* Physicist John Hartnett on the Surface Brightness of Galaxies: Real Science Radio co-host Bob Enyart interviews one of the creators of the most precise clock ever made by human beings, physicist John Hartnett, on evidence that appears to contradict one of the most fundamental claims of the big bang. Whereas "the Big Bang theory tells us that in an expanding Universe [distant galaxies] actually should appear fainter but bigger", which would reduce their surface brightness per unit area, it turns out that the surface brightness of the furthest galaxies studied is identical to that of the nearest galaxies! A 2014 physics journal paper reports careful observations of about a thousand galaxies that fundamentally contradict the prediction of the big bang. Astrophysicists led by Eric Lerner from Lawrenceville Plasma Physics published, UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local universe to z ~ 5 , (i.e., to very far away) and found that, as reported in Sci-News, "Contrary to the prediction of the Big Bang theory, they found that the surface brightnesses of the near and far galaxies are identical." And further, "It is amazing that the predictions of this simple formula are as good as the predictions of the expanding Universe theory, which include complex corrections for hypothetical dark matter and dark energy," said one of the study's co-authors, Dr Renato Falomo of the Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Italy.
* Endorsement Update: Dr. Hartnett endorses RSR's Big Bang video!
* Surface Brightness and the Big Bang: Like absolute magnitude for stars, the concept of surface brightness for galaxies is straightforward. However, it is more complicated to understand that which astrophysicists acknowledge, that equivalent surface brightness in both nearby and distant galaxies contradicts the big bang. Measuring surface brightness involves the canceling effects of light's inverse square law, with the area of the galaxy, which itself is calculated by squaring the radius. That relatively simple approach works very well with actual empirical data from our observatories. Yet, if the big bang theory were correct, the expansion of the universe would complicate that cancelation effect, and therefore that approach should not work. But it does. This is explained further by creationist physicist Dr. Hartnett (in a paragraph added at the request of RSR to his great article), Is there definitive evidence for an expanding universe?
* Two Expansion Questions:
1: Into What? If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? Some argue with certainty, like cosmologist Joel Primack with the University of California that, "There is no 'empty space' that the universe is expanding into." And others, like National Science Foundation astrophysics fellow Dave Rothstein at astro.cornell.edu says with more apparent humility, "This is a very good question which is not at all easy to give a satisfactory answer to! ... [I]f the universe is infinitely big, then the answer is simply that it isn't expanding into anything; instead... every distance between every pair of galaxies is being 'stretched', but... [i]f, on the other hand, the universe has a finite size, then it may be legitimate to claim that there is something 'outside of the universe' that the universe is expanding into... So... we really don't know what, if anything, the universe is expanding into." (And of course, only with a bounded model can an outside exist; with an unbounded model of the universe (such as the standard BB cosmology), there can be no outside.
2) Stetched or Created? Notice just above Rothstein's use of the word "stretched". Why do experts speak in contradictory terms regarding expansion? For example, in 2019 NASA describes it like this, "The space between galaxies is stretching..." Yet in 2019 astrophysics professor Ethan Siegel writes that, "new space is constantly getting created in between the bound galaxies..." Siegel is an award-winning science writer with a triple degree including in physics from Northwestern and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida. But perhaps because what he wrote there was not peer reviewed but for the popular publication Forbes, maybe he was just speaking informally. Perhaps. Or, perhaps this is another of the many examples of how the big bang is more of a strangely morphing hypothesis than any kind of robust theory. 
Dr. Hartnett once asked a leading cosmologist how it could be possible, as some claim, that the universe is transtioning from finite unbounded to infinite unbounded and to his credit he replied that he did not know. (See also rsr.org/bbp.)
* Following Dr. Hartnett & His Work at CMI: Here at Real Science Radio we keep up with the latest in the the rough-and-tumble field of cosmology by following JohnHartnett.org and Dr. Hartnett's articles at creation.com. And you just my love listening to our rsr.org/hartnett-evaluates-rsr-evidence-against-the-bb interview!
* See RSR's Own Stretch Cosmology: At rsr.org/stretch-cosmology-starlight-and-time-problem.
* Post-show Note -- Atheists Boot Bob: Tolerance by the atheists at RationalSkepticism.org lasted until Bob's 27th post. Was Bob the victim of spam entrapment? :)
* Bob is Banned in Bavaria: Well, that's where this atheist website, RationalSkepticism.org, is registered. Was Bob the victim of entrapment, specifically, spam entrapment? You can decide for yourself. Get the links and see the entertaining story at rsr.org/spam-entrapment. This international incident began typically enough. Seemingly laying the groundwork for eventually banning Bob Enyart, RS moderators and members had reprimanded the RSR co-host:
- for putting his name and city at the bottom of his first post.
- for using the names "Darwin and Dawkins" in his first post. Really.
- for accidentally capitalizing theropod's username.
- apparently for signing some posts, just in plain text, without linking, as Bob Enyart, Real Science Radio.
As theropod wrote, "I'm tempted to report your closing as intentionally inflaming..." One day later... [more...]