This sensational, revolutionary announcement ("neutrinos may exceed the speed of light") has hit the headlines all over the world. It seems, though, that every week the foundations of science are being rocked by new discoveries that may or may not be true. (There was a spate of discoveries recently that would overturn all our previous notions of the evolution of humankind, if...) We outsiders have no way of knowing whether subsequent scientific scepticism is the result of greater expertise or the desire to protect reputation and lucrative grants, but I hope I will be forgiven for wishing that scientists would keep quiet about their sensational discoveries until they had actually verified them.-This latest discussion of the speed of neutrinos and the speed of light. Lots of skepticism.-http://procrustes.blogtownhall.com/2011/09/26/einstein,_neutrinos_and_time_travel.thtml

Interesting article George, but I fail to see the relevance. The question was not about object expansion, but about relative positions of interstellar objects(Though I could conceivably see universal expansion leading to the expansion of the area of a gas cloud, it would not expand the molecules that form it, just the space between). The physics model on the wiki page I linked(which I had seen elsewhere in a lecture) clearly says that everything in the universe should be moving away from each other, not moving into a collision course at some point. So, ignore the shrinking/expanding celestial body thing for now (though that is interesting) and lets figure out how an interstellar body that should be moving ever further away from all surrounding interstellar bodies could be lining up for a collision course.-What article are you referencing here that is asking this question? -Or are you talking about how we're colliding with Andromeda? If it's that, that's simply gravity doing its job. -http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-can-galaxies-collide

No. The curvature is based on objects in the way such as galaxy lensing which is used all the time to make observations that would otherwise not be available. Mass bends space and light. In looking at the CBWR 300,000 years after the Big Bang, there are all sorts of bodies between us and the point you want to fix. So, over that distance, there would be left-handed and right-handed curves that need not cancel out. One would have to account for each one to have a valid fixed point, which would be moving all the time. George is right. Euclidean geometry doesn't work out there. Everyone accepts that, and you need to.
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> Yes, you have to take curvature, rate of change, and other variables into account when mapping in space. There was NEVER any argument about that. Hell, even here on earth when mapping areas many kilometers beneath the sea floor we have to take into account density, temperature, pressure, salinity, the makeup of different geological layers, porosity, reflective etc etc etc. Please don't be insulting to my intelligence. My point is that they either CAN account for it, or they CAN'T. Secondly, the term 'Euclidean' geometry has not once escaped my lips in this conversation, nor was it even implied other than in the context of defining a spatial origin from which to start. Even when kicking this idea around over coffee I never dreamed that it would be a simple straight line measurement. There IS limited linear movement in space, but that has nothing to do really with the matter of defining a set of spatial coordinates.-Yes it does: you would need to define a start point and end point, therefore a discussion of spatial coordinates is essential, as it would need to be accurate.

I've seen some of George's math and have no doubts as to his mathematical prowess. The point is, if physicist are able to determine that space is expanding in three dimensions with curved space time in between, as they claim, then they must have a way of accounting for the curvature of said space time. If they do not, then they can not say that space is expanding in three dimensions with curved space time in between. 
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> This is what strikes me as the fundamental flaw in the argument. Either they can account for it, and thus their assertions about expanding space are true, or they can not account for it and their assertions about expanding space are, while perhaps true, based on unprovable assumptions.-They account for it using math... I don't see where your argument is. The picture of the background that everyone has looked at is taken via the equivalent of an absolutely gigantic fishlens camera and turned into the image you'll see all over google images if you search for it. -It's accounted for.


> Secondly, I would be highly suspect of star 'wobble' being a product of gravity. Stars being primarily plasma, are made up of negatively charged particles, and thus have both attractive and repulsive properties for positive and negative magnetic fields respectively.-This is how the discoveries are reported. Argue with the astronomers. Congrats on heading home


> The gravity of the sun and the planets cannot be as weak as you think. We have satelites around the Earth. We slingshot some of our space probes around planets or the sun. We can spot planets around nearby stars by the way the star wobbles. The sun is holding all the solar system planets in orbit. Comets come back and forth from around the sun.-First you are talking about tremendous mass differences between dense objects with low relative velocity. If you tried to slingshot objects of equal mass, that would not work at all, if you tried with objects consisting of little, or widely separated mass, such as a gas nebula, you should see gas 'streamers' breaking away from the cloud . -Secondly, I would be highly suspect of star 'wobble' being a product of gravity. Stars being primarily plasma, are made up of negatively charged particles, and thus have both attractive and repulsive properties for positive and negative magnetic fields respectively. Considering that these fields occur at the atomic level as well, they could account for far more than we currently know.-(Sorry this is a little rushed. Today is crew change! Woohoo... going home back to the U.S. so I won't be online for a couple of days while traveling)


> The point is, gravity could not have done what is being claimed of it, especially with objects moving at exceptionally high rates of speed, with exponentially increasing distance between them. It simply would not have the force to overcome their inertia.-The gravity of the sun and the planets cannot be as weak as you think. We have satelites around the Earth. We slingshot some of our space probes around planets or the sun. We can spot planets around nearby stars by the way the star wobbles. The sun is holding all the solar system planets in orbit. Comets come back and forth from around the sun.

If space is expanding, and everything is moving away from everything else at an ever increasing speed as described here(Subheading observational evidence), how can Nebula collide?
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> The Milky Way and Andromeda are approaching each other and will meet in 2 billion years. Other collisions of galaxies are seen all the time . It has to do with local movement and gravity. The universe is so vast that there are local events and overall uniform events. Great walls of galaxies and great spaces, but still considered uniform. Nebula is the old word for galaxy.-> > If space is expanding, and everything is moving away from everything else at an ever increasing speed as described here(Subheading observational evidence), how can Nebula collide?
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> The Milky Way and Andromeda are approaching each other and will meet in 2 billion years. Other collisions of galaxies are seen all the time . It has to do with local movement and gravity. The universe is so vast that there are local events and overall uniform events. Great walls of galaxies and great spaces, but still considered uniform. Nebula is the old word for galaxy.-
We know that it has happened, and will happen again, the question is why and how. Gravity is a weak force. In fact, it is the weakest of the four fundamental forces. But, are there four fundamental forces, or three? Being that all matter is made up of atoms with positive/negative charges, it is very possible that gravity is a subset of electromagnetism. Einstein died working on that unified theory and many others have tried failed. --
"The gravitational force is extremely weak compared with other fundamental forces. For example, the gravitational force between an electron and proton 1 meter apart is approximately 10^âˆ'67 newtons, while the electromagnetic force between the same two particles is approximately 10^âˆ'28 newtons. Both these forces are weak when compared with the forces we are able to experience directly, but the electromagnetic force in this example is some 39 orders of magnitude (i.e. 1039) greater than the force of gravity — roughly the same ratio as the mass of the Sun compared to a microgram mass."-The point is, gravity could not have done what is being claimed of it, especially with objects moving at exceptionally high rates of speed, with exponentially increasing distance between them. It simply would not have the force to overcome their inertia.

If space is expanding, and everything is moving away from everything else at an ever increasing speed as described here(Subheading observational evidence), how can Nebula collide?-The Milky Way and Andromeda are approaching each other and will meet in 2 billion years. Other collisions of galaxies are seen all the time . It has to do with local movement and gravity. The universe is so vast that there are local events and overall uniform events. Great walls of galaxies and great spaces, but still considered uniform. Nebula is the old word for galaxy.

I'm only coming back here very occasionally so don't count on any quick replies.
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Well, I still hope to see you around more :)-> In the original post B-M wrote: "If you measure the time it takes for readings from the CMRB to reach a given point, then work backwards to a point where the time from CMRB X+,Y+,Z+ = X-,Y-,Z- you should have origin=X,Y,Z =0 which gives you a universal frame of reference."
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> This appears to be a misunderstanding of what the CMBR is. We are looking back in time to see microwave radiation emitted around 13.7 billion years ago. This should be more or less the same no matter where you are in the universe.
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> http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html
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> To paraphrase: The CMBR fills the sky and can be detected everywhere we look. If we could see microwaves, the entire sky would glow with a brightness that was astonishingly uniform in every direction.
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> B-M appears to think the Background is the "edge" of a "present" spherical three-dimensional universe within which we are situated.-For all practical purposes, time is simply another axis along which we measure, 4 dimensions instead of 3. Additionally, time, much like space, can be compensated for mathematically, and in fact must be accounted for in some fashion all but the simplest of equations. No, the universe is not(most likely) a sphere, ellipsoidal perhaps, but not likely spherical. However, even if it were tetrahedral or a parallelogram or any other deformation you can conceive of, the concept could still work, even if it required measurements along more axis. And while we are looking back in time, we are also looking across distance. Can you at least concede that the universe, based on the fact that we can see the CMBR throughout the whole of the sky, must be limited(even if it is expanding), and if it is limited, it will contain properties such as volume and boundaries?