How old are the Quasars?

[smartie]

Please for one minute ignore the fact that the big bang theory implies that Quasars are relatively young. (That is they formed soon after the big bang) How can we determine factually how old the Quasars are. For my controversial ideas which I will not mention predict the opposite, that Quasars are ancient phenomena (formed long after 'creation'). Perhaps our local group and nearby clusters will eventually become a Quasars in the distant future. So then, what methods are available to obtain actual proof of their age?

 

[smartie]

They are old because the light has taken so long to get here, but they are an image of a phenomena that evolved soon after the big bang. We apparently see them at an early stage of development. Subtract the 14billion years of light travel!

 

[newtonian]

smartie - red shift theory.<br /><br />Are you implying that since supermassive black holes are thought to be the energy source for Quasars, and since some think galaxies are feeding supermassive black holes (me too), then Milky Way might become a Quasar - or as a result of future galactic mergers?

 

[jessez13]

All the quasars found are red shifted in the extreme, putting them far away in time and space.

 

[dark_energy]

Well, the farthest quasar is about 13 billion light-years away, the closest quasars are about a billion light-years away. Quasars were most predominant in the universe 11 billion years ago. Either way, we <b>see</b> them when they were young, even though they are very old objects in the universe. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[smartie]

Of course your completely right with current mainstream ideas. Even so it would be a good idea to scrutinise any such a theory. So how do we know directly the age of the Quasars.

 

[smartie]

You assume that we see them as they are young because you accept the big bang theory. This is not wise. If we could some how 'carbon date' the quasars so to speak we could back up the big bang theory. I however have a hunch that they take billons of years to form. If this is true then these Quasars could cause as much a head-ache to the Big Bang Theory as they have to the Steady State Theory.

 

[odysseus145]

Like Newtonian mentioned, they can be "carbon dated" by examining their redshift. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dmjspace]

Quasars are thought to be old (formed early in the universe's evolution) because of their observed redshift values.<br /><br />The problem is, those redshift values often do not gibe with the redshift values of clearly physically connected radio galaxies.<br /><br />This fact brings up the likely possibility that redshift is not always a distance (i.e. velocity) indicator. Those quasars are not as far away as believed; hence, they are not nearly the enigmatic, massively energetic objects they're required to be in standard theory.<br /><br />In other words, they become rather boring.<br /><br />Where the whole scenario becomes exciting, of course, is in the realization that most of accepted cosmology is wrong, because it is based on the "law" that redshift always indicated distance.<br /><br />Some great references on this can be found at:<br /><br /> The Top 30 Problems With The Big Bang <br /><br />and<br /><br /> Arp's "Seeing Red"

 

[smartie]

From the red shifts we can determine how fast Quasars are moving away from us. And from their distance we can determine when they were formed. That is by using the framework of the big bang. This seems very logical. But if our logic about the big bang is wrong in some way then this invalidates the ages of the Quasars. Is there any direct method we can use for establishing the age of the Quasars without using the Big Bang framework so we can cross check the Theory. I find it hard to beleive that Quasars and the superclusters they inhabit had enough time to form after the Big Bang. Surely If the Big Bang was correct then surely the smaller low mass galaxies should of formed first and the Quasars should be with us now. I mean where are the Quasars now... they should have got even more massive after 15 billion years. There should be a several massive Quasars in our neighbourhood.

 

[Saiph]

one way that can help estabilish age, without using the redshift relationships, is metallicity. The older it is, the more time stars have been building up the metal content.<br /><br />As for where are quasars now?<br /><br />There are many within only a few billion light years, thats pretty recent, and current. They aren't as bright as the more distant ones (note, I'll give a nod to the uncertainty in <i>some</i> quasars distances), but that's also to be expected. As the host galaxies age, and closer ones are older (just because of light travel time)...the material thins out, feeding the BH of the quasar less.<br /><br />I.e., after 15 billion years, they've eaten their food supply. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[smartie]

Cheers mate, thats something to think about.

 

[smartie]

Apparently the first generation of Quasars were metal rich. Which interestingly supports my view.<br /><br /><br />http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0306.html <br /><br />http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=30255<br /><br />I personally follow the Steady State theory, where matter is created in mini bangs in the sub atomic and over a period of eons produces the Quasars. Is it possible that our region of space is younger than the Quasar region? I understand that this causes a dillema because the further away we look in space the further back in time we see. <br /> My solution to this dilemma is perhaps too fantastic to mention really. It would require the entire universe to be a blackhole, with us all living inside and a little closer to the centre than the Quasars. The very centre would be located at the plank limit and the point where red shifed Galaxies move away from us at the speed of light would be the event horizon. To work the universe also has to be a blackhole with a fractal geometry and hence no singularity. <br /><br />Oh perhaps I'm getting carried away with this. For this hypothesis would require far away objects to exhibit a time dilation effect. Large far away Galaxies would all appear to us like objects on a static photograph, since their time would have slowed.

 

[smartie]

Although I expressed my idea about the universe it is of little relevence in this thread so I do not intend to mention it further. I will mention one thing though, the Big Bang theory ignores the First law of Thermodynamics, which says: <br />"matter cannot be created or destroyed" <br /><br /><br /> Lets stick to the facts. Now the Quasars appear to have a great deal of iron in their composition. Can we all except that the Quasars had time to produce all this iron so soon after the big bang? All the iron would have to have been produced in the first 200 million years.... thats not very long you know? Further it must of taken a few million years before even the first stars could form. Then a huge number of stars would have to have been born with large masses all at the same time to produce all that iron. What about all the supernovas they would have to be going off like pop corn to produce all the iron. Is there any sign of this?

 

[nexium]

"inside black holes" We need to specify the solar mass of black holes. Billion times a million solar mass black holes (if there are any that big) would be gentle for thousands of miles inside the event horizon, if the accretion disk has low density. The crew of a space craft crossing the event horizon would notice no change in conditions, as they could not have escaped the gravity just outside the event horizon,nor communicated back home, unless they had a near infinate source of energy.<br />Small and medium size black holes are thought to stretch everything to trash shortly before crossing the event horizon due to the extreme gravity gradient. Neil

 

[nexium]

"inside black holes" We need to specify the solar mass of black holes. Billion times a million solar mass black holes (if there are any that big) would be gentle for thousands of miles inside the event horizon, if the accretion disk has low density. The crew of a space craft crossing the event horizon would notice no change in conditions, as they could not have escaped the gravity just outside the event horizon,nor communicated back home, unless they had a near infinate source of energy.<br />Small and medium size black holes are thought to stretch everything to trash shortly before crossing the event horizon due to the extreme gravity gradient. Neil

 

[dmjspace]

The key in my first post was that some high redshift quasars can be seen to be <i> physically connected </i> to low redshift galaxies.<br /><br />Metallicity measurements, whatever they may imply under big bang (BB) premises, cannot change this fact.<br /><br />A <b> single observation </b> of low/high redshift pairings instantaneously rules out the hypothesis that redshift always indicates velocity.<br /><br />There are several examples of such quasar/galaxy pairings, a fact which astronomers supporting the BB cosmology must figure out how to deal with.<br /><br />Unfortunately, BB supporters are not so good at dealing with these uncomfortable facts. Their strategy so far has been to ignore them.<br /><br />Such a strategy works pretty well for politicians, but it'll eventually catch up to scientists. <br /><br />See a lot more about this problem here:<br /> HaltonArp.com

 

[smartie]

Some good points there. It seems to me that since BB supporters gave steady state a bloody nose some time ago that they swan around talking about BB as fact. It isn't. There is good and bad in both theories. Perhaps when Panspermia is seen to be occurring in the samples of the comet Wild 2 that the ideas of Sir Fred Hoyle will be taken far more seriously. Steady state will be back one day for another shot at the title. BB theory is already seen to be wobbling. BB suggests that the universe came out of nothing. Can anybody describe what nothing is?

 

[smartie]

dmjspace,<br /><br />That it an interesting point about Quasars being associated with nearby active galaxies. However I'll have to reserve judgement until more evidence appears.<br /><br />http://alumni.ucsd.edu/magazine/vol2no3/campus/quasar.htm

 

[smartie]

When a Cosmologist talks about the laws of nature breaking down he means he doesn't understand. Physical laws never break down. Basically we have a choice. 1. The universe is based on Euclidean geometry and so we need to explain what nothing really is or 2. The universe is based on Fractal Geometry in which case it is eternal, that is follows the principles of Steady state. <br /><br />Big Bang stronger than ever?..... I don't think so.<br /><br /> http://www.physorg.com/news4999.html

 

[smartie]

This is exactly why I can not accept the BB theory in its present form. The only way the universe with its physical laws can be created is if the universe continually creates itself using feedback in a self contained system. To state a 'before the universe' and 'created out of nothing' is meaningless. <br /><br />I don't understand what is wrong with the link. Are you saying that the article is a fabrication and there was no meeting in Portugal...Please elaborate.

 

[smartie]

What exactly is quantum foam? Is this the same stuff that exists deep in the sub-atomic? The stuff that is located at every point in space in the sub atomic.<br /> Where did the quantum foam come from?<br /> Look, at the end of the day you can start with nothing which beggars the question what came before, or the universe always had something, therefore it is eternal, which requires no change to its physical state, or the universe is cyclic and gives rise to its own creation. Surely you must agree that the last statement is the most logical. Now all we need to do is find out the method of operation. <br />Since quantum foam occurs at every point in space why bother having a singular event to explain the big bang when we can have little bangs occuring today at every point in space in the sub-atomic. We can then keep all the good points of the big bang theory while ditching all that unsubstantiated nonsense such as inflation and dark matter. What produced the quantum foam in this senario? I can only guess that what happens at large scales feeds back to effect events on the small scale and vice versa. This is mathmatically possible in the area of fractals and chaos theory. <br />Of course all this is speculation and it won't get us anywhere by discussing it further. The importent thing is that to claim that the Big Bang Theory is not in crisis is simply wrong.<br /> <br />http://www.cosmology.info/

 

[smartie]

The universe however can recycle in a variety of ways. Your method seems to be:<br /><br /> Universe starts at minimum size, grows to a maximum size, then collapses back to minimum size again.<br /><br />While my method is more like a magnetic field;<br /><br /> Universe system maintains one size, but spacetime churns through a scale indexed fractal dimension. Ie spacetime moves to large scales and turns back into the small scales to repeat the cycle. <br /><br />Plasma cosmology may be close to what I am advocating however I need to study it further. <br />

 

[dmjspace]

smartie said: <font color="yellow"> That it an interesting point about Quasars being associated with nearby active galaxies. However I'll have to reserve judgement until more evidence appears. </font><br /><br />Be careful. You're treading dangerously into pseudo-skeptic territory by relying on the phrase "more evidence." <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />This is, of course, the notorious debunker trick called "moving the goalposts." One can always claim that more evidence is needed when faced with evidence that contradicts accepted theory.<br /><br />Sagan dealt a critical blow to the scientific method when he unleashed his regrettable "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" maxim on the world decades ago. <br /><br />This mantra, repeated early and often by skeptics in the early stages of debates over "taboo" subjects, has little to do with the actual process of scientific discovery--and a lot to do with killing discussion before it gets too uncomfortable for the status quo.<br /><br />From reading your other posts, it's clear you're not really a pseudoskeptic, and there's nothing wrong with reserving judgment.<br /><br />I'm just gently reminding readers that all it takes is one black dove to prove all doves are not white.<br /><br />If a single observation of a high redshift quasar paired with a low redshift galaxy is verified, the cosmological house of cards built upon the redshift-as-velocity tenet comes crashing unceremoniously to the ground...along with thousands of careers of scientists who've staked their lives' work on this mistaken belief.<br /><br />As the article you reference concludes:<br /><br /><i> If this quasar is close by, its red shift cannot be due to the expansion of the universe....If this is the case, this discovery casts doubt on the whole idea that quasars are very far away and can be used to do cosmology. </i><br /><br />And bye bye, big bang.<br /><br />There is, in fact, much more evidence supporting Arp's case. His boo