BBC Focus Magazine

[Thinker]

Apologies if this is has been published already. I did a quick search and couldn't see anything, but then I wasn't extensively thorough.

It seems a pretty plausable concept, however I'm not too hot on the maths so some of you may simply debunk this.

http://www.theexamineduniverse.org/

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well now, as someone who is ever eager to hear of anything that offers an alternative to the current big bang expanding universe theory I started reading this with great enthusiaum...... until that is I reached this rather alarming sentence. "This new information reveals that we live in a very large mirrored room or cave, with almost perfectly reflecting curved walls." Ok I like the idea of something different but this does rather stretch the imagination doesn't it? Plus the statement is rather assertive in its assumption that 'it is so' and not merely 'possibly so', which rings alarm bells with me straight away. I really hate it when anyone claims something is proven when it blatantly isn't!

However, I guess that given these supposed reflections would be of a universe very much younger than the one we live in now and arrive at our point of view within a timeframe that would suggest that the universe is more uniform for its age than it should be and also give the illusion that it is much bigger than it should be and subsequently fits with a good deal of what we observe, well then it could have some merits. But I'm struggling to concieve of what this stellar cavern might be part of ?........... I suppose if the fabric of this reflective space where made of some spongy material with 'universes' including ours, occupying various voids within that sponge, might help explain why so much of the universe appears to be missing?

I'm going to have to think about this. Anyone else care to have a go?

[Shadowwolf]

It is very much in the crank playbook to declare the current knowledge as wrong and so bad for being dogmatic about itself, and then go on to declare itself as an obvious truth.

However I have not looked and as far as the math is concerned, well I cannot really speak on that subject, not my forte, perhaps his Beigeness can help

[nemisis39]

how does it explain this then

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM78Q8LURE_index_0.html

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well Nemesis I suspect that such young galaxies would be the reflections of a younger universe but which appears to be much more distant than they actually are. But only in theory of course.

Then again we should also be able to see very old galaxies at the middle distance (and therefore closer to this supposed reflective wall) along with their twin images reflected in that wall and we should be able to see literally billions of these.

And to be honest I am not aware of any such phenomena.

[Healerman]

I'm with you on this one, Nemesis. Impossible to have objects that only exist at vast distances in this model.

I'm not sure if the author hasn't got his tongue so firmly planted in his cheek that he's beginning to look like a chipmunk...somewhat ovoid in shape, open at one end and shiny walls

IT'S A TEST TUBE

[Shadowwolf]

Just took a proper look at this hypotheses and I don’t think the current cosmological model will be finding itself troubled by this idea.

In reading the essay and looking at the background there are some warning flags being raised. To begin with Moser is an engineer, he is not a physicist, cosmologist or astronomer, and he apparently has no background in the field he speaks on though his brother is apparently an amateur astronomer. Not that there is anything wrong with engineers, however a lack of expert grounding in a field may lead the barely informed amateur to incorrect conclusions and mistakes. He is also apparently unfamiliar with academic presentation, given the lack of end or foot notes for his quotations so others may check what he claims. The quotations themselves seem primarily extracted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, suggesting that the bare bones info of a reference tome is a major source; encyclopedias are to the best of my knowledge, not exactly sound basis for scientific theories. Maybe I’m nitpicking or completely wrong here, but relying on an encyclopedia seems like the work of misguided amateurs. Nor is there much by way of evidence, I’m guessing the book will allegedly supply more, for a reasonable dollar tag.

He is also a peer review dodger. This is an extremely poor sign as end running peer review is usually the tactic of cranks who wish to avoid those armed with specific knowledge rejecting their precious inventions, when and if submitted to a relevant journal. It also conveniently absolves them of having to provide a proper level of evidence and work to back their claim. Basically if anyone wants their work considered in scientific academia then they work within that system, they don’t get to ignore it when it does not suit or bend to their preconceived notions. Alas this is so brief and light on work that it would probably be sent back before ever seeing a review panel it is that far from a properly conceived model. Worse yet, it’s a self published work, they spent their own money on getting it published by setting up their own publisher, MEC is Moser’s and all it publishes is his work. This is another crank trait, to give others and themselves the illusion that they have been published as though the act of printing alone lends an air of validity to whatever is being claimed. Unfortunately the content is little better.

As for his claim, it seems little more than paredolia and misconstruing out of context quotes such as, “…described by David Malin in his book "The Invisible Universe" as "a mirror to the Milky Way.” That and literally interpreting any mention of similarity by the Encyclopedia Britannica as meaning same as. He never appears to have actually looked, just read it there and made assumptions based on his preconceived notions along with some special interpretation of select celestial objects. In fact this use of the encyclopedia is a problem, you see he notes early on that in modern astronomy there is a surfeit of information. With this in mind he solves the quantity issue by ignoring most of it by utilising one general public reference tome and a National Geographic map; it’s not good to just ignore most of your info for sake of ease as you might just miss something. Then there are the example galaxies which look nothing like each other, though I suppose the excuse would be that they are reflections of a younger us, however even that falls flat. For instance Andromeda is our closest, most recent reflection, yet Andromeda has a trillion or so stars whereas we have 200 to 400 billion, and that’s a couple of hundred billion stars just gone missing. Or M87, twice the mass with a lot more than half of that mass in a truly supermassive blackhole that emits a massive jet, where did that go? Plus the reflections upon reflections that change the size of our galaxy up and down. Oh and a reflection line is wrong, slight tilt in one line in the expanded top view map image, so M83 is actually in the wrong place for a double reflection of us and Andromeda. That’s all his entire idea is based on, assertions in relation to a mere five galaxies that fit the desired agenda. That and apparently never once looking beyond bare visible light similarities of the galaxies themselves; from my admittedly limited perspective, rubbish.

Then of course what’s this mysterious wall that is just dropped in without a care? Sure is fantastic in being able to reflect just about every EM frequency from visible light to X-Rays and make it look like there is an object there when there is not. What material has the shiny reflective properties to reflect light and also manage X-Rays given that shiny mirrors don’t refelect X-Rays. Or how does this massive construct fail to exert any gravitational effect? Or what of the fact that the Milky Way and Andromeda are closing for potential impact, we going to just slap into the wall since it’s our reflection? But then there is this very illustrative gem from one of his sites,

This is a universe quite different from the continually expanding model we have been living with for the past eighty years. To do all this requires restructuring the universe. Fortunately, this can be done without harming any living beings. The process brings up the subjects of the roots of violence, death, reincarnation and the whole meaning of life. The Cookbook recognizes the sanctity and unity of all human beings. It does not preclude any of the major religious beliefs, but supplements them with a reinterpretation of what we see in the observed universe. It is written for persons of age 12 and above.

http://www.mecpublishing.com/index2.html

Crank.