Galaxy Distribution

RussT,

Thanks for the link. It looks like a useful place to go to think about/visualize the visible part of universe. The numbers will be influenced by the standard Big Bang fixation of course. But if you think of red shift as (primarily) a function of the energy lost by light with distance traveled rather than as a function of relative velocity then the numbers are probably fairly accurate. Expecially in a relative sense.

Those objects that also have intrinsic red shift (quasars, etc) will be shown too far away, but they are in the minority.

It seems likely to me that most galaxies would grow some sort of super massive structure near the center. But not black holes as they are currently visualized, with a singularity at the center and an event horizon where time stops, etc. More likely to be something along the lines of a Mitchell star, a "normal" star with millions of times the mass of Sol. These would have some of the same properties of black holes, like an escape velocity greater than the speed of light, an accretion disk and polar jets.

Because of graviton shielding however one of the main differences is that the inertial mass of a Mitchell star would be *much* larger than its gravitational mass.

LB

Thanks for your response LB. It's good to see that those numbers don't scare the heck out of someone, because to be honest, when I first saw them I thought they were wayyyyyy to high. On the contrary though, they may be 700 billion to 1 trillion to low, for our visable universe.
Could you please explain how you see a star a million times(or more) massive than our sun forming, and since you(and I) don't believe in the BB, how do you see the galaxies forming, and how did the Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium get here to form them?

S=G

RussT,

Boy, you don't want much, do you? Adequate answers would actually take something like a book. But lady luck is smiling at you because there actually is such a book. TVF's <i>Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets</i> covers all of your questions and also supplies the needed background science to help put the answers together into a coherent whole.

But I'll try to provide a few of my "really short" versions for some of your questions.

LB

[RussT] " ... how did the Hydrogen, Helium, and Lithium get here ... "

As you read the book, pay close attention to discussions of "substance" and "form". Things can exist in two ways:

*** Form

1) As real tangible things like molecules, condoms and clusters of galaxies. Any form is built from accumulations of smaller forms. So a cluster of galaxies is built from an accumulation of forms called galaxies. And a galaxy is built from an accumulation of forms called stars, planets, dust etc. These forms are built from an accumulation of forms called atoms and molecules. And these forms are built from an accumulaiton of forms called sub atomic particles (protons and the like).

These last forms are built from an accumulation of forms called quarks. And although we have not yet detected (with certainty) the components of quarks ("sub-quarks" ???), there is some evidence that they are there.

And of course sub-quarks will have to be built from an accumulation of forms that are even smaller.

And so on. But when we get to the point where we are talking about the hypothetical components of hypothetical forms we have reached a point of diminishing returns. A new word is needed.

*** Substance

2) Things can also exist as a concept, like a mathematical line or a point. A coordinate axis is an example of a specific thing that exists as a concept rather than as a form. Numbers are not real tangible things. But they exist as concepts. And they are very useful despite their non-realness.

Substance is also a concept.

Technically it is the smallest possible thing that can exist. And it is the thing from which all real things are ultimately composed. But since the scale dimension is infinite in both directions there isn't, and cannot be, a smallest possible thing that is real.

In practice we sometimes refer to the not-yet-detected hypothetical components of a detectable form as substance. But keep in mind that this is not a 100% correct use of the term.

LB

I see you not only believe in the TVF concept, but Rob Oldershaw's Fractal Universe as well. Just one question...since only about 5% of the universe is baryonic matter, how can that be? This is not
smart-ass, it is a real ?. In other words, if all the smaller stuff is making larger stuff, would not the universe be filled with baryonic matter? I don't see how the numbers could ever work for this.

S=G

[RussT] " ... since only about 5% of the universe is baryonic matter ... "

This is a theory dependant interpretation of certain observational data. Meta Model theory does not need any dark matter to explain all that we see.

[RussT] " ... if all the smaller stuff is making larger stuff, would not the universe be filled with ... matter ..."

A cubic meter of rock, or a cubic meter of ocean, etc. has a finite measureable mass. If we use a magnifying glass to examine that mass, we see that it is subdivided into smaller masses. But the total mass of all the subdivisions is still the same.

A bigger magnifying glass, used to look at one of those smaller parts, shows that it too is subdivided. But once again the total mass of all the subdivisions is equal to the mass of the part being examined.

Voids might exist in the original mass, or in one of its parts. A really big magnifying glass would reveal that, at some scale, there is stuff in the void. It is in fact full of stuff. But this stuff is very small and its total mass is equal to the mass of the void. (HINT - the void's mass will be small, too small for us to be able to measure with our present technology, but it will not be zero.)

After drilling down-scale till we reach our technology's limit, we can add up all the the masses of all the smallest parts we can detect and the total will be equal to the mass we started with.

Fractal math is cool. And a universe that is infinite in scale is necessarily fractal-like in nature. But there are differences. One of the hallmarks of fractal math is self-similarity at all scales. Example: a particular equation with specific parameter values produces a frilly curve with a fuzz ball at one end and that fuzz ball turns out, under "magnification" (a new set of parameter values), to be an exact copy of the original frilly curve complete with a fuzz ball at one end. And so on for as long as you want to re-run the calculations.

The real world is not as tidy as the math world, however. As we move down-scale in the real we are likely to eventually see things that resemble galaxies, but we are very UNlikely to ever see things that are identical to galaxies.

Regards,
LB