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THE EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE IS NOT ACCELERATING, BUT DECELERATING

Dino Bruniera
Treviso (Italy)
e-mail:
dino.bruniera@gmail.com 

ABSTRACT

Light is composed of electromagnetic waves, which therefore need a medium to manifest themselves, so its speed can be isotropic only relative to the medium and not also relative to celestial objects, including the Earth, which move in the medium.
Physicists have devised various experiments to demonstrate that the speed of light is not isotropic relative to the Earth, but without success. To justify this negative result, some physicists have hypothesized that all celestial objects, as a function of their speed relative to the medium, undergo a dilation of time and a contraction of length in the direction of motion, making the speed of light appear to be isotropic even if in reality it is not, so that said isotropy would be only apparent.
Instead, I was able to demonstrate that the speed of light is not isotropic relative to the Earth, through a thought experiment based on the CMBR, which also passed peer review, and thus I truly demonstrated that this isotropy is only apparent.
However, the scientific community decided to justify the redshift of celestial objects based on this isotropy, but obtained celestial distances of up to 15,000 billion light years, which are impossible. But instead of revising its decision, it justified the redshift as the scale factor of the expansion of the Universe.
About thirty years ago, celestial objects were observed with a greater brightness distance than expected based on the redshift, but the scientific community has not yet given up and has justified this greater distance with an acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. While this greater distance only demonstrates that the redshift does not indicate the scale factor of the expansion of the Universe.
Instead, I claim that the speed of light is isotropic only relative to the medium in which it manifests itself and I have considered the redshift as an indicator of the speed of the Earth's go away from the emitter, and I have obtained reasonable speeds and distances, compatible with observations. Furthermore, it turns out that the expansion of the Universe is decelerating, thus easily explaining the arrival on Earth of the CMBR and also the value of its redshift. To verify whether the expansion of the Universe is decelerating or accelerating, I proposed to observe the redshift of a distant celestial object, in time: if it were increasing, it would be accelerating, otherwise decelerating.
 

Keywords:
CMB, CMBR, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, dipole anisotropy, General Relativity, speed of light, photons, Cosmological Redshift, accelerate expansion decelerating expansion

 

INDEX 

1. Introduction 

2. The speed of light can only be truly isotropic relative to the medium in which it manifests itself
2.1 Demonstration using the CMBR
2.2 Demonstration through thought experiments based on CMBR
2.3 Conclusions

3. Cosmological Redshift indicates the speed of move away location of the receiver
3.1 Demonstration by thought experiments
3.2 Demonstration by a realistic example

4. The expansion of the Universe is decelerating
4.1 Demonstration by apparent brightness
4.2 Explanation of the arrival of the CMBR on Earth
4.3 Verification by observations

5. Final conclusions

References


ABBREVIATIONS 

SC   Scientific Community
CR   Cosmological Redshift
CMBR Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

 

1. INTRODUCTION 

Light is composed of electromagnetic waves that therefore need a medium to manifest themselves. Therefore, its speed can be isotropic only relative to the medium, like sound relative to air, and not also relative to celestial objects, including the Earth, that move in the medium.
Physicists at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, devised a series of experiments to detect the motion of the Earth relative to the medium, including those of Michelson Morley (1887), Kennedy Thorndike (1932), Ives Stillwell (1939), but without ever succeeding, because the speed of light was found to be isotropic relative to the Earth.
To justify these negative results, some physicists have hypothesized that all objects, as a function of their speed relative to the medium, undergo a time dilation and a length contraction in the direction of motion, making the speed of light appear isotropic even if in reality it is not, so that said isotropy would be only apparent.
Instead, I was able to demonstrate that the speed of light is not isotropic with respect to the Earth, through a thought experiment based on the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), which I exposed in chapter 2 and also in a peer-reviewed article (1), and thus I truly demonstrated that this isotropy is only apparent.
However, if by making calculations based on appearances, one obtains correct results, it is justifiable to do so, because it is much simpler to consider the Earth stationary and all other celestial objects in motion, than to also consider the Earth in motion relative to a medium. Indeed, in the case of the GPS system, the impossibility of knowing the precise speed of the Earth relative to the medium, does not allow for obtaining precise results and therefore for it to work. Instead, it works precisely by considering the Earth stationary and the speed of light isotropic relative to the Earth, even if in reality it is only apparently isotropic. Therefore, the fact that the GPS system works even if the speed of light is not really isotropic relative to the Earth, could be considered as an aid from nature that man has managed to use. But even in General Relativity, calculations have been made based on appearances, obtaining correct results.
However, this does not mean that one can rely on appearance in all cases and, above all, also in the case of calculating the speed and distances of celestial objects as a function of the Cosmological Redshift (CR), especially after they have been found to be unreasonable and incompatible with observations. Instead, the Scientific Community (SC) has always relied on appearance and therefore considered the speed of light isotropic relative to the Earth, so it considered the Earth stationary and all other celestial objects in motion relative to it. Therefore, to calculate the speed of the celestial objects' move away, it applied the formula of the Doppler effect with the receiver stationary and the emitter in motion, that is:

speed = z • c, where z represents the CR. 

But when the CMBR was detected, which has a CR of about 1,100, the SC obtained extreme velocities (1,100 times c), and applying Hubble's law (2) obtained distances of 15,000 billion light years, which are impossible, as they should have been traveled in less than 14 billion years.
But the SC, instead of reconsidering its decision to rely on appearance, decided to consider the CR as the scale factor of the expansion of the Universe. But about thirty years ago it was discovered that for the most distant celestial objects, the distance based on apparent brightness, which is a real indicator of distance, is greater than that based on CR.
But even in this case the SC did not want to review its decisions, but justified this incompatibility with an accelerating expanding Universe.
But if the current observed distance is greater than the expected one, it means that the expansion of space was different from that based on the CR and that, therefore, it does not indicate the scale factor of the expansion of the Universe.
So the deduction that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, is wrong, because it is based on a wrong interpretation of the CR.
Instead, as I demonstrated in chapter 3, considering the speed of light isotropic only relative to the medium, the CR indicates the speed of move away (due to the expansion of space) of the location of space (considered as the medium in which light manifests itself) where a celestial object received the photon, relative to the location where another celestial object emitted it. And so I obtained reasonable speeds and distances and without problems of compatibility with the apparent brightness of distant celestial objects.
Furthermore, in chapter 4 I demonstrated that the fact that the distance based on the apparent luminosity is greater than that based on the CR, demonstrates that the expansion of the Universe is decelerating and, in this way, I also easily justified the arrival on Earth of the CMBR and the value of its CR.
To prove that the expansion is decelerating, I proposed observing the redshift of a same celestial object over time: if it decreases, it would be proven that the expansion of the Universe is decelerating. 

 

2. THE SPEED OF LIGHT CAN ONLY BE TRULY ISOTROPIC RELATIVE TO THE MEDIUM IN WHICH IT MANIFESTS ITSELF 

2.1 Demonstration using the CMBR 

According to the Big Bang theory (4), the Universe is expanding and about 380,000 years after the beginning of its expansion, the space became transparent to radiation, so a huge amount of photons  began to spread freely from any location of space. So that, unlike the other photons, which are emitted by celestial objects in motion relative to the space, it is as if they had been emitted from the space itself. Therefore, since the wave frequency of the photons is isotropic only towards the emitter, they are the only photons whose wave frequency is isotropic towards the space.
The photons started from different locations of the Universe and traveled in random directions,
so some of them travelled towards the location where the Earth would have been in the future.
Since then, these photons, which are referred to as CMBR (5), have continued to arrive on the Earth, starting with those who left from the closest locations and then gradually, with those who left from the furthest locations.
Due to the expansion of space, their wavelength upon arrival on Earth is increased, and therefore their frequency is reduced, by about 1,100 times compared to the starting one, and is the same for all photons, except for some very slight anisotropies of the order of one part in 100,000.
In addition to these anisotropies, which are intrinsic in nature for CMBR, it has been detected a particular anisotropy of about one part in 1,000, which depends on the direction of the CMBR’s provenance and that is due to the motion of the Earth, of about 370 km/s relative to a particular location in which this anisotropy, called "dipole anisotropy" (6), would not be detected.
Hence in that location it would appear that the wave frequency of the photons of the CMBR would be isotropic, more precisely, would not be affected by the dipole anisotropy. But their speed would also be isotropic, both because the above mentioned experiments demonstrated that the speed of photons of light is isotropic wherever it is measured, and because it is the speed relative to the medium in which the photons manifest themselves.
Therefore, in this location both the speed and the wave frequency of the photons of the CMBR would be isotropic and since, as I will demonstrate with the thought experiment exposed in the next paragraph, the speed of the CMBR can be isotropic only if its wave frequency is also isotropic, it is the only location where this speed can be truly isotropic.
That location can be only the one where the frequency of the CMBR is measured, i.e., the one where the Earth is transiting in the moment of measurement.
Therefore, as regards to the Earth, the speed of photons travelling on its surface is isotropic only relative to locations where the Earth is travelling and not even towards the Earth.
 

2.2  Demonstration through thought experiments based on CMBR  

Imagine the Universe as a big rubber ball on whose surface many points are marked, which represent the locations in space.
Now imagine CMBR photons like rows of cars, each of which represents a wave, that move on its surface at a constant speed, let's say 1 m/s. 

Then imagine the Earth as a pickup truck moving on the surface of the sphere, but at a speed much lower than 1 m/s, and let's assume that it is able to measure the speed of the cars towards it. Then it would detect that they approach it at different speeds depending on the direction, and knowing that their speed is isotropic relative to the point they are passing through, with adequate calculations it could determine their own speed relative to the point it is travelling through.
For example, if it measured the speed of only two cars coming one from behind and the other in front, relative to the direction of its motion, and these were respectively 0.9 and 1.1 m/s, the difference would be 0.2 m/s and its speed relative to that point would be half, i.e. 0.1 m/s.
But if the truck measured a speed of 1 m/s for both of the cars (which represents the results of the above mentioned experiments), it would mean that it doesn’t have adequate tools to detect the exact speed and not that the cars are really moving towards it at a speed of 1 m/s, as this is impossible.

And now let us imagine that in a certain point marked on the sphere, two rows of cars are passing through coming from opposite directions and with the cars in each line spaced 0.1 metre apart.
A truck positioned at that point, in one second would count 10 cars coming from one direction and 10 from the other, and would measure a speed of 1 m/s for each of them.
Therefore both the frequency of the cars and their speed would be isotropic.
Now, assuming that the truck moves at a speed of 0.1 m/s in one of the two directions, in one second it would count 11 cars coming from the direction in which it is moving, and 9 cars coming from the opposite direction. So it would detect a difference of two cars between the two directions of origin (the difference represents the dipole anisotropy of CMBR). And if it accurately measured the speed of the cars relative to itself, it would find that those coming from the forward direction would have a speed of 1.1 m/s, while those coming from behind would have a speed of 0.9 m/s.
Therefore, both the frequency and the speed of the cars would depend on the direction of origin and, therefore, would be anisotropic.
But if it measured their speed isotropic (1 m/s) and their frequency anisotropic (11 and 9), it would mean that one of the two measurements was incorrect, namely that of the speed as shown in the previous experiment.
In conclusion, it appears that the speed of the cars is really isotropic only relative to the point in which they are moving and not even towards the moving pickup truck.
And since the pickup truck represents the Earth and the cars the waves of the photons of the CMBR, and the laws of physics that apply to them naturally also apply to all other photons, including those of light, it means that the speed of light cannot be isotropic relative to the Earth. 
 

2.3 Conclusions 

From the above two demonstrations, I think it is clear that since the speed of photons of the CMBR can be isotropic only if their wave frequency is also isotropic, and that since from its dipole anisotropy it results that the wave frequency of photons of the CMBR is not isotropic relative to the Earth, not even their speed can be isotropic relative to the Earth. Therefore, since the laws of physics which apply to the photons of the CMBR also apply to all other photons, including those of light, this means that the speed of light cannot be isotropic relative to the Earth. 

 

3. COSMOLOGICAL REDSHIFT INDICATES THE SPEED OF MOVE AWAY LOCATION OF THE RECEIVER 

Below I will demonstrate that considering the expanding space as the medium in which light manifests itself, and therefore the only reference frame relative to which its speed can be really isotropic, the CR indicates the speed of move away, due to the expansion of space, of the location where the photons are received, compared to the location where they were emitted. 

3.1 Demonstration by thought experiments 

Let us imagine the expanding Universe as a large rubber sphere constantly inflating, with numerous points marked on its surface (identifying locations in the space).
Let us imagine a galaxy as a truck moving on the surface of the sphere, but remaining in the vicinity of a point.
Now let us imagine Earth as another truck also moving near another point.
Because of the expansion of the sphere, the two points above move away from one another at a certain speed. Consequently the two trucks move away from one another at the same speed (to be precise, more or less a little bit, depending on their motion relative to their points, but for simplicity I will ignore it from now on).  

Now let us imagine photons as some rows of cars moving on the surface of the sphere at constant speed, e.g. 1 m/s.
We will now observe that, due to the expansion of the sphere’s surface, the points move away from one another, therefore each car will move at a speed of 1 m/s relative to the point over which it passes, but at a different speed compared to the other points marked on the sphere surface.
Now imagine that in a second a row of 10 cars, spaced 0.1 meters apart, leaves the point of the galaxy pickup truck and goes towards the point of Earth pickup truck. At the departure it will have a speed of 1 m/s relative to the point galaxy, but lower relative to the point Earth, as this is moving away due to the expansion of the surface of the sphere.
But during the journey the row will increase its speed more and more relative to the point galaxy, due to the continuous increase in the distance between the point on which it will be passing (always at 1 m/s) and the point galaxy. Finally it will arrive at the speed of 1 m/s relative to the point Earth, which will have a certain speed relative to the point galaxy. Therefore the row of cars will have a speed higher than 1 m/s, of said speed, relative to the point galaxy.
And how can this speed be found?
Just count how many cars arrive in a second.
For example, if 9 arrive, so 10% less than the starting frequency (10), it means that the point Earth is moving away at 0.1 m/s, i.e. 10% of 1 m/s (it corresponds to the CR).

 

3.2  Demonstration by a realistic example 

The space is expanding at the same rate everywhere in the Universe. Therefore any location move away from any other location at a speed that depends on distance.
In practice any location in the Universe may be considered as its centre because any other location moves away from it and also because photons that move through it have the same speed, i.e. about 300,000 km/s, in all directions.
However, if the photons move at a speed of about 300,000 km/s relative to the locations they are passing through, and those locations move increasingly faster from their location of emission, even photons move increasingly faster relative to their location of emission.
For example the photons emitted by a galaxy and going towards the Earth, at a the emission have a speed of about 300,000 km/s relative to the galaxy’s location, but far smaller relative to the Earth’s location, because it is moving away from the galaxy’s location.
But as the photons move towards the Earth’s location, through locations that move increasingly away from the galaxy’s location, the photons move at an increasingly speed relative to the Earth’s location, reaching it at about 300,000 km/s relative to it and 300,000 km/s plus the increase in speed, compared to the galaxy’s location.
This increase in speed corresponds to the speed of the receiving location relative to the sending location and is calculated using the Doppler effect formulas which consider the receiver in motion and the emitter motionless, i.e.:

vr = c - c / (1 + z)

Where vᵣ represent the speed of the receiving location. 

Based on this formula, whatever the value of the CR, the speed of move away of the receiver from the emitter can never exceed that of light. 

For precision, I would like to point out that in addition to the CR, the z factor is also composed of the redshifts due to the motions of the emitting and receiving objects, relative to their respective locations, which if the redshift values are high, are not very relevant. 

For example, a redshift of 0.59 measured on the Earth, indicates that Earth moves away from the galaxy at a speed of 111,321 km/s.

vr = 300,000 - 300,000 / (1 + 0,59) = 111,321

To demonstrate that this speed is realistic, I present below a method for finding the speed of the Earth's location relative to the galaxy one, based on the thought experiment set forth in paragraph 3.1.
Assuming that a photon is made up of 300,000 waves, which are emitted in one second, this means that each wave will be 1 km long.
Well, if upon arrival it will have a redshift of 0.59, this means that its length will have become 1.59 km. This means that fewer waves per second will arrive at the arrival location, since in 300,000 km there will be:

300,000 : 1.59 = 188,679 waves

and that is: 

300,000 – 188,679 = 111,321 less waves than those issued. 

Which means, according to the thought experiments showed in the previous paragraph, that the location of the Earth is moving away at the speed of 111.321 km/s from the location from which they started.
This corresponds to the result found by applying the Doppler effect formula set out above, which therefore proves to be realistic. And it doesn't matter why the Earth is moving away, that is, due to its own motion or to the expansion of the space between it and the transmitter, because the formula, and therefore the result, does not change. 

 

4. THE EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE IS DECELERATING 

4.1 Demonstration by apparent brightness 

As I demonstrated in chapter 3, the CR indicates the speed of the Earth's move away from the emitter, and observations also show that the higher the CR, the further away the emitter.
If the speed of the Earth's move away from the emitters, which is due to the expansion of space, had always been the same over time, the CR would be directly proportional to the distance of the emitters based on their apparent luminosity, that is, to the observed distance.
Instead, from observations of the apparent brightness of type Ia supernovae, it appears that their distance increases more than proportionally with respect to the CR. This means that the average velocity of the move away from these supernovae has been greater than the current one and, therefore, that in the past the expansion speed of the Universe was greater than now and, therefore, that the expansion of the Universe is decelerating.

 

4.2 Explanation of the arrival of the CMBR on Earth 

According to the Big Bang theory, about 380,000 years after the birth of the Universe, the CMBR photons began to propagate freely and a part of them traveled in the direction of the location where the Earth would be in the future.
During their journey, photons crossed locations which, due to space expansion, moved increasingly faster away from their starting locations and therefore increased their speed relative to said locations, until they reached the Earth’s location at the speed of light, but almost double compared to the locations of their starting locations.
This increase in speed, which corresponds to the speed of move away of the location of the Earth relative to the starting location of the CMBR, has also increased their redshift up to the values of about 1,100.
Therefore, currently, by applying the formula Doppler which sees the emitter at rest and the receiver in motion, i.e.: 

vr = c - c / (1 + z)

the speed of the Earth’s location relative to the starting locations of CMBR photons, is approximately circa 299,728 km/s: 

vr = 300,000 - 300,000 / (1 + 1,100) = 299,728

which therefore, despite the high value of the CR, is not higher than that of light.
But since about 14 billion years ago, that is, when the CMBR photons left, the Universe had not yet expanded much, the locations from which they left were relatively close to the location of the Earth. So how do you explain that despite having traveled at the speed of light for 14 billion years, they are only now arriving on Earth?
Here's how.

When the CMBR photons started to travel freely in space, the Earth was relatively close to the starting point of the CMBR photons, but it was moving away at a speed much higher than that of light, so over time it distanced these photons a lot. But then, due to the deceleration of the expansion of the Universe, it slowed down until it had a speed of move away lower than that of light, allowing the photons to reduce the distances and reach it and, therefore, also arrive on Earth. This explains why their redshift has a value from which a speed close to that of light results, as shown by the calculation above.
 

4.3 Verification by observations 

Below I propose some observations that could confirm, or deny, that my thesis is correct. In fact, according to my thesis, the CR indicates the speed at which the Earth is moving away from the celestial object that emitted the photons, therefore since this speed is decreasing, the redshift must also be decreasing.
So when observing the same celestial object over time, one should find that its photon density decreases and its redshift also decreases.
Verification could be possible by comparing current observations of certain celestial objects with those made in Hubble's time, i.e. about 100 years ago, as a very precise definition should not be necessary to establish just whether the CR is increasing or decreasing. But if they do not have sufficient definition for such verification, it should still be possible to carry it out in the coming years, thanks to the new Extremely Large Telescope (7), which among its objectives also has that of measuring the changes in the redshift of the same celestial object over time, while it would be sufficient to know only whether it is increasing or decreasing.

 

5. FINAL CONCLUSIONS 

In calculating the speed and distances of celestial objects, SC relied on the apparent isotropy of the speed of light relative to the Earth. In fact, it applied the formula of the Doppler effect with the observer stationary and the emitter in motion, for which when the redshift exceeds unity, the speed of move away exceeds that of light.
But when the CMBR was observed, which has a CR of 1,100, which gives distances of more than 15,000 billion light years, which are impossible since they would have been covered by the CMBR in less than 14 billion years, the SC decided to consider the CR as the scale factor of the expansion of space, that is, as an indicator of how much space has expanded from the departure of the photons until their arrival on Earth. But towards the end of the twentieth century, celestial objects were observed with an apparent brightness lower than that expected based on their CR and the SC justified this by stating that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. While this only proves that the CR cannot indicate the scale factor, so the justification that the expansion is accelerating is also not valid.
Instead, if we do the calculations based on my thesis to obtain the distances and velocities, we obtain reasonable values ​​that are compatible with observations and, furthermore, we obtain a Universe whose expansion is decelerating.

However, to verify that the expansion of the Universe is truly decelerating, I proposed to observe the redshift of individual celestial objects over time: if the expansion is decelerating it should decrease, otherwise it should increase.

 

RIFERIMENTI

1. The Second Postulate of Special Relativity is Incompatible with Observations
https://www.tsijournals.com/articles/the-second-postulate-of-special-relativity-is-incompatible-with-the-observations.pdf
2
. Hubble’s low
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law
3.
Accelerating expansion of the universe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe
4.
Big Bang theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
5. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background
6
. Dipole anisotropy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_anisotropy
7.
Extremely Large Telescope
https://elt.eso.org/science/cosmodm/