[SOLVED] any comments on astro-ph/0509230

[melroysoares@hotmail.com]

the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
extraordinary.
maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
this
makes sense
Melroy

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[jacob navia]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense
> Melroy
>

I am no expert but...

WHERE would the universe rotate ????????

I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.

Q.E.D.

Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

jacob

[Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply]

In article <1126838054.669209.8660@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.co m>,
melroysoares@hotmail.com writes:

> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this

I haven't yet read the paper. Here are some comments on the abstract:

> The negative pressure associated with
> a large vacuum energy prevents an event horizon from forming, thus
> resolving the long-standing puzzle as to why gravitational collapse
> always leads to an explosion.

Is this really a puzzle? First, the statement is illogical, for if
sometimes collapse did NOT lead to an explosion, then such cases would
probably not be noticed observationally. Second, with a supernova or
whatever the idea is that some of the energy generated by the collapse
powers an explosion whereas the stuff not carried away by the explosion
continues to collapse. Where is the puzzle here?

(If the authors are referring to THEORETICAL arguments, rather than
OBSERVATIONAL ones, as to collapse always resulting in an explosion,
then if the arguments are convincing then the theory must be well
understood, thus there can be no puzzle. If they are not convincing,
then the statement is wrong, and again there is no puzzle.)

> An indirect consequence is that the
> reverse process - creation of matter from vacuum energy - should also be
> possible. Indeed this process may be responsible for the "big bang". In
> this new cosmology the observable universe began as a fluctuation in an
> overall steady state universe.

Forget vacuum energy, forget the steady-state universe. ANY universe
can form as a fluctuation in another universe. Unlikely? Perhaps.
However, as Penrose has pointed out many times, the standard big bang
has such a low entropy that it is more likely that the entire observed
universe arose fully formed via a fluctuation than that it evolved from
such a low-entropy big bang, at least if standard physics is all that is
involved. (Penrose does believe in the big bang, but invokes the Weyl
curvature hypothesis to explain the low entropy.) Regardless of what
one thinks of Penrose's other ideas, I've never seen a good rebuttal to
this argument; the puzzle of the low-entropy big bang seems to be
glossed over by most people.

>From the paper on dark energy stars cited (which is also by one of the
authors):

> Event horizons and closed time-like curves cannot exist in the real
> world for the simple reason that they are inconsistent with quantum
> mechanics.

There is an assumption here. Admittedly a common one, but an
assumption. Everyone knows that QM and GR conflict. The assumption is
that QM is absolutely true and that GR must be modified. Why not the
reverse? (Again, Penrose has championed this view, and provided at
least some plausibility arguments for it.)

[Spud]

melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
> whether any of this makes sense
> Melroy

The "repulsive" force of gravity would have to be present and
observable in some area of the universe. Not mentioned in the paper.

Spud

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <432c93e9$0$7844$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
>> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
>> extraordinary.
>> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
>> this makes sense
>> Melroy
>>
>
>I am no expert but...
>
>WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
>I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have
>a limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be
>measured. Then the universe would not be the universe but a part
>of it, since it would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
>Q.E.D.
>
>Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.
>
>But I am happy that it does not rotate, of course :-)

There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
--
Boycott Yahoo!
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia DOT fsnet DOT co DOT co DOT uk is welcome.

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply]

In sci.astro.research melroysoares@hotmail.com wrote:
[[about Chapline's astro-ph/0509230]]
> the title does look intriguing. at least the claims are very
> extraordinary.
> maybe the GR experts on this forum can shed light on whether any of
> this
> makes sense

I would describe Chapline's work as "highly speculative", to say the
least.

Lubos Motol has written a strong critique of Chapline's work at
http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/03/chapline-black-holes-dont-exist.html
Apart from the many technical points where Chapline is way out on
some pretty thin ice, I found it remarkable that Chapline claims that
negative heat capacity is impossible. (It's actually ubiquituous in
large-N Newtonian N-body self-gravitating systems, eg globular clusters
and suchlike.)

This passage (of Motol's, reporting on a Chapline seminar at MIT)
# Someone asked whether Chapline's new picture of the black hole also
# requires one to alter the membrane paradigm by Kip Thorne, in which the
# horizon is viewed as a superconducting membrane, and the answer was that
# the speaker did not know what the paradigm was.
suggests that Chapline is seriusly uninformed about GR -- Thorne's
"membrane paradigm" is a _very_ standard concept in GR, and there's
a well-known textbook on it by Thorn, Price, and MacDonald, which
I'd expect any serious researcher to at least be aware of.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg -- remove -animal to reply" <jthorn@aei.mpg-zebra.de>
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut),
Golm, Germany, "Old Europe" http://www.aei.mpg.de/~jthorn/home.html
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[tessel@um.bot]

On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, jacob navia asked:

> WHERE would the universe rotate ????????
>
> I mean the universe is everything. To rotate it would have to have a
> limit, and an enclosing body where this "rotation" could be measured.
> Then the universe would not be the universe but a part of it, since it
> would be enclosed in a bigger body.
>
> Rotation makes just NO SENSE when applied to the universe, excuse me.

Well, it depends upon what you mean by "rotation". There are in fact
various exact solutions to the EFE which are often called "rotating
cosmological models". Typically, these are Lorentzian spacetimes filled
with configurations of dust which really are "rotating" in one or more
mathematically precise senses of the word.

The most basic sense in which matter can be said to be "rotating" in
curved spacetimes is of course a -local- notion. (It is always easier to
formulate local than global notions!) To wit, in exact dust solutions
which exhibit nonzero "vorticity", the world lines of the dust particles
twist about one another in the same way as particles in an ordinary fluid
can exhibit nonzero "vorticity". Think of inserting a small paddle wheel
with an axis comoving with a bit of fluid; if the wheel turns, then the
fluid exhibits vorticity.

A Riemannian analog might also help: if you are familiar with the Hopf
fibration, the Hopf circles form a geodesic congruence which exhibits
nonzero vorticity tensor but zero shear tensor and expansion scalar, which
is typical of -rigid rotation- in this local sense: pairs of Hopf circles
do twist about one another, but each pair maintains constant distance.

(Most graduate level gtr books discuss expansion, shear, and vorticity.)

In some "rotating models", the dust particles do exhibit a -global-
rotation about a particular axis of symmetry. The simplest example is
probably the van Stockum dust, which exhibits cylindrical symmetry, as
shown by its three dimensional abelian isometry group, and in which the
axis of symmetry is -not- a curvature singularity. In these models, after
sufficient observations, measurements, and discussion, all observers will
agree that some dust particles lie on a genuine axis of global rotation
and others do not.

In other "rotating models", there is -no- such global rotation. The
simplest example is probably the Goedel lambdadust, which exhibits a kind
of "local cylindrical symmetry", but which is nonetheless a homogeneous
spacetime with a five dimensional isometry group (and isotropy subgroup
admitting rotating about a particular "axis" through each observer's
location).

Just to be clear: the dust particles are nonspinning, and our observer is
nonspinning in the sense that he carries a gryoscope and can verify that
its spin axis does not precess, as would happen if he were riding on say a
spinning turntable type ride in an amusement park. But if he looks out,
he literally sees the other dust particles "rigidly rotating" about a
certain axis through his own location. (The local notion of rigid
rotation goes by the slogan "zero shear and expansion, but nonzero
vorticity", which again can be justified by humble and familiar examples
like rotating turntables.)

You might protest: what happens when omega r approaches the speed of
light? This would indeed be a problem if we imagined a very tenuous dust
modeled as whirling test particles rotating about a symmetry axis in
Minkowski vacuum (flat spacetime), but we are dealing here with a -curved-
spacetime, so Einstein's equation can and does evade this problem in a
perhaps surprising and subtle way: time travel! Nothing local is anywhere
strange about the Goedel lambdadust, but globally it has strange
properties indeed--- including CTCs through every event. It is said that
Goedel was fascinated by this particular property of his solution. (The
van Stockum dust also exhibits CTCs, as van Stockum pointed out.)

In addition to these two highly idealized models, Wainwright and others
have constructed rotating cosmological models based upon various Bianchi
groups, including dust models with -compact- spatial hyperslices, which
are based on the full rotation group, SO(3). Some of these are
perturbations of the FRW models, and model pretty much a standard Big Bang
scenario, but including some (possibly very small) rotation. So these
have a chance of being "realistic", and I am pretty sure that at least
some examples have no CTCs or other objectionable global features.

Not suprisingly, there are known (small) upper limits from observations
of the maximal possible rotation in our own universe.

It should perhaps be added that many interesting -vacuum solutions-
exhibit a kind of "local trace" of the fact that they have been produced
by -rotating sources-. Indeed, we should expect that any vacuum solution
modeling the exterior field produced by some kind of rotating and isolated
object, such as the Kerr solution or other asymptotically flat Ernst
vacuums, should exhibit "frame dragging" and various effects which reflect
the properties of the source of the field (not just a mass-energy
distribution, but a momentum distribution as well). Ciufolini and Wheeler
have pointed out that a nonzero Chern-Pontryagin invariant

R_(abcd) *R^(abcd)

indicates that the source of the field is rotating. For example, in the
Kerr vacuums this is nonzero -except- in the special case of the
Schwarzschild solution (modeling the field produced by a static
spherically symmetric object). This kind of "local trace" shows up in
phenomena like Lense-Thirring precession of gyroscopes, extra terms in
light bending formulae, "gravitomagnetic" deflections of test particle
motion (analogous to the effect of a magnetic field in the Lorentz force
formula), and (in principle) very tiny spin-spin forces on -spinning- test
particles.

In addition, some gravitational plane waves, such as the circularly
polarized monochromatic sinusoidal plane wave (type EK11), exhibit
"rotational" properties which are quite reminiscent of the Goedel
lambdadust. This is another homogeneous spacetime, with a six dimensional
isometry group.

These concepts are not very easy to discuss without pictures and
computations with simple examples, and in fact there has been considerable
confusion by nonspecialists (and even specialists) over the possible
meanings of "rotation" in curved spacetimes and the question of whether
these models contradict or support the vague proposal of Ernst Mach that
the -local definition- of "inertial motion" should somehow be tied to a
suitable -weighted average- of the mass and momentum of all the matter in
the (observable) universe. Of course this weighting should be by
"reciprocal of distance"--- aye, there's the rub: what distance? Still,
Einstein and many followers have been transfixed by Mach's vision--- no
pun intended.

See angular versus linear momentum and the duality between angle and
distance which was mentioned in my recent post on Kleinian geometries for
some abstract motivation for attempts to realize some kind of Mach
principle in metric theories of gravitation.

"T. Essel" (somewhere in cyberspace)

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[jacob navia]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?

There are other conceptual problems.
Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
spot.

What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
one sentence (p 182) about this:

"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.






There is also the
talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)

"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "

I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
there will be never any data to support it!

Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
an absurdity.

jacob

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>,
jacob navia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero.

This is intuitively obvious, so it should come as no surprise that
it's not true.

In general relativity, there are solutions to the Einstein field
equation that describe a Universe that is rotating but that has
no center. Specifically, there are homogeneous (but not
isotropic) cosmological models in which every point can
equally well be regarded as the center of rotation.

Remember when you first learned about the expansion of the Universe?
Back then, it probably seemed completely obvious that you couldn't
have expansion without having a center away from which everything was
expanding. After a while, you probably learned enough to get used to
the idea of expansion without a center. Most people just haven't
spent enough time thinking about rotating cosmological models to get
used to the idea of rotation without a center.

As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a Universe:
observations give a very strict upper limit on the rotation rate. But
such a Universe is theoretically possible, so it's a valid and
interesting question to ask why we don't live in one.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message <4330052f$0$27407$8fcfb975@news.wanadoo.fr>, jacob navia
<jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> writes
>Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
>> There's no problem with the idea of the universe rotating, and according
>> to George Smoot in "Wrinkles in Time" you don't have to ask "relative to
>> what ?" (no, I don't understand that. I'm no expert either :-)
>> Godel found that a rotating universe allows time travel.
>> And while COBE found evidence that the universe doesn't rotate, didn't
>> someone look at asymmetries in galactic magnetic fields and claimed that
>> it does, or at least a very large part of the observable universe does?
>
>There are other conceptual problems.
>Rotation implies a center where the rotation is zero. The Universe
>would have to have a center, what would make some point in the
>universe VERY special and easy to spot... Everything in a rotating
>body points to its center of rotation. It is a point that is easy to
>spot.
>
>What the book of Smoot is concerned ("Wrinkles in Time") I found only
>one sentence (p 182) about this:
>
>"Also, the absence of rotation of the universe, which we noted during
>our U2 observations, becomes less of a puzzle in an inflationary
>universe". Strangely, in the chapter about the U2 observations he
>writes about a lot of things (The U2 pilots, Lima in Peru, etc etc) but
>I did not find anything about the rotation of the universe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> There is also the
>talk of Mrs Rubin, that held a conference in december
>1950 about "The rotation of the universe". I cite Smoot again (page 143)
>
>"Her talk had originally been titled "Rotation of the Universe" but the
>meeting organizer thought that sounded odd, and so he had changed it to
>"Rotation of the Metagalaxy". "
>
>I would share the feeling of the meeting organizer. A "rotating"
>universe is completely ridiculous. And note that there is a HUGE
>difference between a "rotating universe" and a "very large part of
>the observable universe". I am ready to accept the second if there is
>data supporting that. But the first is just NONSENSE, and I am sure
>there will be never any data to support it!
>
>Nowhere however, I find any mention of this elementary questions in the
>book of Smoot. He just writes that he doesn't have any data about the
>rotation without discussing in detail how could he even consider such
>an absurdity.

Au contraire :-)

Looking at my copy (ISBN 0316905089) there are two entries in the index,
pages 115 and 135. Page 115 is just about Kurt Godel's idea, but 135
says
"it began to be all too clear to us that the DMR data contained no hint
of rotation of the universe. This was a major surprise, because we can
see that everything within the universe is rotating - planets, stars,
and galaxies. I had convinced myself that the universe should be
rotating.... I knew that general relativity allowed rotation in spite of
the inevitable question: what does the universe rotate with respect to?
From our results, we calculated that if the universe does rotate, it
does so at lass than on hundred-millionth of a rotation in the last
billion years".

It's the most accessible account of this idea I found.

Also, I found a web page about the asymmetry
<http://www.rochester.edu/pr/releases/phys/borge.htm>, which was linked
from Daniel Fischer's Cosmic Mirror page
<http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/mirror41-50.html> (Item
"Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?") Rereading it, I see
they aren't saying that the universe is rotating but that it has a
preferred orientation, which is probably just as heretical :-)

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> In a Newtonian or
> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
> relativity as far as I can tell.
>
> What am I missing?

Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
axis, but does not depend on position at all.

Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
expansion, it has no preferred center.

Since the universe is not a rigid body there is no centrifugal force
keeping distances constant, you don't feel forces, you watch their
effect on moving objects.

It is simple geometry that a rotation about an axis is equal to a
translation composed with a rotation about a different axis.

It is true that rotation is absolute (in Newtonian mechanics and SR),
but the *center* of rotation is not. The only thing special about the
axis is that it is at rest.

If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
it look like.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> In a Newtonian or
> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
> relativity as far as I can tell.
>
> What am I missing?

Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
axis, but does not depend on position at all.

Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
expansion, it has no preferred center.

Since the universe is not a rigid body there is no centrifugal force
keeping distances constant, you don't feel forces, you watch their
effect on moving objects.

It is simple geometry that a rotation about an axis is equal to a
translation composed with a rotation about a different axis.

It is true that rotation is absolute (in Newtonian mechanics and SR),
but the *center* of rotation is not. The only thing special about the
axis is that it is at rest.

If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
it look like.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> In a Newtonian or
> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
> relativity as far as I can tell.
>
> What am I missing?

Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
axis, but does not depend on position at all.

Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
expansion, it has no preferred center.

Since the universe is not a rigid body there is no centrifugal force
keeping distances constant, you don't feel forces, you watch their
effect on moving objects.

It is simple geometry that a rotation about an axis is equal to a
translation composed with a rotation about a different axis.

It is true that rotation is absolute (in Newtonian mechanics and SR),
but the *center* of rotation is not. The only thing special about the
axis is that it is at rest.

If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
it look like.

Ralph Hartley

[Sergey Ivanenko]

> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would

Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

Sergey

[Sergey Ivanenko]

> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would

Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

Sergey

[Sergey Ivanenko]

> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would

Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

Sergey

[Sergey Ivanenko]

> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would

Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

Sergey

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <dh9l10$fpk$1@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> In a Newtonian or
>> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
>> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
>> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
>> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
>> relativity as far as I can tell.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
>Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
>"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
>axis, but does not depend on position at all.

You're right. My mistake. Forget Coriolis force, then.

>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>expansion, it has no preferred center.

I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
of us) are talking at cross purposes here. Here's what I'm saying.

Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
at rest relative to the rotating matter. So in a Newtonian
Universe filled with rotating matter, there is a detectable
axis.

>If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
>velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
>new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
>velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
>it look like.

I know this. I don't think that it contradicts what I was trying
to say before.

-Ted


--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <dh9l10$fpk$1@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> In a Newtonian or
>> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
>> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
>> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
>> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
>> relativity as far as I can tell.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
>Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
>"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
>axis, but does not depend on position at all.

You're right. My mistake. Forget Coriolis force, then.

>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>expansion, it has no preferred center.

I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
of us) are talking at cross purposes here. Here's what I'm saying.

Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
at rest relative to the rotating matter. So in a Newtonian
Universe filled with rotating matter, there is a detectable
axis.

>If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
>velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
>new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
>velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
>it look like.

I know this. I don't think that it contradicts what I was trying
to say before.

-Ted


--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <dh9l10$fpk$1@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> In a Newtonian or
>> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
>> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
>> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
>> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
>> relativity as far as I can tell.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
>Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
>"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
>axis, but does not depend on position at all.

You're right. My mistake. Forget Coriolis force, then.

>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>expansion, it has no preferred center.

I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
of us) are talking at cross purposes here. Here's what I'm saying.

Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
at rest relative to the rotating matter. So in a Newtonian
Universe filled with rotating matter, there is a detectable
axis.

>If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
>velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
>new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
>velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
>it look like.

I know this. I don't think that it contradicts what I was trying
to say before.

-Ted


--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <dh9l10$fpk$1@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> In a Newtonian or
>> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
>> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
>> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
>> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
>> relativity as far as I can tell.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
>Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
>"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
>axis, but does not depend on position at all.

You're right. My mistake. Forget Coriolis force, then.

>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>expansion, it has no preferred center.

I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
of us) are talking at cross purposes here. Here's what I'm saying.

Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
at rest relative to the rotating matter. So in a Newtonian
Universe filled with rotating matter, there is a detectable
axis.

>If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
>velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
>new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
>velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
>it look like.

I know this. I don't think that it contradicts what I was trying
to say before.

-Ted


--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <dh9l10$fpk$1@ra.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> In a Newtonian or
>> even special-relativistic Universe in which everything was rotating,
>> there would be a detectable axis of rotation: only things on the axis
>> would feel no centrifugal or coriolis forces. The idea of a rotating
>> Universe that's still homogeneous does seem to require general
>> relativity as far as I can tell.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
>Coriolis force is the same everywhere, it does not disappear on the
>"axis of rotation". It is zero for an object moving parallel to the
>axis, but does not depend on position at all.

You're right. My mistake. Forget Coriolis force, then.

>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>expansion, it has no preferred center.

I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
of us) are talking at cross purposes here. Here's what I'm saying.

Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
at rest relative to the rotating matter. So in a Newtonian
Universe filled with rotating matter, there is a detectable
axis.

>If you don't believe me, do the exercise. Write the equations for the
>velocity of a rotation about (0,0). Translate coordinates so that the
>new origin is (x_0,y_0). Change the reference frame (subtract the
>velocity at (x_0,y_0)) so that the new origin is stationary. What does
>it look like.

I know this. I don't think that it contradicts what I was trying
to say before.

-Ted


--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[tessel@um.bot]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Sergey Ivanenko wrote:

>> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would
>
> Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
> dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

OK, sounds like you are asking about Warren-Shepley type rotating
cosmological models which are spatially compact. Another keyword is
"Bianchi IX".

T. Essel

[tessel@um.bot]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Sergey Ivanenko wrote:

>> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would
>
> Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
> dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

OK, sounds like you are asking about Warren-Shepley type rotating
cosmological models which are spatially compact. Another keyword is
"Bianchi IX".

T. Essel

[tessel@um.bot]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Sergey Ivanenko wrote:

>> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would
>
> Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
> dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

OK, sounds like you are asking about Warren-Shepley type rotating
cosmological models which are spatially compact. Another keyword is
"Bianchi IX".

T. Essel

[tessel@um.bot]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Sergey Ivanenko wrote:

>> What about this kind of rotation: if universe was a 4D sphere, would
>
> Sorry, what I really meant is S^3, i.e. sphere in R^4, where all four
> dimensions are spatial (do not consider time).

OK, sounds like you are asking about Warren-Shepley type rotating
cosmological models which are spatially compact. Another keyword is
"Bianchi IX".

T. Essel

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[Ralph Hartley]

ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>
> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.

Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.

At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
universe.

> Imagine a Newtonian Universe filled with rotating matter. An
> observer sitting on the axis, at rest with respect to the matter,
> will be in an inertial reference frame. No force will be required
> to keep him at rest with respect to the matter. An observer at any
> other point would have to move non-inertially to remain
> at rest relative to the rotating matter.

Since no force is acting on the matter, no force is required to remain
at rest relative to the matter. Regardless of where the observer is.

There is no reason that the universe as a whole can't rotate, but it
looks like it doesn't.

Ralph Hartley

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <433C2B12.3030909@aic.nrl.navy.mil>,
Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu wrote:
>> Ralph Hartley <hartley@aic.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:
>>>Centrifical force would me manifested as an acceleration away from the
>>>axis, proportional to distance from the axis. Like any universal
>>>expansion, it has no preferred center.
>>
>> I think that we (either you and I, or Martin Hardcastle and I, or all
>> of us) are talking at cross purposes here.
>
>Perhaps so. Are you sure you are not imagining the universe rotating as
>a rigid object? It can't do that. A rigid object does have a special
>axis on which acceleration is zero, which passes through it's center of
>gravity. It is the acceleration that makes the axis of a rigid body special.
>
>At a particular instant a universe can have the same velocity field as a
>rotating rigid body, but the accelerations are different (zero
>everywhere). At earlier and later times everything will be farther
>apart in the plane of rotation. A Newtonian rotating universe is not
>uniform in time, there is a unique time when there is no radial velocity
>and the angular rotation rate is maximal, but neither is an expanding
>universe.

You're right, and I'm wrong. I concede utterly.

Unlike many of my posts to these newsgroups, where I'm near the
edge of areas I understand, this was supposed to be a topic
I understand well, so I'm more than usually embarrassed to have
screwed up on this. Thanks for straightening me out.

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[Michael C Price]

Ted:
> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
> live in one.

Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
a sort of de Broglie redshift? I guess this is what Smoot meant,
to answer Jacob's point from a previous post.

Cheers,
Michael C Price
----------------------------------------
http://mcp.longevity-report.com
http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]

[ebunn@lfa221051.richmond.edu]

In article <gTz5f.7332$cA4.5548@newsfe3-gui.ntli.net>,
Michael C Price <michaelEXCISESPAMprice917@tesco.net> wrote:
>Ted:
>> As others have pointed out, we don't seem to live in such a
>> [rotating] Universe: observations give a very strict upper limit
>> on the rotation rate. But such a Universe is theoretically possible,
>> so it's a valid and interesting question to ask why we don't
>> live in one.
>
>Wouldn't any angular momentum be damped by inflation,
>in the same way that other momenta are damped by inflation;
>a sort of de Broglie redshift?

Absolutely. If inflation happened, then it provides an answer to the
question of why the Universe is not observed to be rotating, just as
you say.

If you're not convinced that inflation happened, though, then
you might still think the question "Why isn't the Universe rotating?"
is one that needs an answer. (Then again, you might not: you
might be perfectly content to say "Initial conditions!" and be done
with it. It's a matter of taste.)

-Ted

--
[E-mail me at name@domain.edu, as opposed to name@machine.domain.edu.]