----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Lerner
To: ljk4@msn.com
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 12:26 PM
Subject: surface brightness

I noticed your discussion of my paper on surface brightness. You might be interested in the following exchange that I had with Ned Wright. The exchange was cc’d to several other prominent Big Bangers, including Lubin, who worked with Sandage on the Tolman test in ’01, Michael Turner, Sandra Faber, and James Peebles. None of them replied at all, and Wright did not reply to my second or third emails. Feel free to post this. I don’t have time myself to participate on the list.

Regards, Eric Lerner

Subject:

Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF

From:

Eric Lerner <elerner@igc.org>

Date:

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 10:16:15 -0400

To:

mturner@oddjob.uchicago.edu, wright@astro.ucla.edu, pjep@pupgg.princeton.edu, lubin@physics.ucdavis.edu, faber@ucolick.org, asandage@ociw.edu, mturner@nsf.gov

Dear colleagues,

I would be interested in any comments that you have on the attached paper.

Regards, Eric Lerner

surfacebrightness2.pdf

Subject:

Re: Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF

From:

Ned Wright <wright@astro.UCLA.EDU>

Date:

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:42:39 -0700 (PDT)

To:

Eric Lerner <elerner@igc.org>

CC:

mturner@oddjob.uchicago.edu, pjep@pupgg.princeton.edu, lubin@physics.ucdavis.edu, faber@ucolick.org, asandage@ociw.edu, mturner@nsf.gov

Eric,

No one really expects the "at-galaxy" surface brightness of high z

galaxies to be the same as for local galaxies because the stellar

populations in high z galaxies are younger. Thus it will be very hard to get a definitive test. But the CMB has the correct surface brightness for a blackbody at the observed color temperature to within 1 part in 10,000 which means any model that doesn't have D_L = (1+z)2*D_A fails badly. So as usual I think you are wasting your time.

--Edward L. (Ned) Wright, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, 310-825-5755

FAX: 310-206-2096, http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

Mail: UCLA Physics & Astronomy, PO Box 951547, Los Angeles CA 90095-1547

FedEx: Knudsen 1-129, 475 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles CA 90024

Subject:

Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF

From:

Eric Lerner <elerner@igc.org>

Date:

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:50:28 -0400

To:

Ned Wright <wright@astro.UCLA.EDU>

CC:

mturner@oddjob.uchicago.edu, pjep@pupgg.princeton.edu, lubin@physics.ucdavis.edu, faber@ucolick.org, mturner@nsf.gov

<>Ned,
<>
Thanks for your quick response. But perhaps you read the paper a bit too hastily. The evolution argument is tested in section 3.1. The problem is that if you assume a FRW expansion, the at-galaxy UV surface brightness of the high-z galaxies exceeds that of ANY low-z galaxies, including very young ones, by as much as a factor of 40. Given dust absorption of UV radiation, which increases for young populations, it appears physically impossible for such high UV surface brightness galaxies to exist. This therefore rules out FRW expansion. If you want to preserve the FRW hypothesis, you have to find a flaw in this argument. What is it?

Also, it is curious that you now reject the Tolman test using galaxies, when Sandage and Lubin and very many others have long cited it as a key proof of the expansion. In particular, they used it to ”rule out” static universes, because the data supposedly conflicted with a constant surface brightness. But the data I present is exactly consistent with constant surface brightness. So, at the very least, you must admit that the Tolman test no longer “rules out” a static universe, right?

In addition, my results don’t just show that the surface brightness is different from the prediction of the FRW model. It is an extremely close fit to the static model. So, are you arguing that this close fit is just a coincidence, based on evolution exactly canceling out the (z+1)^3 factor? If so, then that coincidence will not recur at different redshifts, but is just a chance product, presumably, of the specific redshift samples that I chose. Do you think this is the case, and that other redshift ranges will show significant deviations from the constant SB prediction of the static universe? Perhaps you would like to make a small—or large--wager on whether this prediction will prove valid at all redshifts or not?

By the way, my address for Sandage bounces. I will appreciate it if you, or anyone else on the cc list, would please forward my orignal message, with the paper, to him.

Eric

Subject:

Re: Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF

From:

Eric Lerner <elerner@igc.org>

Date:

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 20:30:40 -0400

To:

Ned Wright <wright@astro.UCLA.EDU>

CC:

mturner@oddjob.uchicago.edu, pjep@pupgg.princeton.edu, lubin@physics.ucdavis.edu, faber@ucolick.org, asandage@ociw.edu, mturner@nsf.gov

Ned and colleagues,

Am I to expect an answer to my last email (repeated below, in case you overlooked it)? Or am I to conclude that you find these arguments unanswerable?

Eric