known, equations. Let us recall what Newton says in his Principia, before he develops his theory of universal gravitation (which has since been supplanted by Einsteins theory for the Universe). This is what Newton says, on page 13. (Paper back copies are readily available in any book store that has a good collection of Science books. The one I have is translated by Andrew Motte and published by Prometheus Book, part of their Great Mind Series.) It is found following Definition VIII. It is called the Scholium. The following is an EXACT quote and is from the very first Scholium.
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Newton starts as follows: "Hitherto I have laid down definitions of such words as are less known. and explained the sense in which I would have them to be understood in the following discourse. I do NOT define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all." .... I will skip now and go straight to the following.... "Absolute, true, and mathematical time of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used, instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year." Just see how interesting it all gets. Newton believes there is something called Absolute time. In practice, we do not know what Absolute time is. We use "relative" time or common time like hour, day, etc. and now in the modern world minutes, seconds, or even milliseconds, nanoseconds, etc. Let TA denote this Absolute time and let us replace at in equation 2 above by distance D which is presumed to be related to this Newtoninan notion of some (yet to be understood) Absolute time TA. Then, we get Hubbles law with v0 = 0 by introducing another universal constant k0. Thus, H0D = k0TA = at (4)

Combine (2) and (4) and we get Hubbles law v = H0D D = k0TA / H0 = k0TATH (5) (6)

Here TH = 1/H0 is the Hubble time. Equation (6) relates the distance D to the galaxy to the product of the Hubble time and the unknown Absolute Time with the constant of proportionality being k0 which must have units of acceleration a appearing in basic equations (1), (2), and (3). Physicists and chemists are intimately familiar with the notion of an Absolute Zero temperature. This is the lowest conceivable temperature at
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which the volume of an ideal gas will go to zero (deduced by the extrapolation of Charles law relating the volume of an ideal gas to the temperature). Is there an Absolute Time, like this Absolute Zero temperature? Is this related to how the Universe itself was created? (See also other speculations on this topic, outside the realm of traditional science, available at this website.) Finally, it should be noted that space (or distance), time, and speed (or velocity) are the fundamental quantities that must be determined if we wish to study the motion of any object, quantitatively. In the physics, enunciated by Aristotle, and which held sway for centuries before Galileo, it was believed (without appealing to any kind of experiments) that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. This age-old wisdom was overthrown by Galileo who deduced the precise mathematical relationship between s, t, and v, by direct experimental observations on objects rolling down an inclined plane. Galileo thus discovered the law of falling objects: for objects falling near the vicinity of the earths surface, the acceleration a = dv/dt is a constant. This finding yields the relations in equations (1), (2), and (3). Then, in the 20th century, in his Nobel Prize winning oil drop experiments, Millikan observed the motion of a single oil drop (1909-1913), having a diameter of just a few micrometers. The drops were electrically charged by exposing them to ionizing radiation. Surprisingly, Millikan found that the velocity v of the oil drop, falling in the earths gravitational field, is a constant. The constant velocity v was attributed to the balancing of the force of gravity by the frictional resistance encountered by the drop (due to the viscosity of the surrounding air). Since the drops could also be charged electrically, their motion could be arrested, at will, by applying an electrical field and drops could be made to rise or fall depending on the relative strengths of the gravity field and the electrical field. Likewise, Hubble was studying the motion of distant galaxies. The v-D relation is known as Hubbles law. Time here an implicit quantity, related to the frequency of light, or the redshift. This leads us to TA.

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Let us review Newtons remarks once again. Absolute Time, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external and by another name is called duration. This is very different from time as we understand in Einsteins theory of relativity. Notice that Newton himself recognizes that Absolute Time is NOT very useful. It is common time, or relative time, as measured by a clock that is useful (to study motions, for example, such as those he was interested). This relative time is measured in units like, minutes, hours, days, years, etc. Einsteins theory describes the relativity of relative time as discussed by Newton. If t is the relative time as conceived by Newton, unaffected by the motion of the observer, and if t is the relative time as conceived by Einstein, the two relative times are related by the well-known special relativity equations of 1905 as follows. t = [ t (Ux/c2) ] = t [ 1 (Uv/c2) ] where = 1/ 1 (U2/c2) (7) (8)

Here t and t denote the times shown by identical clocks carried by two observers A and B who are moving relative to each other at the fixed velocity U, subject to the postulate that the speed of light c is the same for both observers. Also, v = x/t is the velocity of an object as determined by one of the observers, say A, who is taken to be stationary. Now choosing the reference frame U = v, yields the following relation between t and t that Einstein describes in his famous 1905 paper on special relativity. t = t = t (1 )t = t [ 1 - 1 (U2/c2) ]t and, t t (U2/c2)t for U << c (9) .(10)

The symbol = 1 (U2/c2) is introduced for convenience. Einstein shows that the clock time t will be smaller than t by the amount (U2/c2)t, to a first approximation, if the observers are in relative motion. This could be detected, for example, by placing two identical clocks, one on the South Pole of the earth and the other on the equator and simply letting them tick away. As time t increases, the time difference will become larger and
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larger. However, we are discussing here the relativity of relative time, not the Absolute Time of Newton. This must be clearly understood. Absolute Time may be understood as follows. Consider the familiar problem of determining the fuel economy of a vehicle, such as a car. We fill up the fuel tank and carefully determine the number of gallons (or liters) added. Then, we drive the car for a certain number of miles (or km) until the fuel tank is emptied. The fuel economy = miles driven/gallons or km/liters. In this determination we have paid no attention to the actual odometer reading, i.e., the total miles or kilometers driven since the car was produced and first put on the road. We only looked at what we call trip miles or the trip meter readings. One could also determine the fuel economy by considering the total odometer reading and the total gallons or liters added since the day the car was first put on the road. It is rather inconvenient to do this and one needs to maintain careful records since the first mile or kilometer driven on day one. (The ratio y/x is NOT the same as m = dy/dx even for a straight y = mx + b, if the intercept b is non-zero, see page 10.) Absolute time is the same way. We do not know this Absolute Time. We do not know exactly how long the galaxies have been moving, how and when the motion began, and what the initial velocities were when the motion began. When can only develop scientific theories and mathematical models and test them to check various predictions. And, so now we have introduced equations (4) to (6) here to explain Hubbles law by appealing what Newton calls Absolute time in his Principia. Also, this Absolute time, as conceived by Newton, flows equably. It is like a river that always flowing steadily at the same fixed velocity. Or, it may be likened to the reference frames that Einstein introduced into special relativity where observers are moving at the fixed relative velocity U. Perhaps, such an Absolute time provides the explanation for Hubbles law. What is this Absolute time? One can (or must??) look for answers beyond the realm of traditional science depending on ones inclinations. 03May2012 to 05May2012.
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Tidbits on the Cosmological Constant: Einsteins Blunder

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/cbr.html
Evidence for the Big Bang
The cosmic background radiation (sometimes called the CBR), is the afterglow of the big bang, cooled to a faint whisper in the microwave spectrum by the expansion of the Universe for 15 billion years (which causes the radiation originally produced in the big bang to redshift to longer wavelengths). As shown in the adjacent intensity map of the background radiation in different directions taken by the Differential Microwave Radiometer on NASA's COBE satellite, it is not completely uniform, though it is very nearly so (Ref). To obtain this image, the average dipole anisotropy exhibited in the image above has been subtracted out, since it represents a Doppler shift due to the Earth's motion. Thus, what remains should represent true variations in the temperature of the background radiation.

In this image, red denotes hotter fluctuations and blue and black denote cooler fluctuations around the average. These fluctuations are extremely small, representing deviations from the average of only about 1/100,000 of the average temperature of the observed background radiation.

See Images by clicking on the link

The indication of the above image is that the local group of galaxies, to which the Earth belongs, is moving at about 600 km/s with respect to the background radiation. It is not know why the Earth is moving with such a high velocity relative to the background radiation. http://www.icr.org/article/big-bang-theory-collapses/ The opposing viewpoint evidence against Big Bang http://www.lhc.ac.uk/The%20Particle%20Detectives/Take%205/13681.aspx How did the Universe begin? http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=6393.4875.0.0 Did the Universe Start With a Big Bang? http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/cosmos_bigbang.html Big Bang

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~jpl/cosmo/blunder.html

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Einstein's Greatest Blunder: The Cosmological Constant Much later, when I was discussing cosmological problems with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder of his life. -- George Gamow, My World Line, 1970 [1] Einstein's remark has become part of the folklore of physics, but was he right? He certainly had cause to feel rueful about the cosmological constant; he had introduced it into his general theory of relativity in 1917, as a last resort, to force the equations to yield a static universe. ****************************************************************** http://physics.about.com/od/physicsatod/g/cosmologicalconstant.htm Cosmological Constant
By Andrew Zimmerman Jones, About.com Guide

When Albert Einstein developed his theory of general relativity, he realized that they implied an unstable equilibrium position. Any slight unevenness would cause spacetime to expand or contract. He had the philosophical belief (as did most physicists of the time) in a static universe, so he added a constant term which was allowed (but not required) onto the end of his equation when he published the theory in 1916. In 1929, however, Edwin Hubble discovered evidence that distant galaxies were receding from our own galaxy. Though Einstein's model, with the cosmological constant, other models by Alexander Friedmann and Willem de Sitter (which didn't include the cosmological constant) had predicted such expansion quite clearly. Einstein quickly accepted the new evidence and told physicist George Gamow that the cosmological constant idea was the "biggest blunder" of his life. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_accel.html Cosmological constant. http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Einstein--Blunder--ProvingCorrect/story.xhtml?story_id=123000062EEX
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Einstein Dark Energy 'Blunder' Proving Correct

April 4, 2012 2:59PM Assuming the universe existed in a static state, Einstein added a term he called the "cosmological constant" to his theory of general relativity, but when the universe was later discovered to be expanding he called the constant his "biggest blunder." Now, results from a cosmic survey are consistent with Einstein's cosmological constant. New observations support a theory of Albert Einstein's about the expansion of the universe he once considered his "biggest blunder," U.S. astronomers say. Findings from a cosmic survey measuring the distance to remote galaxies suggest that the mysterious "dark energy" thought to cause the universe to expand at an accelerating rate was correctly predicted by Einstein, the researchers said. ****************************************************************** http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13718614.200-the-quest-for-thecosmological-constant-einstein-called-itthe-biggest-blunder-of-his-life-butmodern-astronomers-may-need-thecosmological-constant-to-save-the-bigbang.html

The quest for the cosmological constant: Einstein called it the biggest blunder of his life. But modern astronomers may need the cosmological constant to save the big bang

20 February 1993 by KEN CROSWELL Magazine issue 1861. Subscribe and save

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It was not Albert Einstein's best year. The previous one, 1916, he had published his greatest triumph, the general theory of relativity. But in 1917 he sullied his elegant equations with a term he would later regret, the cosmological constant. There was no evidence for a cosmological constant, but without it, Einstein's equations showed the Universe to be either expanding or collapsing, contrary to the prevailing belief that it was static. Had Einstein talked to Vesto Slipher of Lowell Observatory in Arizona, he might not have committed his famous blunder. At the time Slipher was measuring the spectra of other galaxies, in order to work out their velocities. He found that the light from most of them was red shifted - stretched - because they are rushing away from Earth. In 1929 Edwin Hubble used these velocities and his own measurements of these galaxies' distances from Earth to deduce that ... To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. ****************************************************************** http://www.holysmoke.org/sdhok/sci03.htm

Einstein's cosmological constant "blunder."

Curtis Johnson Sorry to have deleted your post to Mike Melia about Einstein's cosmological constant "blunder." You said that he inserted it because bought into Hubble's static universe. Actually, he did it because at the time (late 1920s) nearly all astronomers believed that the universe was static. The red-shift data had not really began to be gathered and analyzed. The major figure in the realization that red shifts increased with distance, and that therefore the universe is expanding was Hubble. In fact, the increase with distance is named the Hubble constant. And the Space Telescope, of course, was named after him. (There's a local real estate company with the name Hubble; sometimes I wonder how they verify their titles.) It was when you called Hubble a Creationist that I realized you were confusing him with Fred Hoyle. Even here, though, there's an anachronism vis-a-vis Einstein, who died in 1953. The "steady-state universe" model (which he developed in the late '50s with Thomas Gold and Herman Bondi, who are probably just as happy to
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have only Hoyle associated with it now in the public mind) was actually an expanding universe of sorts, in the sense of having galaxies moving from each other. The cause was a posited creation of matter in amounts that were too small to be visible; the universe was infinitely old and infinite in extent. Although scientists weren't happy about this unverifiable assumption, it didn't seem any more implausible at the time than the Big Bang. Then came the discovery of microwave background radiation in just the right amount to match BB predictions. It was only natural for poor Fred, having once had the feeling of having discovered the secret of the universe and the esteem of colleagues, to be reluctant to let go of his universe. In fact, the "Life from Space" stuff he's been working on is an attempt to sneak it back in. If he can show that life is overwhelmingly improbable, then the fact of life becomes an argument for an infinitely old universe. Far from being a Creationist, when the Creationists called him as a witness in the Louisiana Creationist trial, the choice blew up in their face--- he testified against them. And the "steady-state universe," being infinitely old, could never have been created by any entity. ****************************************************************** http://www.caribyard.com/forums/showthread.php?2760-Einstein-s-cosmologicalconstant-blunder-or-not
Einstein's cosmological constant - blunder or not?

When Einstein was working on his equations for the theory of general relativity, he threw in a cosmological constant to bring the universe into harmonious equilibrium. But subsequent observations by Edwin Hubble proved that the universe was not static. Rather, galaxies were flying apart at varying speeds. Einstein abandoned the concept, calling it the biggest blunder of his life's work. Observations in the 1990s, however, proved that the universe was not only flying apart, it was doing so faster and faster. This seemed to point to a dark energy filling space that actually repelled ordinary matter with its gravity, in contrast to all other known stuff, including dark matter. A number of theories have been developed to explain what this dark energy might be, including Einstein's long discarded cosmological constant.
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Now new observations from an international team of astronomers seem to show that dark energy is like the cosmological constant, unvarying throughout space and time. By measuring the distances to 71 far-off supernovae, the scientists were able to ascertain with a high degree of confidence that the effect dark energy exerts on supernovae light does not vary with distance. The researchers also plugged this data into a so-called equation of state, which measures the relationship between pressure and density, and found that dark energy must be less than -0.85--awfully close to Einstein's cosmological constant at -1. "Our observation is at odds with a number of theoretical ideas about the nature of dark energy that predict that it should change as the universe expands and, as far as we can see, it doesn't," says team member Ray Carlberg of the University of Toronto. The results will be published in a future issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics. The 71 supernovae observations are the results of just one year of an ongoing Supernova Legacy Survey being carried out using telescopes throughout the world, such as the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Data collected over the next four years should improve the precision of the finding and help researchers determine more about the enigmatic nature of dark energy that seems to constitute at least 70 percent of the universe. But the finding brings to the fore another question: the so-called cosmological coincidence. Observations like this one seem to prove that regular matter and dark energy have similar densities at precisely this moment in time, even though the density of matter has been declining steadily since the big bang. Even Einstein couldn't answer why that would be. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...5083414B7FFE87

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Enjoy A Supermoon This Weekend May 5-6, 2012

The supermoon of 2012 is the biggest full moon of the yearand will occur on Saturday (May 5) at 11:35 p.m. EDT (0335 May 6). A supermoon occurs when the moon hits its full phase at the same time it makes closest approach to Earth for the month, a lunar milestone known as perigee. Scientists also refer to the event as a "perigee moon," according to a NASA video on the 2012 supermoon. Because the moon's orbit is not exactly circular, there is a 3-percent variation in its closest approaches to Earth each month. The average Earth-moon distance is about 230,000 miles (384,400 km). With May's full moon timed with the moon's perigee, it could appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than other full moons of 2012, astronomer Tony Phillips explained in a NASA video. There is absolutely no chance the supermoon will threaten Earth. The last supermoon was in March 2011. At the time, it was the biggest and brightest full moon in 18 years. [Amazing Supermoon Photos from 2011]
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Hubble Constant: Age of the Universe

The accurate determination of the Hubble constant H0 (or K in Hubbles 1929 paper) also leads an estimate for the age of the Universe. In the 1929 paper Hubble estimates a value of K = 500 km/s per Mpc. This is the slope of the graph of velocity V (measured in km/s) and the distance D (measured in astronomical units of Mpc, megaparsec). One light year equals 9.46 1012 km (9.46 trillion km) and is the distance traveled by light in one year. One Mpc (megaparsec) equals 3.26 million light years. Distances in Hubbles 1929 papers were up to 4 Mpc. In the subsequent papers, published jointly with Humason, the value of K was still considered to be roughly the same (going up slightly to 560 from 500 in the 1931 paper). A value of K = 530 is taken as the average Hubble estimate for this constant. These original estimates, however, yield an age of the Universe of only about 1.8 billion years. In 1952, the astronomer Baade announced a doubling of the age based on his studies of what are known as the Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda galaxy; see links given below. A young astronomer named Alan Sandage was Baades student. Sandage also served as an assistant to Edwin Hubble at the observatory where Hubble worked. He took over from Hubble in 1953, after Hubbles death, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Sandage http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/science/space/17sandage.html?_r=1&pagewa nted=all The careful studies by Sandage and his co-workers led to a downward revision of the Hubble constant from 530 to about 75. Sandage himself advocated a low value of 50 but came under severe criticism since it would mean a much higher age for universe; see link below for the age of Universal calculations from the numerical values of the Hubble constant. http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/age.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe One Megaparsec = 3.0861019 km. If H0 = 71 km/s/Mpc, H0 = 2.301018 s1, and the value of Hubble time is 4.351017 s or 13.8 billion years.
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http://www.phy.davidson.edu/FacHome/thg/247_files/Hubble.htm The slope of the graph of V versus D, estimated by considering 10 different pairs of galaxies from the list below can be shown to H0 = 50.7 km/s/Mpc, see graph on next page. This much lower than the generally accepted value of H0 = 72 km/s/Mpc.

Above illustration is found in many astronomy/astrophysics texts. See also the links given below for an interesting quiz about finding the velocity of a galaxy and a nice discussion of the determination of velocity from the redshift. http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/YBA/M31-velocity/hubble-data.html http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/expand/expand.html The Andromeda galaxy (the other name for M31) is 2,900,000 light years away. (Remember 3.26 light years in one parsec.) The Andromeda galaxy is one of our nearby neighbors! The value of Hubble's constant, H0, was vigorously sought in the 20th century. It was determined in the early 21st

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century independently by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Wilkenson Microwave Anisotropy Probe to be 72 km/sec/Mpc.
80,000 70,000

Velocity, V (km/s)

60,000 50,000 40,000

V = H0D = 50.7 D

30,000
20,000 10,000 0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

Distance of galaxy, D (Mpc)

Figure C: The Hubble diagram for the five galaxies with the redshift data given on the previous page. Ten values of the slope H0 were determined by considering various galaxy pairs. The average slope equals 50.7 km/s/Mpc. The Hubble time 1/H0 = 19.3 billion years is much higher than the value deduced with H0 = 71 km/s/Mpc which yields an age of 13.8 billion years. The modern estimated is based on a similar plot with data for numerous galaxies. The best-fit line, determined using classical linear regression, yields a slope of H0 = 49.91 km/s/Mpc but this line must pass through the mean point of the data set (xm = 550.8 Mpc and ym = 27,640 km/s) and hence yields a straight line with a non-zero (small positive value) intercept on the V-axis. The best-fit line has the equation V = 49.91 D + 150.48. The method of determining the average slope by considering several different galaxy pairs is therefore preferred and passes through the origin.
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Maximum age of the Universe: If the universe has been expanding since its beginning at a constant speed, the universe's age would simply be 1/Ho. a. Find the inverse of Ho. b. Multiply 1/Ho by 3.09 x 1019 km/Mpc to cancel the distance units. c. Since the age of the Universe in seconds, divide this number by the number of seconds in a year: 3.16 x 107 sec/yr.

EXAMPLE:Hubble constant is 75 km/sec/Mpc, then 1/75 = 0.0133 = 1.33 x 10-2 (1.33 x 10-2) x (3.09 x 1019) = 4.12 x 1017 (4.12 x 1017) divided by (3.16 x 107) = 1.3 x 1010 This is 1.3 x 1010 years, or 13 x 109 years, or 13 billion years.

This age represents a very simple model for the expansion of the universe, and is the maximum age the universe can be. The age of the Universe with gravity A better model would account for the deceleration caused by gravity. Models like this predict the age of the universe to be: t = (2/3)*(1/Ho), or 2/3 of the maximum age of the Universe. Courtesy: http://www.astro.washington.edu/courses/labs/clearinghouse/labs/Hubbl eLaw/data_analysis.html

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The Intangible in the Hubble Estimates of the Age of the Universe

Dear All: Now, we come to the conclusion (almost!) of the Cosmology Lessons from Krishnas teachings in chapter 8 of the Bhagavad Gita. Also, please accept my humble apologies for such an egregious imposition on your valuable times. Nonetheless, the following seems to be worth sharing since the question that is being discussed is the age of the Universe using the most advanced modern scientific tools known to humans today. Let us first imagine a car moving at a fixed speed of 60 mph. What does this tell us about the distance traveled by the car? Everyone knows that this tells us NOTHING at all about the distance traveled by the car. Or about the time it will take to complete a trip. I have used 60 mph intentionally since there are 60 minutes in one hour and this speed of 60 mph means the car will cover a distance of 1 mile every minute. In 10 minutes, the car has traveled 10 miles and in 100 minutes, it has traveled 100 miles, and so on. But, knowing the speed alone does not tell us much about the total distance traveled by the car. We must know both the total time and the speed to determine the total distance traveled. Equivalently, we must know both the total distance and the speed to determine the total time that will be taken for a journey, or a trip. Total time = N times the basic unit of time we use. Total distance = N times the basic unit of distance we use. Speaking in terms of graphs, if we were to prepare a graph of distance versus time, speed is the slope of this graph. Knowing the speed alone is
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like knowing only the slope of the graph. We must know more than the speed to know about the total distance, or the total duration for a journey of a given distance. We must know the number of units N, as just explained. Let us apply this same logic now to the problem of determining the age of the Universe. One of the most fascinating things we get from the studies by astronomers such as Hubble is an estimate for the age of the Universe. The modern Hubble Space Telescope (HST), about which we hear so much, is named after Edwin Hubble whose famous 1929 paper led to the now widely accepted idea that the universe is expanding. This eventually gave rise to the so-called Big Bang theory for the creation of the universe. The modern estimate for the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years. This is based on a value for the Hubble constant of 71 km/s/Mpc (km s-1 Mpc-1). The Hubble constant happens to be the slope of the graph of the velocity V of distant galaxies (measured in km/s) versus the distance D of the galaxy (measured in units of Mpc, which is just a more convenient unit than using km, 1 Mpc equals 31 million trillion km!). This V-D graph is now called the Hubble diagram. The slope of the graph has units of reciprocal time and so we get a time, also called Hubble time, as being the age of the Universe. How reliable is this age? Can we accept it? The Hubble diagram is actually a very mystifying diagram since both V and D plotted here are deduced using time itself in unsuspecting ways. We will not get into how distances are measured at the astronomical scale. It is much too complicated. But, let us consider how the speed, or velocity, of the galaxy is determined. This is easier to understand. The speed is determined using "redshifts" which have to do with frequency of light. The frequency of light involves time in an implicit way. The speed of light c is the time taken by the light wave to travel a distance equal to the wavelength of light, commonly called lambda . Thus, c = /. This lambda is an imperceptible length unit and the time is an intrinsic or imperceptible
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time element, associated with the light wave. The frequency of light f is the reciprocal of this intrinsic, or imperceptible, time to travel the wavelength . Hence, f = 1/ and so c = f. The frequency of "visible" light, gives rise to the different colors that we see, or the colors of the rainbow. So, it is "perceptible" only in this sense. We can tell red from blue or yellow or green and hence the different colors or frequencies, or indirectly different measures of the wavelengths, see http://www.astro.washington.edu/courses/labs/clearinghouse/labs/HubbleL aw/measurements.html . I have actually borrowed the terminology of intrinsic time for from Louis de Broglies Nobel lecture, entitled The wave nature of the electron. De Broglie received the Nobel Prize in 1929, the same year Hubble published his revolutionary paper, for boldly postulating that all particles, not just light, must possess a wave-like character. On December 14, 1900, when Planck presented his lecture which laid the foundations of Quantum Physics, he had postulated a fundamental quantum of energy E = hf and then combined the laws of thermodynamics with the statistical arguments (advanced by both Maxwell and Boltzmann) to arrive at a mathematical description for the blackbody radiation. To Planck, and for Maxwell, light was a wave of electromagnetic origin. In 1905, Einstein boldly reasoned that light must be made up tiny particles, now called photons, each having the elementary quantum of energy conceived by Planck. This means, E = hf = hc/ = mc2 if the particle of light has a mass m and therefore = h/mc. More generally, de Broglie reasoned, any particle of mass m, like the electron, or proton, or even the atom, must have a dual nature with a wavelength = h/mv = h/p where p = mv is the momentum of the particle of mass m. For this revolutionary prediction, made in his doctoral thesis (in 1924, which was sent to Einstein for review and enthusiastically approved by Einstein), de Broglie received the Nobel Prize. see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1929/broglielecture.pdf

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Shortly thereafter, in 1927, it was shown experimentally that electrons, formerly considered to be particles, also have a wavelike character and could be diffracted just like light. This led to modern tools of electron diffraction and the electron microscope and many medical devices which today employ this principle. The key point is the terminology of intrinsic time used by de Broglie to denote the time for a wave, like a light wave. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1937/ . Hubble also talks about a time element in the last paragraph of his 1929 paper. The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space. In the de Sitter cosmology, displacements of the spectra arise from two sources, an apparent slowing down of atomic vibrations and a general tendency of material particles to scatter. The latter involves an acceleration and hence introduces the element of time. The relative importance of these two effects should determine the form of the relation between distances and observed velocities; and in this connection it may be emphasized that the linear relation found in the present discussion is a first approximation representing a restricted range in distance.

The time element that Hubble mentions is related to the intrinsic time of a wave as noted by de Broglie. It is this time element that is reflected in the reciprocal of the slope of the Hubble diagram, or what is now called the Hubble time. Is this the AGE of the UNIVERSE? Why, how, and when did this time get associated with the age of the expanding universe? Is it because it was simply just too BIG to comprehend and unheard of in the realm of science? We really do NOT know if the Hubble time = 1/H0 is indeed the age of the Universe. This is merely a conjecture, or a hypothesis, based in part on our own beliefs, such as the beliefs that originally led to the introduction of the cosmological constant into physics by Einstein.

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The time element that enters into the Hubble time is related to the time element implied in the calculation of the redshift, or the frequency of light from the distant galaxies. Recall that the distance unit of one megaparsec (1 Mpc), the distance to the closest galaxies equals 3.26 million light years. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) can peer at galaxies located at 10 Mpc or even 20 Mpc (see graph on page 19), i.e., distances of 30 to 60 million light years away, see for example, report on spiral galaxy NGC 5584 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/22/the-universeis-expanding-at-73-8-2-4-kmsecmegaparsec-so-there/

The spiral galaxy NGC 5584, ONLY ~ 72 million light years away What does this mean? One light year is the distance covered by light, in one year, traveling at a speed of about 300,000,000 meters per second (299,792,458 m/s to be exact, or about 186,000 miles per second). Now imagine how long light has been traveling from these galaxies to reach Hubbles telescope or the modern HST orbiting high above the earth, unimpeded by any atmospheric effects that Edwin Hubble, Humason, or Sandage had to contend with for 72 million years from NGC 5584!
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The time element as noted by Hubble can be expressed more explicitly, as follows. The velocity V of a galaxy is calculated using the formula for the redshift (based on change of , or equivalently frequency of light, f) see http://www.astro.washington.edu/courses/labs/clearinghouse/labs/HubbleL aw/measurements.html Velocity of galaxy = V c z = c( 0)/0, for speeds much less than c. where and, Hence, z = redshift = ( 0)/0 c = 0/0 = / since speed of light is same for both waves V = ( 0)/0 speed, or velocity, of galaxy

Here c = f = / for the light wave, of a given color (such as calcium H or K lines, illustrated earlier), emanating from the distant galaxy and c = 0f0 = 0/0 for the same light wave produced by a fixed source here on earth. Thus, the Hubble constant H0, and its reciprocal 1/H0, the age of the universe, are simply numerical manipulations of the intrinsic time and the wavelength associated with a light wave. Simply put, if we carefully sift through all the astronomical calculations, it becomes obvious that the age of the Universe is nothing more than the intrinsic time of the light wave 0 (as measured in a laboratory on earth) multiplied by some very large (unknown) number N, which can be related to the distance D of a galaxy and the wavelength of the light wave. As data from more and more distant galaxies are included in the calculations, the age of the Universe will just keep on increasing. Thus, Age of the Universe = 1/H0 = D/V = [ D/( 0) ] 0 = N 0 Do we really know the age of the Universe? It is worth recalling the following verses from the Gita in this context. We all have a desire to know. This desire to know arises ONLY after all other basic requirements are satisfied: food, clothing, and shelter. If these basics are not satisfied, we will be spending all our time trying to satisfy them. This is the very nature of every living being, or the living entity called a jantu, as mentioned in chapter 3, verse 5 of the Gita.
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No jantu can remain still even for a moment, says Krishna. Na hi kascit kshaNam api jaatu tishttah akarmakrut. The jantu keeps struggling, keeps doing things, or performs different karmas, to satisfy these basics kaaryate avashah karma sarvair prakrutijair gunaih The yearning to satisfy the basics is what Krishna means by the state of "aarta", those who are in great pain, since they are struggling to satisfy their sensory needs - such as food, clothing and shelter. The pursuit of sensory pleasures is something we are ALL engaged not only those who are "lustful" and/or indulge themselves in abusive ways. Those who eat too much, or sleep too much, are just as guilty as those who lust abusively. There is little difference, philosophically speaking. Only after sensory pleasures are satisfied does one become a jijnaasu, the one with a desire to know. The next state is jnaani, one who knows something. The jnaani also has to take many janmas (births) before truly understanding God, or Vasudeva; see verses 16 and 19 from chapter 7 of the Gita which are given below. Chaturvidhaah bhajante Maam janaah sukrutinOrjuna l AartO jijnaasur arthaarthee jnaani ca Bharatarshabha ll 7.16 ll BG

l ll . ll

Bahoonaam janmanaam ante jnanavaan Maam prapadyate l Vaasudevahaa sarvam iti sa Mahaatmaa sudurlabhahaa ll 7.19 ll BG

l ll . ll
The translations and the purports to these verses are readily available at the links given below.
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http://www.sankaracharya.org/gita_bhashya.php Commentary by Adi Sankara; http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/ Four Vaishnava sampradayas http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/bgita.html Swami Krishnanada, see Discourse 21 on the Universal Religion; http://www.asits.com by Srila Prabhupada Very sincerely V. Laxmanan May 5, 2012 ****************************************************************** P. S. In his 1929 paper, Hubble estimated the slope of the velocity-distance graph to be 500 (in units of km/s/Mpc). He continued to report the same values in papers published (with Humason) in 1931, and also in 1936. This gave the age of the Universe as only about 1.8 billion years. Only after the 1950s, after Hubble died, and other astronomers continued the work, was the number revised to about the modern value of 71, which gives the age of 13.8 billion years. Sandage advocated a value as low of 50. See how Swami Krishnananda explains the above verses (reproduced verbatim): The Bhagavadgita says that there are four kinds of devotees, who approach God for various purposes. Chatur-vidha bhajante mam janah sukritinorjuna, arto jijnasur artharthi jnani cha bharatarshabha (7.16): When we are in distress, when we are in a state of utter poverty, when we are in a dying condition, when we are suffering from an incurable disease, when we are harassed up to the point of death, when there is no help coming from anywhere and sorrow is hanging on our heads like Damocles sword, we cry to God for help. These are one kind of devotee: they love God and cry to God because they are in grief, and they want God to redress all the sorrows in which they are sunk. Perhaps if they were well-off very healthy,
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wealthy, and all was well with them in this world the idea of resorting to God might not have arisen in their minds. Nevertheless, God is very kind, compassionate and so gracious as to accept that even these people are His devotees though they have come to Him only for material gains in the sense that they want only redressal of sorrow, and if they are free from sorrow they shall be highly satisfied. Artha is a person who is in grief, in a state of distress socially, politically, physically, mentally in whatever way. A distressed person crying for God is a kind of devotion which is specific and unique in itself. There are other devotees who do not cry for God to remove their suffering in the world. They are the jijnasu those who want wisdom of life. Learning sometimes evokes a desire to worship Saraswati and such other goddesses; those who want power and domination and might, worship Lord Siva and such other gods, and so on and so forth. Those who are jijnasus are lovers of knowledge insight into the reality of things. We may even say they are lovers of spiritual knowledge. They crave that God should bless them with this wondrous wisdom. We are using God as an instrument in the fulfilment of our desires, whatever those desires be even the most glorious of desires, the love for wisdom. We are asking God to give us wisdom, as if God Himself is not equal to that. But the Lord says that the jnani is the best of the devotees because he does not want anything from God. He has ceased to have any kind of expectation from the world, and does not have any kind of ulterior motive. The devotee who wants only God and wants nothing from God or through God, is the jnani. Anybody who wants something from God or through God is a lesser devotee. It is very difficult to achieve this kind of devotion. Bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate; vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah (7.19): It is difficult to love God. The love of things is so attractive, so promising and rewarding that the invisible God may not be as attractive to the senses. We take a series of incarnations millions of births to come to the human level, and then only is it possible for an individual to think in terms of pros and cons and entertain logical judgments, which is not available in the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. After taking many an incarnation and passing through many bodies of
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various species, we become human beings. Even as human beings, it is not easy for everybody to reach God because there are categories of human beings. There are demoniacal human beings, selfish human beings, cut-throat human beings, tit-fortat human beings, so they are not in a position to attain God. It is a blessed one who has polished his personality through austerity, by means of the practice of the various stages of yoga in the different incarnations that he has taken. Bahunam janmanam ante: After the completion of many, many lives then only the jnani attains to Me as the only goal, resorts to Me as the only purpose in life. Vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah such a person is indeed rare in this world who has the conviction that God is all, that Narayana is all, Vasudeva is all, the Almighty is all. Such a conviction cannot arise in ordinary people. After many millions of births, such a conviction may arise. The sense organs will not play havoc with that person who knows in an integral manner that God is all, because their feeling and understanding merge into a kind of intuition; and then there is no use of expecting anything from this world. The world merges in God as I myself also merge in God. Bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate, vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah. Educated Indians (or rather Hindus) generally tend to dismiss statements made in the Valmiki Ramayanam, for example, that Lord Rama ruled on this earth for 10,000 (dasha varsha sahasraaNi) plus 1000 (dasha varsha shataani ca) years, which is stated at the end of the coronation chapter in the Yuddha kanda, or that King Dasharatha had already ruled for 60,000 years, as he states in the royal court when he proposes coronating Rama as the next king (stated at the beginning of Ayodhya kanda). These seem to be so unrealistic and far-fetched. Now, let's see consider this in the light of the discussion here about the age of the Universe, using Hubble's observational astronomical methods.

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A Parsec: A Fascinating Unit of Astronomical Distance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec One light year is the distance traveled by light in one year at the fixed speed of about 300,000,000 meters per second (or about 186,000 miles per second). The parsec (pc) is about 3.26 light-years and is equal to just under 31 trillion (3.11013) kilometres or just over 19 trillion (1.91013) miles. Heres a visual illustration of this unit of distance, taken from the Wikipedia article. The Mpc, or megaparsec is one million parsecs; read more about how the actual distance is calculated in the article above and what astronomers do to determine such huge distances.

A parsec is the distance from the Sun to an astronomical object which has a parallax angle of one arcsecond. (1 AU and 1 pc are not to scale (1 pc = 206265 AU)). A circle has 360 degree. Each degree of arc of a circle is divided into 60 minutes of arc and each arc minute is divided into 60 arcseconds. Hence, a full circle has 1,296,000 arcseconds. This is the arcsecond is the tiny angle of that imaginary right angled triangle in the above illustration.
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Did Man make the Big Bang? When?

Dear All: We (or rather I !) have been talking a lot about Cosmology, the Big Bang theory, and so on, since we started our study of chapter 8 of the Bhagavad Gita and the Cosmology Lessons from Krishnas teachings in this chapter. The term "Big Bang" was actually coined by the British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle in an attempt, as many believe, TO RIDICULE the whole idea. Instead, his graphic term stuck and it became popular and is now widely used, see extracts pasted below from the Wikipedia article which gives the exact time and date when the term "Big Bang" was coined and entered into popular use. More importantly, Fred Hoyle failed to get the Nobel Prize. One of his coworkers, William Fowler shared the Nobel Prize in 1983 with the Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar. Many believe that Hoyle was overlooked for, or deliberately denied, the honor since he was widely considered to be very rude, offended many, and often made pronouncements in the public on various topics far outside the realm of physics. In other words, he was too full of it, as they say politely, in America. The second of the links below (after the signature line) tells the story about why Hoyle may have missed the Nobel. This brings us back to the Gita and what Krishna teaches us. At least three times, in the Gita, Krishna lists qualities that we must all strive to develop. These are listed below.

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1. In Chapter 12, starting with verse 13 to verse 19, Krishna describes the qualities of a bhakta (devotee) that make Him very fond of the bhakta - sa may priyah, yo madbhaktah sa may priyah, and so on. 2. In Chapter 13, verses 6 to 11, Krishna explains the meaning of jnanam (knowledge). Here Krishna is not talking about jnanam like the knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, etc. but various characteristics of the self, starting with the quality of amaanitvam in verse 6. Amanitvam comes from manas from which we get maanam which means thinking highly, feeling honored etc, or becoming haughty. Amaanitvam is the opposite - not thinking highly of oneself - in other words, not being full of it. 3. In Chapter 16, verses 1 to 4, Krishna again describes the desirable (under daivee) and the undesirable (aasuree) qualities. We must develop the former and shun the latter. One need NOT necessarily possess the PHYSICAL attributes of demons, as we find, for example, described in the Sundara Kandam of the Ramayanam, or in the Puranas. Other non-physical attributes described in chapter 16 can put the label of "asura" on to a person. In the list of daivee qualities is na ati-maanitaa. This is the same - not thinking highly of oneself - the same as we saw mentioned earlier under amaanitvam. So, there ends the BIG BANG story with the listing of all the qualities that Krishna wants us to possess. This is the real Big Bang the realization of the self - far more important than the Big Bang of Creation, which is just Prakruti (material universe). Very sincerely V. Laxmanan May 4, 2012 ****************************************************************** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/03/fred-hoyle-nobel-prize/print

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From the Wikipedia article: Hoyle found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, resembling arguments for a Creator, "for it's an irrational process, and can't be described in scientific terms" (see Kalam cosmological argument).[8] Instead, Hoyle, along with Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi (with whom he had worked on radar in World War II), argued for the universe as being in a "steady state". Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang theory. In fact, he is responsible for coining the term "Big Bang" on BBC radio's Third Programme broadcast (at 1830 GMT on 28 March 1949). It is popularly reported that Hoyle intended this to be pejorative, but the script from which he read aloud shows that he intended the expression to help his listeners.[9] Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for radio listeners.[10] http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/03/fred-hoyle-nobel-prize/print About why no Nobel for Hoyle in 1983. On 19 October 1983, US physicist Willy Fowler received a phone call that most scientists can only dream of. In careful tones, a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences told him he had been awarded that year's Nobel prize for physics. Then came the shock. Fowler, who was 72 years old at the time, was told he would share the prize with Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who had carried out pioneering work on the structure of stars. Of Fowler's own close collaborator, Fred Hoyle the British scientist who had led their joint research work there was no mention. Now this is the final para of this article...... "Apart from his earlier work, his arrogant, misplaced assumption of his own genius together with his blunt northern stubbornness, of which he was so
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proud, caused him to be wrong so often on high-profile issues that people have forgotten when he was right," says Sir Harry. "The Nobel committees go to inordinate lengths to do the best they can and in this case I think they thought Hoyle was so arrogant and dismissive of others that he would use the prestige of the Nobel prize to foist his other truly ridiculous ideas on the lay public. The whole scientific community felt that." In short, science matters more than the individual. Hence the sacrifice of Fred Hoyle. http://www.blancmange.net/2011/08/26/origin-big-bang-fred-hoyle/ See video here - Sir Fred Hoyle on the "Big Bang" http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_bigbang.html The term big bang was coined with derisive intent by Fred Hoyle, and its endurance testifies to Sir Freds creativity and wit. Indeed, the term survived an international competition in which three judges the television science reporter Hugh Downs, the astronomer Carl Sagan, and myself sifted through 13,099 entries from 41 countries and concluded that none was apt enough to replace it. No winner was declared, and like it or not, we are stuck with big bang. Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 323n. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/23/local/me-37483 Hoyle obituary He recalled using Big Bang for the first time in the last of those talks, but with derision to describe a theory on the origin of the universe that he didn't accept. He coined that phrase in fact as a denigration for the conventional wisdom, said Hoyle's associate, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of University College, Wales. And it was his belief, and it is also my belief, that the standard Big Bang theory, which says that everything began at a definite moment in time and that there was nothing before that, this has to be essentially wrong, and that the universe has an infinite age and an infinite extent in space, Wickramasinghe said Wednesday on BBC radio.
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The Age of the Universe Do we know it?

Dear All: As you all know, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and other modern telescopes, which have been placed in orbit around the earth and no longer depend on atmospheric conditions to get a clear view of the sky, have changed our view of the Universe. (This is generally the problem faced by earth-based astronomers. Hence, places like Arizona, in the USA, and the South Pole are popular places for astronomical observatories since they offer an unobstructed, year round, view of the sky.) The HST is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble who published a famous paper in 1929 in which he reported a simple linear relation between the velocity V of a galaxy and its distance D from the earth. Hubble showed that the greater the distance D, the greater the velocity (or speed) which which the galaxy is moving away from the earth. This means the Universe is expanding. This finding eventually led what is known as the "Big Bang" theory for the creation of the Universe. The V-D graph is now called the Hubble diagram. The slope of the V-D graph (denoted by the symbol H0 in honor of Hubble) can be determined very accurately using observations on hundreds, and thousands, or galaxies. The reciprocal of the slope, 1/H0, is called the Hubble time and is now believed widely to be the age of the Universe. These points have all been discussed recent emails (prompted mainly by Cosmology Lessons we receive from Krishna Himself, in chapter 8 of the Gita) and have been compiled in the public document made available to anyone with access to the Internet. According to the "reads" data maintained at this website, more than 500 readers have already "read" this document, over the last three days.
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/92191620/Did-the-Universe-Start-in-a-Big-BangHow-did-we-arrive-at-this-idea However, a cautionary note must also be sounded, see pages 34 to 43 of the above. We may be simply "deluding" ourselves with such calculations. The Hubble diagram is a mystifying diagram where time enters into the measurement of V (and also D) in unsuspecting ways. As I have tried to show, the reciprocal 1/H0 is nothing more than the "intrinsic time" associated with a light wave (its frequency of vibration) multiplied by a very large number N. As we obtain data from more distance galaxies, the number N will increase and may eventually "plateau" off. This may or may not have anything to do with the age of the Universe! These arguments are really not too difficult to follow. Based on comments I have received so far, it does appear that at least some of the recipients of these emails are paying attention and actually reading these emails. . Yesterday, we started our study of chapter 9 of the Bhagavad Gita and it is worth recalling the following verse.

Sarvabhootaani Kaunteya Prakrutim yaanti Maamikaam l Kalpakshaye punas-taani kalpaadau visrujaamyaham ll 9.7 ll --The Bhagavad Gita, chapter 9, verse 7

l
ll . ll We can still read the Gita and the Vishnu Sahasranamam (exactly similar verse can be found under Bheeshma uvaca section of the Vishnu Sahasranama, The 1000 names of Vishnu, which has been cited earlier, see page 9) and reflect on how all this "modern" understanding relates to
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Courtesy: http://www.ahobilavalli.org/vishnu_sahasra_namam_vol1.pdf Bheeshma lying on the bed of arrows prepared by Ajuna (awaiting the auspicious time to leave his body) and surrounded by celestials, including Krishna, who had arrived to listen to his exposition on dharma. ****************************************************************** our age old beliefs and tradition. The views expressed here in the Gita are not to be found in any other scripture of the world. As you see, Krishna describes here a very dynamic process of creation, dissolution, and recreation, which continues over and over again. This view is alien to all "western" religions. As noted earlier, Einstein's own (religious) belief of a "static" universe, led to the introduction of what is known as the "cosmological constant" in his General theory of Relativity, which Einstein later said was the greatest blunder of his life. Einstein's theory was published BEFORE Hubble
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announced his experimental findings. Einstein's remarks about his scientific "blunder" came after Hubble had published his 1929 paper which gave rise to the modern view of an expanding universe. In chapter 9, verse 7, above Krishna says, "O Arjuna, son of Kunti, all livings beings (sarva bhootaani) return to Me (prakrutim yaanti Maamikaam) at the end of the kalpa (here it means lifetime of Brahma, or what is also called Mahakalpa). Then at the beginning of kalpa (after a long time has elapsed and even Brahma is no more), I release them once again. (There is more to prakrutim yaanti Maamikaam but that is for a later discussion; see commentaries at http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse09-07.html)

Very sincerely V. Laxmanan May 7, 2012

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RjgbE4n36M/TQlSc4T3QRI/AAAAAAAAEu8/bc-MTJNmc4w/s1600/bg-12-001Page 56 of 57

wallpaper_big2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://divyascookingjourney.blogspot.com/2010/12/gitajayanti-bhagavad-geetajayanthi.html&h=768&w=1024&sz=250&tbnid=l3J0pqOKexA6TM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=131 &prev=/search%3Fq%3Dkrishna%2Barjuna%2Bgita%2Bpictures%26tbm%3Disch%26t bo%3Du&zoom=1&q=krishna+arjuna+gita+pictures&docid=FOqlHIvHpnGdQM&hl=en& sa=X&ei=H72nT7WlOcXw0gHP152fBQ&ved=0CGEQ9QEwCA&dur=391

The mighty Pandava prince, Arjuna, surrenders to Krishna at the commencement of the Mahabharata war and refuses to fight, being overcome with false delusions and misplaced affections and compassion for his friends, relatives, and elders.
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