Re: Cosmology

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004, Brian Whatcott wrote:

> The date of the arbitrary fudge factor
> identified by Planck which reconciles the Rayleigh-Jeans law
> to the experimental black-body curve was 1900.
> It's now initialized with  a letter that looks much like an 'h'.
> Hope this straightens out the dateline.
>
> Planck's remained a lonely voice until a patent clerk illuminated
> a clean copper sheet with light of various intensities and
> frequencies and used the same fudge factor to fit the
> response curve.  This did snag a Nobel. What year was that?
>   Can't recall.
        Not exactly (see Richtmeyer & Kinnard,Ch. III).  Herts reported
the effect in 1887.  The patent clerk explained it in, of course, 1905.
The explanation was not generally accepted; I've seen a paper written in
(as I remember) 1912 that claimed that the electron energy was
proportional to the intensity of the radiation - meaning that the Einstein
relation was awful hard to measure.
        There is no causality problem with inflatinary theory because no
information is transmitted faster than light.


> Still,  Jack may have a point about my being behind the times.
>   I thought that the inflationary big bang phase
> requires the suspension of disbelief in hyperspeed.
>
>   Restore my faith: tell me I have it worng!
>
> Brian W
>
> p.s. To haver:
>   talk foolishly, babble;  vacillate,  hesitate
> [COD 7th Ed.]
                                Thanks for the new word. MWCD 11th Ed.
defines it as meaning "hem and haw".
> 06:56 PM 6/19/2004,  Jack, you wrote:
> > Hi all-
> >         Brian's a bit behind the times and a bit off on dates.
> >
> > On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Brian Whatcott wrote:
> >
> > > I am  not the one to poke fun at cosmogonists who seek to compose
> > > the irreconcilable: I simply recall that the squirming point of the
> > > fin du 19ieme century
> >
> >         "ultra-violet catastrophe" usually refers to early calculations in
> > quantum electrodynamics.  Quantum mechanics was invented in the 1920's.
> > What 19th century paper is referred to here?
> >
> > > was the ultra violet catastrophe, and the
> > > comparable issue at the end of the 20th has been the mensuration
> > > of time and space.
> > >
> > > Einstein havered with a constant to render variable
> >
> > Although I don't recognize the verb here, Einstein's constant was to
> > render <static> the Schwarzschild solution to his equation. I don't
> > recognize the meaning of "variable cosmogony".  Cosmogony means "1 : a
> > theory of the origin of the universe
> > 2 : the creation or origin of the world or universe"
> >
> > > his cosmogony,
> > >   and more than one theorist is stringing together a pretty
> > > necklace of dark masses, manifold dimensions and so forth.
> > >
> > > There will, I dare say, first be:
> > > a resolution of the red shift redder than the preferred Universal age:
> >
> >         This was true for a short time, but the near precision
> > determination of the Hubble "constant" has obvioated this apparent
> > problem.
> >
> > > then a reworking of the inflationary Universe:  - if you're going to
> > >   believe in C, then act as though you believe in C,  oh ye of little
> > faith!
> > > I could go on, but I won't.
> > >
> > > Brian W
> >
> >         The summary of the current measurements in the latest Physics
> > Today was, to my mind, pedagogically top notch.  The evidence so far seems
> > to bne consistent with a cosmological constant in the Einstein sense.
>
> <snip>
>     [Jack Uretsky]

--
"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
                General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
                just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley