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Did you see today's apod (See it here)?
Remember when we talked about Michelson and Morley's experiment to determine the speed and direction of the earth through the universe by measuring the speed of light in different directions? That experiment led directly to Einstein's theories of relativity and the eventually to the Big Bang Theory. This picture seems to negate all that. As it says in the text the earth is racing toward a particualr point in the sky. That would overturn everything Einstein ever did, and destroy most theories about the expansion of the universe! But, here's the flaw. What did they measure? The speed and direction of the earth? No, they measured the redshift of background radiation. There is no genuine way of telling whether the source of the of most of the radiation is local (with in our part of the galaxy for example) or truly background to the universe, as the text implies. If it's local, this radiation chart is a big yawner, if it's not...
This is the difficulty science always has. It's easy to find answers. The problem is to come up with the right questions.
By the way, for early work with earth sattelites that missed what this picture is telling us people were awarded Nobel Prizes! It was loudly trumpeted as proof of Einstein's theories. Such is the politics and ignorance of 'establishment' science. If you find what others want you to find you'll get rewarded, no matter how questionable your work actually is. If you find what less than clever scientists don't want, they will happily ignore the implications, as with this picture.
Remember when we talked about Michelson and Morley's experiment to determine the speed and direction of the earth through the universe by measuring the speed of light in different directions? That experiment led directly to Einstein's theories of relativity and the eventually to the Big Bang Theory. This picture seems to negate all that. As it says in the text the earth is racing toward a particualr point in the sky. That would overturn everything Einstein ever did, and destroy most theories about the expansion of the universe! But, here's the flaw. What did they measure? The speed and direction of the earth? No, they measured the redshift of background radiation. There is no genuine way of telling whether the source of the of most of the radiation is local (with in our part of the galaxy for example) or truly background to the universe, as the text implies. If it's local, this radiation chart is a big yawner, if it's not...
This is the difficulty science always has. It's easy to find answers. The problem is to come up with the right questions.
By the way, for early work with earth sattelites that missed what this picture is telling us people were awarded Nobel Prizes! It was loudly trumpeted as proof of Einstein's theories. Such is the politics and ignorance of 'establishment' science. If you find what others want you to find you'll get rewarded, no matter how questionable your work actually is. If you find what less than clever scientists don't want, they will happily ignore the implications, as with this picture.