Looking at neutron stars

I see they have a banquet laid on, oh for the high life

By the way, I'll be at this meeting the week after next. Seems I'll have to brush up on my particle physics...

If you get a chance to chat with Max (or Scott), ask him when he thinks the Year 2 WMAP results will be published (and what's holding them up, specifically?)!

David says that "they're trying to get it right". There won't technically be a 2-year release, just a "second" release. They're still not sure when it will be.

A 'massaged' version? I certainly hope not. That would not be good for any model. I can't resist asking, turbo, are you aware the first year data has been analyzed for, and no seasonal effects were found? - at least according to 'mainstream' researchers. References available upon request.

There are anisoptropies on multiple levels (monopole, dipole, etc, you know the drill), and I just want to know if the anisotropies in WMAP₂ map against the sky with a 1-to-1 correspondence with those observed in WMAP₁. Because of the mysterious delay in the release of the year 2 data, I have become suspicious that the anisotropies do not overlay smoothly with year 1. If this is true, the CMB cannot be the echo of the Big Bang, and that would be Big News.

It would also lay open the possibility that the temperature of the now-non-cosmological "Big Bang Echo" is actually the average temperature of the quantum vacuum fields. I know you're going to think I'm nuts (and you're not usually shy about telling me that)

... but this is where my ZPE model has led me. The release of WMAP₂ may provide a critical falsification to that ZPE model. After all, if our movements relative to the vacuum fields do not result in measurable effects, then the vacuum fields cannot be the semi-Machian reference frame that I believe them to be. I may be nuts, but at least my model makes a prediction (one of many actually) and can be falsified.

Perhaps, but a causal related explanation of how the average temperature of the quantum vacuum field is necessary. It is also necessary to explain how it has decreased over time. There are good observations that suggest a correlation between the CMB temperature and redshift.

This radiation, found in the form of microwaves, has been seized upon by proponents of the Big Bang Theory as proof of an initial catastrophic beginning—the “bang”—of our Universe. However, the temperature estimates of “space” were first published in 1896, even prior to George Gamow’s birth in 1904 (see Guillaume, 1896). C.E. Guillaume’s estimation was 5-6 K, and rather than blaming that temperature on some type of “Big Bang” explosion, he credited the stars belonging to our own galaxy.

...............

Speaking of the CMB radiation, Joseph Silk referred to the results as “the cornerstone of Big Bang cosmology” (1992, p. 741). There can be no doubt that there exists a cosmic electromagnetic radiation on the microwave order, and that its temperature correlation is approximately 3 K (technically 2.728 K; see Harrison, 2000, p. 394). This fact is not in dispute—verifiable data have been compiled from the numerous experiments that have been conducted. As David Berlinski observed: “The cosmic hum is real enough, and so, too, is the fact that the universe is bathed in background radiation” (1998, p. 30). The ground data have been collected using the Caltech radio millimeter interferometer and the Owens Valley Array. Low-atmosphere instruments also have recorded CMB radiation using two balloon flights: MAXIMA (which, in 1998, flew at a height of approximately 24.5 miles for one night over Texas) and BOOMERANG (which, in 1998, flew at a height of around 23.5 miles for ten days over Antarctica), as well as from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) satellite missions by NASA [see Figure 4] (Peterson, 1990; Flam, 1992; Musser, 2000).

What is in dispute is the explanation for the phenomenon. The late Sir Arthur Eddington—in his book, The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926)—already had provided an accurate explanation for this temperature found in space. In the book’s last chapter (“Diffuse Matter in Space”), he discussed the temperature in space. In Eddington’s estimation, this phenomenon was not due to some ancient explosion, but rather was simply the background radiation from all of the heat sources that occupy the Universe. He calculated the minimum temperature to which any particular body in space would cool, given the fact that such bodies constantly are immersed in the radiation of distant starlight. With no adjustable parameters, he obtained a value of 3.18 K (later refined to 2.8)—essentially the same as the observed “background” radiation that is known to exist today.

In 1933, German scientist Erhard Regener showed that the intensity of the radiation coming from the plane of the Milky Way was essentially the same as that coming from a plane normal to it. He obtained a value of 2.8 K, which he felt would be the temperature characteristic of intergalactic space (Regener, 1933). His prediction came more than thirty years before Penzias and Wilson’s discovery of the cosmic microwave background. The radiation that Big Bang theorists predicted was supposed to be much hotter than what was actually discovered. Gamow started his prediction at 5 K, and just a few years before Penzias and Wilson’s discovery, suggested that it should be 50 K (see Alpher and Herman, 1949; Gamow, 1961).

Quantify your predictions. It is not sufficient to say they will not precisely agree with existing models. I predict the Preakness will not finish according to the betting line. Do you see a problem if I claim the odds of them finishing in the actual order, after the race is over, are fantastically improbable? That is what Arp does, in my opinion.