Galaxies strung like necklace beads

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http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/images/spiral_galaxies_dia_500.jpg

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May 1, 2006
Astronomers have known since the early 1990s that galaxies cluster in filaments and sheets surrounding vast voids in space. Now, an international team of astronomers has found that spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, line up like beads on a string, with their spin axes aligned with the filaments that outline voids. The finding supports current galaxy-formation theories and forges a rare observational link between the large-scale distribution of mass in the universe and galaxy-size structures.

The part about it supporting current theories is wishful thinking...

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Cool. Thanks for the link.

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Out of interest, gunga, how do you know that this doesn't support current galaxy formation theories?

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

Out of interest, gunga, how do you know that this doesn't support current galaxy formation theories?

I'd assume that galaxy formation theories were compatible with the standard idea that gravity alone governs large-scale things in the cosmos and it should be obvious enough that gravity cannot do something such as the image shows.

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gungasnake wrote:

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
Out of interest, gunga, how do you know that this doesn't support current galaxy formation theories?

I'd assume that galaxy formation theories were compatible with the standard idea that gravity alone governs large-scale things in the cosmos and it should be obvious enough that gravity cannot do something such as the image shows.

Gunga has a point here. Gravity cannot and does not draw white boxes around images of galaxies, nor does it connect them with a purple ring.

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They've known for some time that gravity alone is not responsible for the formation of galaxies.

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I am curious how gravity doesn't make things revolve around a center point.

2 objects of the same size would revolve around an area between them.

Could you explain your theory of gravity to us Gunga?

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I like necklaces of sparkling jewels myself I must admit.

They really turn me on. Especially on naked fatties.

On ankles I'm gone.

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The trouble I have with this is outliers. Lets say there are 10 ^ 20 galaxies in our observable Hubble sphere, and you find 10 line up in a pattern. My point is so what?

What's the predictive power of seeing this when you have such large scale structures to explore? I bet there is a place in the universe where stars line up to spell "go stick your head in a pig" (alah the late Douglas Adams). Again so what.

Think of large structures as being a special area of study - particularly when it comes to relativity and holding gravity as the curvature of space time. We don't have the theory down pat yet and we are abundantly aware of this.

Unless you can point to a circumstance and make a prediction from it supporting some contending model - all you have found is something interesting to be pondered later when we have enough data to start assessing what is what.

No more, no less!

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parados wrote:

I am curious how gravity doesn't make things revolve around a center point.

2 objects of the same size would revolve around an area between them.

Could you explain your theory of gravity to us Gunga?

Simple observation really... The basic density of space is about one microscopic dust mote every four miles if you don't believe in "dark matter(TM)" (I don't), or about one microscopic dust mote every fifth of a mile if you do.

Here's what I mean. If you were to adopt a scale at which our solar system was about a yard across, then our sun would be about the size of a dust mote whose diameter was about the width of a human hair, and the nearest other star, Alpha Centauri, would be just over four miles away.

Moreover, that's fairly typical of space in general; even in bright star clusters which glow together, those kinds of size/distance relationships hold. At least inside galaxies; in intergalactic space it would be worse.

If you postulate dark matter comprising 95% of the universe, then you shorten the distance between dust motes to about a fifth of a mile, i.e. two of those little marker signs on highways.

Gravity simply cannot hold dust motes together at those kinds of distances. Electromagnetic forces however could.

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I guess if you assume that the dust motes just magically appeared in the region of space they are in now you could ignore the physics of how they got there over billions of years.

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parados wrote:

I guess if you assume that the dust motes just magically appeared in the region of space they are in now you could ignore the physics of how they got there over billions of years.

The version of it I read which comes closest to making any real sense says that the cosmos is basically governed by electrostatic and electromagnetic forces, that plasma physics mainly governs the cosmos, that 99 point something of the mass of the universe is in plasma form, and that the accumulation of mass to solid forms such as galaxies, stars, and planets is generally via what is called a z-pinch effect of Birkland currents moving through the plasmas.

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And the Earth is hollow too. I found a bunch of web sites which confirm it.

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I still don't understand. Astrophysical theories predicted that they'd find this sort of pattern, so they went and searched for it. They found it. So how does this not support their theory again?

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I still think you need a lot more data points before you can make a definitive call about this one, that covers the entire universe.

Secondly ruling gravity and geometrical weirdness out and a global ruling electrostatic force in seems too big a call for my understanding of cosmic physics.

An Elegant Universe took up this viewpoint - but 98% of physicists are very quick to debunk its views. When our nuclear physics can't explain how the four forces interact when particles come real, real close to each other - I think we have a problem trying to scale up our limited understanding to a galactic scale or well beyond.

Basically I don't think we have enough understanding or data yet to do more than wildly speculate...

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g__day wrote:

Secondly ruling gravity and geometrical weirdness out and a global ruling electrostatic force in seems too big a call for my understanding of cosmic physics....

One starting point:

http://www.thunderbolts.info

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Went to the web site, recognised the book the Electric Sky - yep them there are the two nut jobs that the rest of the scientific community are groaning over!

Sorry - their theories get pulled apart very frequently, still - can't keep a good conspiracy down huh?

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Guh, it figures that gunga would cite a disreputable source that I can't check without buying one of their books.

So I'm curious, what exactly about their hypotheses is so bad?

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In one they want gravity to either travel instantaneously or at least 100 times faster than light - whoopsie for relativity and observed data.

In another they want electric discharges, not meteorites to be what pockmarked the Moon giving it so many craters.

There is alot of electricity is king forget the other forces - without much explaining faults in current models at all realistically and proposing some exotic views on what governs space time without hard data to support it.

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g__day wrote:

In one they want gravity to either travel instantaneously or at least 100 times faster than light - whoopsie for relativity and observed data...

Gravity DOES propagate instantaneously to within our ability to measure it and that has been known for centuries, and that IS the observed data:

http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/speed_of_gravity.asp

There are a couple of elephant-in-the-living-room type problems with what Einstein had to say about gravity and that is one of them.

"Thought experiments(TM)" are not a rational basis for physics.

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Galaxies strung like necklace beads

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