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| View Larger Image | Big Bang Blasted
by Lyndon Ashmore
| | List Price: | $15.99 |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 418507 | | Studio: | BookSurge Publishing | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 306 | | Publication Date: | August 24, 2006 | | Publisher: | BookSurge Publishing |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The story of the expanding universe and how it was shown to be wrong! |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 7 reviews)
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Avoid: a void 
[In what follows I use (exp -10), for example, to signify "the preceding base to the minus tenth power", not to denote the e-based exponential function. I don't know otherwise how to write a numerical expression that will appear to make sense when published in an Amazon page.]
When I was a child I listened to Fred Hoyle's BBC conferences, and he became my idol. As a result, I had always a weakness for steady-state theory or its successors (Hoyle-Narlikar, etc.), and a vague hope that the Big Bang Scenario ("BBS") would in time be proved wrong. Now it has become almost a paradigm, and although I'm convinced, as I said in another review, that it's sprouting epicycles, I'm not a rabid opponent of it. I say this because this issue (the validity of the BBS) is becoming, or already became, an as intolerant and prejudice-laden field as evolution or string theory - or, as I realize as I grow older, almost any field of human knowledge except sometimes religion.
Well, in my opinion the present book is not going to contribute to the demise of the BBS. Why do I say this? In the first place, the reason Ashmore gives for acceptance of his theory is in my view invalid. Basically it's that the Hubble constant (H) equals an ad hoc combination of constants related to the electron. This isn't as readily perceived from this product as in the paper he wrote in 2003, of which the book is basically a very amplified version (hence the need for a lot of additional material, such as sometimes irrelevant or misleading historical fillers and disgressions such as short bios, comments on religion, the spice trade and the like). In that paper he had to acknowledge, if only implicitly, that the units of his 'Ashmore paradox', which is nothing more than an equality, do not square up: the lefthand side, H, has the dimension of '1/sec', that is, [sec (exp -1)], while the righthand side, 'hr/m', has the dimension of [sec (exp -4)]. He glosses over it saying that H equals "hr/m per cubic meter of space", which although grammatically correct means nothing at all, as if I were to assert that "I have a thought per cubic meter of space", or that "green ideas sleep furiously".
Why does he do that? Well, to lend more credibility to his contention that such a coincidence demonstrates that H is related in some way (his 'paradoxical' equality) to the parameters of the electron: "H ... is the electron in disguise" (page 8), and that this in turn demonstrates that the BBS is wrong, because "there is no way that the rate at which the Universe expands can be linked to the electron" (page 8). On this the book stands or falls. He provides a table to show that the astronomical data support this equality, and I believe that in this respect he is correct. But that proves exactly nothing as to the viability of his main tenet.
[Eddington, Dirac and other eminent scientists -most of them British- spent a good deal of their time worrying and speculating about a number of coincidences; the one I remember best being that at one time it seemed that the relation between the electrical and gravitational attraction force of the electron was the square root of the number of electrons, or protons, in the Universe: (10 exp 80). In their view, that said something important about the nature of physical reality]. So far, nothing has resulted from this, and many sinilar (there are a lot of coincidences), ideas.
What is relevant to Ashmore's thesis is {1} whether his 'theory' can adequately predict the value of H, using for that {2} a correct mechanism.
{1} he does in page 230 of the book and page 6 of his 2003 paper where, using an electron density in intergalactic space of 0.1/m³, he obtains a value of H = (0.41/sec) (10 exp -18) = 12 km/sec/Mpc, compared to an experimental value of (2.1±0.1)/sec (10 exp -18) = (64±3) km/sec/Mpc. You'll have to judge for yourself wheter this "agreement" is good enough for you (in the book he gives a "generally accepted" value fo H of 2.4 instead of 2.1±0.1). Maybe his gratuitous and absurd attack on "cosmologists [who] use the megaparsec ... in order to ... feel 'better' than anyone else" is due to the fact that the discrepancy between predicted and experimental values looks smaller to a layman when expressed in MKS-SI units than in Mpc.
The other feat he accomplishes in the book is to rederive the exponential 1929 Zwicky formula for the redshif as a function of distance. In page 238 he says "the data supports the predictions of the theory". Does it? Well ... let's go back to his 2003 paper. There we find the original graph (which is the same as the book's, and doesn't have any experimental values), and his comment:
QUOTE "Published statistical tests on redshift data show that the Hubble diagram is straight up to z = 0.1, goes nonlinear at z = 0.8, is quadratic at z = 2.8 - 3.6 and for redshifts above this, follows a non simple power law ([8,21,22,23]). However, it has recently been shown [24] that data from the Calan/Tololo Supernova survey can verify this exponential law with a value of H of 72 km/s per Mpc ie 1.13 hRe/Me per m3 (Ne = 0.57 m3) if the data is not 'corrected' for the relativistic effects of expansion first" UNQUOTE.
Let's see now, who is this [24]? Well, none other than QUOTE "Khaidarov, K. http:/bourabai.narod.ru/ /universum.htm" UNQUOTE! Now, I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to examine Mr. K.'s credentials nor his paper or site (which by the way I can't access: my Explorer returns a 404-type error), nor am I a cosmologist, or know Russian. But it seems to me that to assume ONE source saying ONE set of data can verify Zwicky's exponential law (it's not clear to me from the wording whether it refers to Ashmore's particular curve, or to the form of the funcional dependence, which is exponential) justifies writing that "the data supports the theory" is somewhat disingenuous. And how close is the fit? Because the value used for H in making the above statement (72 km/s per Mpc) doesn't coincide with the one predicted by Ashmore in his other formula (12 km/sec per Mpc, remember?).
What about the book in general? I rate it thus:
1) SCIENCE: one * or two **. The mechanism {2} it reproposes to explain the redshift might even be true, and besides it's nothing new. In his 1932 book "Gravitation" Eddington says of Zwicky's suggestion that it seems to have 'some problem with numbers', but doesn't qualify it as nonsense - I mention such an old book, which I inherited from my father and keep for sentimental reasons, because it was written in an age when the intellectual atmosphere was a little more tolerant, civilised and impartial, and also to give a feeling of the antiquity of the discussion. The five types of redshift explanation - Doppler, gravitational, cosmological, relativistic and energy transfer (one of this last group being Zwicky's 'tired light', which is not currently very much in favour because results do not square up with quantum "theory", although Ashmore, if he is indeed a solid-state physicist, should be very much familiar with it) have been known for a long time. The problems with the BBS that Ashmore outlines in Ch. 11 are all true, as are the problems that cropped up with inflation, and the more recent need for "dark energy", with its attendant incredible discrepancy between the [Einstein's?] required cosmological constant and the vacuum energy predicted by QT (although Ashmore doesn't mention this) . So, why the low rating?
Well, one might paraphrase and say that in the book what is good is not original, and what is original [Ashmore's paradox] is not good.
This might seem too harsh: after all, Ashmore retropredicts an H of the same order of magnitude as the experimental value, whereas in the BBS the value of H is a 'brute force' fact, and this has to be counted a significant merit. True, but Hoyle also retropredicted the exact temperature of the CMB, and by a mechanism that is not that of Ashmore. One of them (or both) must be wrong, and if it is Ashmore's, then his prediction for H is conceptually wrong, too, as it relies on the same type of explanation for the CMB and for H (all due to photon-electron cascades of interactions). And, faute de mieux, I'm biased in Hoyle's direction. Also, Ashmore offers an explanation for two phenomena, but not a complete theory, as do Hoyle & alia. Anyway, just in case, watch out for the Nobels in twenty years' time!
So for me the question of the science reduces to how well it is exposed, not to any disclosure of a significantly original contribution.
[In passing, I noted that some revs (and Ashmore himself, page 296) mention the 'fact' that some observation 'proves' redshift isn't associated with distance as a point against the BBS and for this theory. Keep in mind that Zwicky's (and Ashmore's) formulae are as related to distance as the BBS one. What they say that is different from the BBS is that redshift is not to be generally interpreted as a velocity. But if there really is a quasar undubitably associated with a galaxy but with vastly different redshift ( = recession velocity), that is a BIG problem not only for the BBS but -although of a different nature- also for 'tired light': why does light from two sources at the same distance and position tire differently? Are their photons different? Is there something surrounding the quasar that doesn'a affect the rest of the associated galaxy? Please complete your 'theory', gents! Ah, we don't really know what powers a quasar and exactly what fields surround it? Well ... would we be in danger of starting to sprout epycicles?
2) EXPOSITION: one *. Leaving aside the language used, the book is so dumbed down for (I suppose) the absolute layman as to be incoherent. Consider for example: "Cosmologists tend to prefer Friedmann's `curvature of space-time' as the driving force behind the expansion of the Universe rather than the Doppler effect ... as galaxies and Heavenly bodies have been found with speeds of the order of the speed of light. With the Doppler effect, one would expect these bodies to have been distorted as they were accelerated to these huge speeds. As they show no apparent distortion and are, to all intents and purposes, `normal', cosmologists prefer to say that it is space itself that is stretching - and carrying the galaxies along with it, rather than the galaxies themselves moving along" (page 144). What is one to make of this mumbo-jumbo? (For this, and for countless other paragraphs like it, I was forced to go to the paper, that is written in a somewhat more sober way, in order to understand what Ashmore wanted to convey. Unfortunately, these passages are mostly part of the filler material, and are not dwelt upon in the paper). But, at least in my opinion, this dumbed-down material is also, and especially so, incomprehensible to a layman!
So, for whom is the book intended? A complete novice would be far better advised to start with one of the dozens of 'conventional', better-written books (Davies, Pagels, Hawking, Greene, Kaku, Rees, even -shudder shudder- Gribbin; or Overbye if he likes people-gossipy stories and a more experimental slant, etc. etc. etc. ... ). And a layman who has already read those? Well, he might peruse "A Different Approach to Cosmology" by Hoyle et alia, or the very good, if somewhat dated (it doesn't include the "discovery" that there's 'dark energy' out there) "Hunting down the Universe", by Hawkins, which by the way gives one of the best descriptions of how science is actually done I have ever read. Or 1992 Lerner's "The Big Bang never happened", dated but very thoughtful and which has an appendix in which he discusses several 'tired light' mechanisms. Etc. etc. Or, if he wants an up-to-the-minute review, surf the sites, with all the quack-perils this implies.
Might then an expert, looking for a new approach, perhaps be interested in what Ashmore has to say the way he says it? Please.
3) LANGUAGE: one *, zero not being an option. Consider this jewel: "Did you know that Arabic Sheiks always used to cut the left hand of their advisors? This is so that when they are giving advice the advisors cannot say `but, on the other hand!'. Lets say, he will put the new star in the sky ten light-year away and so he must do this exactly ten years before the birth of Jesus. This is so that the light from this new star would travel through space and, ten years later; finally arrive at the Earth, exactly coinciding with the birth of Jesus. He would have also had to make a note in his diary when he created the new star to keep the night 9 years and 3 months in the future free - as he would want to be inmaculate that night for the conception" [everything sic] (pages 32/33).
Or "The word 'Constellation' comes from the Latin meaning 'studied with stars' ". (page 34). Do you suppose Ashmore studded that fact at college? (Constellatio-onis actually means 'star configuration', and meant the same in well-spoken and well-written English when it hadn't yet -de facto if not de jure- been declared defunct).
Or "If this is not bad enough, ... " (page 118) instead of "As if this weren't bad enough".
Or "A person standing on the banks of the duck pond will now measure different values for the wavelength and frequency, depending on where they are stood" (page 129).
There are any number of other sentences and passages like that. I had never before read such an illiterate book. Maybe Ashmore couldn't afford an editor (the book hasn't an index, either), due to the scientific establishment's discrimination against unconventional views, and had to pay the publishing costs out of his own pocket (see also, in page 299, his moving account of how he had to write the book). If so, my sincerest apologies. But somebody with a college education should know how to spell, and use the conditional and the subjunctive.
4) GENERAL INFORMATION LEVEL: one * to three ***. For the former, consider: " ...in 1511, the Portuguese had captured the city of Malacca ... anyone controlling Malacca could put a stranglehold on Venice's spice trade. And they did". (page 40). Ashmore's language is ambiguous, but ultimately, I think, misleading. Venice's role in the spice trade was that of a middleman for the Mediterranean. Malacca was always controlled by somebody (certainly never by Venice). When Vasco da Gama discovered an alternative route to the distribution centers in India's West Coast, THAT spelt the end for the Arab traders that indirectly supplied Venice, and for the city's role. The day da Gama returned to Lisbon, in 1509, was "the day of ruination" for Venice. It mattered little to her who controlled Malacca, after the Portuguese discovered the new route to India via the Cape of Good Hope and so monpolized the trade. Malacca was just one of the way stations for the Portuguese commerce. They didn't capture it to usurp Venice's role, which they already had, but to secure their route, much as the UK established Aden to secure its link with India. One might say "What do these quibbles about interpetation matter to the book? It's about the BBS' denial, not Venice!". Exactly. No need to mention Venice. Why put this comment there, if not to show off? There are other examples of this type. Might these misinterpretations also be present in the 'scientific' parts of the book?
For the three ***: on the other hand Ashmore includes anecdotes about some of the people whose ideas or discoveries he talks about. In four or five cases (more, if you count relatively less famous people who didn't interest me, such as Goodricke, Pigott, etc.) I learnt something new. THIS IS ONE OF THE TWO POSITIVE POINTS OF THE BOOK. But are you mainly intererested in 'popular science' or in whether Hubble's "British accent" (Cockney? Scottish? Oxonian?) was as affected as possible?
So, SUMMING UP: to buy or not to buy? My opinion: DON'T. Except if you want to read THE really good joke of the book: "In astronomy size really does matter ... " (page 145). THIS IS THE SECOND POSITIVE POINT.
October 06, 2008 | |
Exposing Scientific Dogmatism and Scholasticism 
This book is written very lucidly and rather entertainingly (if rather repetitively) so that any non-scientist can understand the basic arguments without needing to understand all the mathematics. The author first tells the story of how the origins of the Big Bang - expanding universe hypothesis in a historical, popular documentary style with amusing anecdotes about the characters involved etc. He then goes on to show that, contrary to the received wisdom, the so-called Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)Radiation, Redshifts of galaxies (including the recent Supernovae Ia 'standard candle' data indicating accelerating expansion)and the supposed relativistic time dilation of standard events in distant galaxies do not provide incontrovertible evidence for the Big Bang hypothesis. Furthermore the Big Bang hypothesis has constantly had to introduce ad hoc 'epicyclic' additions like Inflation with unproven scalar fields and now Dark Matter or Dark Energy to try to sustain it. The whole idea of all the matter in the universe arising from an infinitesimal point with no real explanation beyond this always smacked of unbelievability. As Smolin shows in The Trouble with Physics in regard to Superstrings, dogmatism and scholasticism are rife in mainstream theoretical physics, censoring and ostracizing critics as heretics.
On the contrary, as Hubble himself recognized after Zwicky pointed out the Tired Light hypothesis, a Redshift is just that, a Redshift in the incoming Light, and such a shift does not necessarily correlate with a Doppler Shift effect of a rapidly receding galaxy. The actual evidence and recent evidence about the clumpiness of the CMB being aligned with the Milky Way (rather than early universe galactic seeds), quantised redshifts, hugely redshifted quasars in not very distant galaxies etc. all support the Tired Light hypothesis in which photons interact with intergalactic plasma, losing frequency (=redshifted)to electrons which recoil and then emit low energy photons which actually create the CMB.
Ashmore has found by standardizing units that the measured value of the Hubble Constant is actually = hr/m of the Electron (i.e. the amount of electron in each unit cubic metre of space) and is thus the Electron in disguise. As the Redshift etc. actually arises from the activity of electrons this implies that the Big Bangers are just ending up with what they tacitly started from, the properties of the Electron.
I actually ordered Ashmore's book and Halton Arp's 'Seeing Red' after reading a new book by US physicist Milo Wolff called Schroedinger's Universe which also denies the truth of the Big Bang hypothesis. Wolff presents his remarkable new Wave Structure of Matter model of the Electron which seems to show how previously unexplained basic properties of matter, the so-called Laws of Nature and the Dirac large number ratios relating the electron and proton to the Hubble Universe. The link is that Wolff's model (using Mach's Principle and holonomy) involves the Hubble Universe (Light Horizon or knowable universe) constituting the limit from which incoming Huygen's Construction wavefronts converge to create each 'particle'-like wave centre phenomenon which we call the electron. The incoming wavefronts then 'spin around' as it were and diverge as spherical scalar waves. Thus each 'particle' is in fact the centre of its own 'universe' in an infinite universe (see my Amazon review for a full explanation. Thus I am pleased to see that my checking of the assertions of Wolff in Ashmore's work led not only to confirmation of the incredibly tenuous status of the Big Bang but also a fascinating new revelation that the Electron is intimately linked to the Hubble Universe (Light Horizon of the knowable universe).
Sutapas Bhattacharya
June 10, 2008 | |
A triumph of elegant easoning
Read the epilogue entitled `Dialog on the Two Chief Cosmological Models' if you want a well-crafted evenhanded summary that covers all points of contention between Ashmore's theory and the big bang theory. He proposes an alternative theory that meets every evidential test. Ashmore's strongest point is his theory's ability to predict the observed variation of redshift, z, as a function of distance, d, which big bang proponents cannot do. You will miss lots of interesting anecdotes about the founders of modern physics and cosmology by not reading the entire book as Ashmore guides you through the elegantly basic mathematics and up-to-date experimental evidence upon which he built his theory. His style accommodates interested nonspecialists as well as seasoned cosmologists.
June 03, 2008 | |
An outstanding critic of the BB, lucid in explanation, great in it's historical review, and a delight to read.
Once you start to read this book you shall be very reluctant to put it down. Professor Ashmore's book will be a very easy read regardless of ones technical background, and overall a delight to read.
The mathematics and technical dicussions are presented in a straight forward manner easily understood. In addition, the technical aspects of the physics are interlaced with interesting historical comments, and the author's amusing and incisive parenthetical comments; the "dialogue" presented at the end of the book is particularly interesting.
I do not think the reader of this book shall find a more conise and easily understood explanation for the critic of the Big Bang Theory, along with a prognosis of where should we go from here!
March 04, 2008 | |
Horrendous piece of claptrap
Lyndon Ashmore is a charlatan and an amateur when it comes to evaluating the ideas of modern science. His book is full of errors and ignores the modern scientific discoveries that have made the Big Bang paradigm such a successful framework. Don't waste your money or time on this.
February 23, 2007 | |
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