Post by nicholashesed on Feb 25, 2014 2:40:18 GMT
I had to save this from Crothers. He posted it on a FB Cosmology forum and they deleted it. I wasn't surprised, but this was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I especially think it ironic that some cosmologists/physicists now think the Earth is the center of the U. It seems we really never did leave the Middle Ages.
Stephen Crothers:
THE SO-CALLED COSMIC MICRWOAVE BACKGROUND
(1) The doctoring of the COBE-FIRAS graphs remains unaddressed here by proponents of big bangs and CMB afterglows thereof, despite Dishman admitting, apparently after subsequent checking, that data < 2cm^(-1) has been omitted. Dishman initially claimed that no data < 2cm^(-1) was obtained.
(2) To obtain an image of the Cosmos we have to peer through the Milky Way, because we are located within it. The Milky Way radiates, including in the microwave bands. If it is assumed that there is some Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, any raw image of it will contain the radiation from the Milky Way. Any raw image in microwaves will therefore be contaminated by the radiation fog of the Milky Way. This fog is not isotropic (i.e. it is not the same in all directions and not independent of time). It is effectively noise that must be removed from a raw image.
(3) Any raw image can be thought of as made up of layers of transparencies. Each transparency contains part of the raw image. Some layers contain noise and the others contain the supposed CMB. All the noise layers have to be removed to leave behind the supposed CMB.
(4) There are two objectives: (a) to detect the supposed isotropic CMB mean temperature, (b) to detect the supposed CMB anisotropies. The anisotropies are not uniform, that is why they are called anisotropies – they are not isotropic. The CMB sky is expressed as a spherical harmonic expansion. The supposed CMB mean blackbody temperature at 2.725 K is the monopole component of CMB maps. Monopole measurements can only be made with absolute temperature devices, such as the COBE-FIRAS instrument; although this is actually the difference between the sky and the calibrator on board FIRAS.
(5) The raw image layers analogy consists of a layer for the anisotropic radiation from the Milky Way, called the galactic foreground; a layer for the isotropic monopole signal which is the overall supposed CMB mean temperature; a layer for the anisotropic dipole signal produced by the motion of the detector with respect to the local group of galaxies, and which comprises the first spherical harmonic of the spherical harmonic expansion of the CMB sky; and layers for the supposed anisotropies buried deep within the alleged CMB and which are due to what are called the higher order multipoles, such as the quadrupole signal, the octupole signal, etc. each contributing a separate layer to the raw image. CMB stands for Cosmic Microwave Background. The alleged isotopic mean temperature is the monopole signal. Thus, cosmic monopole signal or monopole signal is correct terminology, especially since it stands in contrast to the actual monopole signal from the Earth – the Earth monopole signal – which was what Penzias and Wilson observed from the ground and reported in 1965, and what COBE-FIRAS detected in low Earth orbit. Rockets and balloons, all in Earth’s atmosphere, have also detected the Earth monopole signal, because the source is the Earth, but it has been incorrectly assigned to the Cosmos. That no monopole signal has been detected at the Second Lagrange Point (L2) some 1.5 million km from Earth reaffirms that there is no cosmic monopole – the monopole signal detected in Earth’s atmosphere and in low Earth orbit is the monopole microwave signal emitted by water on Earth and in Earth’s atmosphere. In the absence of the cosmic monopole signal all alleged maps of CMB anisotropy are entirely meaningless.
(6) The galactic foreground signal is in milli-Kelvin (mK), the monopole signal is supposed to be ~ 3K, the dipole signal is in mK, and the anisotropies are in micro-Kelvin. Thus, the supposed anisotropies are 1000 times weaker than the noise (the galactic foreground signal and the dipole signal are non-uniform noise that fog the raw image).
(7) The Cosmic Background Explorer – Far-Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (COBE-FIRAS) was an absolute mode detector. It compared the ‘sky’ with its onboard calibrator. After data-processing out the galactic foreground and the dipole signal the FIRAS team reported an alleged remaining CMB with a temperature of 2.725 K. Recall that they reported in their interferograms an alleged “near null” between sky and calibrator at 2.759 K, which is far from 2.725 K, and that they suppressed the amplitudes of the top and bottom traces to give the false impression that a “near null” was obtained at 2.759 K. But COBE was in Earth orbit at an altitude of about 950km and it had no protection from extraneous microwaves. COBE-FIRAS had a shield, but it was only for RF/thermal, not for microwaves. Microwaves are emitted by water. About 70% of the surface of the Earth is covered by water and the atmosphere also contains water. Microwaves emitted from the oceans of the Earth and water in the atmosphere are scattered by the atmosphere so that in steady state conditions an isotropic bath of microwaves floods the atmosphere. Microwaves from Earth’s atmosphere is what the COBE-FIRAS detected, not a cosmic signal. COBE-FIRAS did not detect a cosmic signal at all. It detected an Earth Microwave Background (EMB).
(8) Also aboard COBE was the Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR). You will recall from my previous post that a differential instrument collects radiation via two separate antennae and these two detections are compared to one another by means of subtracting one antenna dataset from the other antenna dataset. Any signal that is supposed isotropic is the same in both antennae and in all directions the antennae are pointed and does not vary with time. Consequently, the alleged CMB monopole signal, which is supposed isotropic, is the same in each antenna and so when subtracted it disappears from the resulting difference dataset. Data produced by a differential instrument is difference data. It therefore does not matter what the temperature of the supposed CMB monopole signal is, it does not matter if it is blackbody radiation or not, and it does not matter if it is actually there or actually not there. A differential instrument is blind to isotropic signals. A differential instrument can only detect anisotropies. Thus, the COBE-DMR were blind to the monopole signal. Now when George Smoot, Principal Scientist on the DMR, removed the dipole signal by data-processing, he puzzled very puzzled as to why his supposed anisotropies did not appear in his images. After all, if all this processing is well, and there are anisotropies in the alleged CMB, they should have appeared by then. But they didn’t. He tried every which way to make them appear, but they didn’t. Finally, on the spur of the moment, he decided to data-process out the supposed quadrupole signal. Lo and behold, his anisotropies appeared. Here is what Smoot (1993) said:
“We were confident that the quadrupole was a real cosmic signal. . . By late January and early February, the results were beginning to gel, but they still did not quite make sense. I tried all kinds of different approaches, plotting data in every format I could think of, including upside down and backwards, just to try a new perspective and hoping for a breakthrough. Then I thought, why not throw out the quadrupole—the thing I’d been searching for all those years — and see if nature had put anything else there! … “Why, I puzzled, did I have to remove the quadrupole to see the wrinkles?”
Smoot and his team were beside themselves with their ‘discovery’. Later Smoot and John Mather shared a Nobel Prize for all this. However, when Smoot systematically data-processed out the quadupole signal he systematically introduced ghost signals into his image. He and his colleagues mistook these data-processing remnants for data!
Here is Robitaille’s (2009a) response to Smoot:
“The answer to this question is one of data processing. The raw maps do not contain any systematic signal variations on their own. The signals were random in nature. However, when Smoot and his colleagues imposed a systematic removal of signal, they produced a systematic remnant. In essence, the act of removing the quadrupole created the multipoles and the associated systematic anisotropy. Once the quadrupole was removed, the multipoles appeared as extremely consistent variations on the maps. As previously mentioned, these findings have no relevance to cosmology and are purely an artifact of signal processing.”
And this (Robitaille 2007b):
“Apparent anisotropy must not be generated by processing”.
Recall that these supposed anisotropies are in micro-K and the foreground from the galaxy is in mK and the dipole signal is also inmK. So the alleged anisotropies are ~1000 times weaker than the noise that contaminates the images. Now it is well known to imaging scientists and scientists working in radiometry laboratories that it is impossible to extract such a weak signal from such a high level of noise unless the experimenter has either (1) a priori knowledge of the nature of the signal source, or (2) the ability to physically manipulate the signal source. Neither of these options was available to COBE. It is also well known to those scientists that data-processing for such weak signals in such a contaminated environment (the galactic signal) produces ghost signals. Data-processing is what produced Smoot’s anisotropies, not the Universe. Smoot and his colleagues could not tell the difference between data and data-processing induced spots before their eyes. CBE-DMR could not even zero the galactic foreground and the all-sky anisotropy map published by Smoot et al contained the foreground contamination, which appeared as ragged red band across the centre of their map.
(9) So COBE-FIRAS did not detect a CMB and COBE-DMR did not detect anisotropies in the alleged CMB. COBE-FIRAS detected microwave signals from Earth. COBE-FIRAS did not obtain a null at 2.725 K and it did not obtain a null at 2.759 K either. It obtained no null. The COBE-FIRAS team could not obtain a null anywhere, because FIRAS was so defective. They never got a null between sky and calibrator. They manufactured a “near null” at 2.759 K by doctoring their interferograms. The blackbody curve at 2.725 K was also manufactured in order to corroborate their false “near null” for their alleged CMB. They omitted all data < 2cm^(-1), and shifted the vertical axis of their graph a whole division to the left in an attempt to disguise this fact. In their earlier reports the FIRAS team reported data < 2cm^(-1) but later reports dropped this data, without any explanation whatsoever. As I previously remarked, it is the lower frequencies which diffracted most over the FIRAS shield. The FIRAS team merely threw out all data < 2cm^(-1). The FIRAS team reported that they got higher than expected intensities at the lower frequencies and lower than expected intensities at the higher frequencies; which is precisely what must happen with diffraction over the shield. Since they could not actually get a null they blamed instrument errors and so bundled them all into their ‘calibration file’, and they arbitrarily applied a 4% reflectance, and they tried to calibrate in flight by using the Moon, amongst many other useless band aids.
(10) What about the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)? Recall that WMAP was a differential instrument and so it was completely blind to the alleged CMB isotropic monopole signal. WMAP was located at L2, about 1.5 million km from Earth, positioned so that Earth was always between it and the Sun. Since it was a differential instrument WMAP did not detect a CMB temperature at 2.725 K. It was incapable of such a measurement. It was designed only to detect anisotropies, and hence its name. However, just like COBE-DMR it had to extract a supposed signal that is ~1000 times weaker than the galactic foreground. It therefore suffered from the very same incapability of the COBE-DMR. None of the WMAP images are unique. WMAP can’t reproduce images from its own datasets. WMAP anisotropy maps are composites of images at 5 different frequencies. These 5 images were combined by arbitrarily assigning positive or negative coefficients to each frequency, to produce a final image. This method was called Internal Linear Combination (ILC). The only restriction to these coefficients was that they sum to 1. The purpose of these shenanigans was solely to try to zero the galactic foreground (remember that the galactic foreground is anisotropic noise that must be data-processed out). The WMAP team arbitrarily weighted a particular frequency band (the V-band). Why? - Because other bands were so fogged by noise that they were quite useless (e.g. the K-band). Not only that, no ILC could zero the foreground, so the WMAP team arbitrarily divided up each image into 12 sub-images, 11 of which were in the galactic foreground. They then proceed to ‘clean’ these composites by arbitrarily applying different integrated linear coefficients to each sectional image, and even varied these coefficients by as much as 100% in adjacent sectional images. None of this comes anywhere near to minimal standards in image processing. The WMAP team made up their own rules for image processing, violating all accepted standards in imaging science. One can vary these integrated linear coefficients at will to produce completely different images. Consequently there is no WMAP anisotropy image that is unique. Tegmark and his colleagues ‘cleaned’ WMAP raw images by a different method to ILC’s. Their anisotropy map is very different to the WMAP anisotropy map. Not only that, Tegmark et al crucially relied upon the alleged cosmic blackbody curve at 2.725 K produced by COBE-FIRAS. The anisotropy map from Tegmark et al is no better than the WMAP anisotropy map. They contain no valid data. All such maps are meaningless.
(11) What about the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck satellite? It was located at L2. Its LFI was capable of operating in both absolute and differential modes. It carried on board two 4K blackbody reference loads by which its Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) could in fact make an absolute mode measurement. The Planck team has reported an anisotropy map using both its High Frequency Instrument (HFI) and the LFI. They allege it is in close correlation with WMAP’s anisotropy map. However, the Planck anisotropy map is on a different scale to the WMAP anisotropy map, and so they are not in fact in close correlation. They are very different maps! Also, since WMAP anisotropy maps are not unique and hence meaningless, Planck’s anisotropy map is an alleged match with demonstrable nonsense. How did the Planck team manage such a feat? It stinks! Moreover, the Planck team never reported detection of a monopole signal at L2. That’s because there is no monopole signal at L2. And that’s because the signal detected by COBE-FIRAS is from Earth.
(12) Penzias and Wilson detected a 3K signal from the ground with a primitive horn that was swamped by microwaves from the atmosphere. Their detection was not cosmic. There has been no detection of a CMB.
Unless the proponents of the alleged CMB produce a monopole signal at L2 the case is closed. They have not done so, and they never will. So the case is closed. There is no CMB afterglow of some big bang expanding universe.
(13) There have been recent developments on the alleged CMB alignment of the dipole signal and multipoles of the alleged CMB. It is claimed that there is an alignment of the dipole and multipoles that makes the Earth very special so that it is not only at the centre of the solar system but also at the centre of the Universe. Thus, it is claimed that not only is the solar system geocentric, but so is the Universe. Max Tegmark, along with other various proponents of black holes and big bangs and CMB big bang afterglow, appear in a cinema film called The Principle, supposed to be released sometime in 2014. This film promotes now the geocentric universe on the alleged alignment of the dipole signal, and the multipoles of the so-called CMB. Here is the trailer for the film:
www.theprinciplemovie.com/
So the alleged CMB is now touted as proof of Earth at the centre of the Universe.
REFERENCES
Fixsen D.J. and Mather J.C. The spectral results of the farinfrared absolute spectrophotometer instrument on COBE. Astrophys. J., 2002, v. 581, 817–822.
Mather J.C., Cheng E.S., et al., A preliminary measurement of the cosmic microwave background spectrum by the cosmic background explorer (COBE) satellite, Astrophys. J., 1990, v.354, L37-L40.
Max Tegmark, Angélica de Oliveira-Costa1 & Andrew J. S. Hamilton, A high resolution foreground cleaned CMB map from WMAP, Phys. Rev. D., 2003.
Robitaille P.-M. On the Earth Microwave Background: Absorption and Scattering by the Atmosphere, Prog. In Phys., 2007, v. 3, 3-4.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-10-01.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. WMAP: A Radiological Analysis, Prog. In Phys., 2007b, v. 1, 3–18.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-08-01.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. The Earth microwave background (EMB), atmospheric
scattering and the generation of isotropy. Prog. In Phys., 2008, v. 2, 164–165.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2008/PP-13-24.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. Water, Hydrogen Bonding, and the Microwave Background’, Progress in Physics, Vol.2, April, 2009, Prog. In Phys., (Letters to the Editor), v. 2, L5-L8.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2009/PP-17-L2.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. COBE: A Radiological Analysis, Prog. In Phys., 2009a, v. 4, 17–42.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2009/PP-19-03.PDF
Smoot G. and Davidson K. Wrinkles in time: witness to the birth of the Universe, Harper Perennial, New York, N.Y., 1993.
Stephen Crothers:
THE SO-CALLED COSMIC MICRWOAVE BACKGROUND
(1) The doctoring of the COBE-FIRAS graphs remains unaddressed here by proponents of big bangs and CMB afterglows thereof, despite Dishman admitting, apparently after subsequent checking, that data < 2cm^(-1) has been omitted. Dishman initially claimed that no data < 2cm^(-1) was obtained.
(2) To obtain an image of the Cosmos we have to peer through the Milky Way, because we are located within it. The Milky Way radiates, including in the microwave bands. If it is assumed that there is some Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, any raw image of it will contain the radiation from the Milky Way. Any raw image in microwaves will therefore be contaminated by the radiation fog of the Milky Way. This fog is not isotropic (i.e. it is not the same in all directions and not independent of time). It is effectively noise that must be removed from a raw image.
(3) Any raw image can be thought of as made up of layers of transparencies. Each transparency contains part of the raw image. Some layers contain noise and the others contain the supposed CMB. All the noise layers have to be removed to leave behind the supposed CMB.
(4) There are two objectives: (a) to detect the supposed isotropic CMB mean temperature, (b) to detect the supposed CMB anisotropies. The anisotropies are not uniform, that is why they are called anisotropies – they are not isotropic. The CMB sky is expressed as a spherical harmonic expansion. The supposed CMB mean blackbody temperature at 2.725 K is the monopole component of CMB maps. Monopole measurements can only be made with absolute temperature devices, such as the COBE-FIRAS instrument; although this is actually the difference between the sky and the calibrator on board FIRAS.
(5) The raw image layers analogy consists of a layer for the anisotropic radiation from the Milky Way, called the galactic foreground; a layer for the isotropic monopole signal which is the overall supposed CMB mean temperature; a layer for the anisotropic dipole signal produced by the motion of the detector with respect to the local group of galaxies, and which comprises the first spherical harmonic of the spherical harmonic expansion of the CMB sky; and layers for the supposed anisotropies buried deep within the alleged CMB and which are due to what are called the higher order multipoles, such as the quadrupole signal, the octupole signal, etc. each contributing a separate layer to the raw image. CMB stands for Cosmic Microwave Background. The alleged isotopic mean temperature is the monopole signal. Thus, cosmic monopole signal or monopole signal is correct terminology, especially since it stands in contrast to the actual monopole signal from the Earth – the Earth monopole signal – which was what Penzias and Wilson observed from the ground and reported in 1965, and what COBE-FIRAS detected in low Earth orbit. Rockets and balloons, all in Earth’s atmosphere, have also detected the Earth monopole signal, because the source is the Earth, but it has been incorrectly assigned to the Cosmos. That no monopole signal has been detected at the Second Lagrange Point (L2) some 1.5 million km from Earth reaffirms that there is no cosmic monopole – the monopole signal detected in Earth’s atmosphere and in low Earth orbit is the monopole microwave signal emitted by water on Earth and in Earth’s atmosphere. In the absence of the cosmic monopole signal all alleged maps of CMB anisotropy are entirely meaningless.
(6) The galactic foreground signal is in milli-Kelvin (mK), the monopole signal is supposed to be ~ 3K, the dipole signal is in mK, and the anisotropies are in micro-Kelvin. Thus, the supposed anisotropies are 1000 times weaker than the noise (the galactic foreground signal and the dipole signal are non-uniform noise that fog the raw image).
(7) The Cosmic Background Explorer – Far-Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (COBE-FIRAS) was an absolute mode detector. It compared the ‘sky’ with its onboard calibrator. After data-processing out the galactic foreground and the dipole signal the FIRAS team reported an alleged remaining CMB with a temperature of 2.725 K. Recall that they reported in their interferograms an alleged “near null” between sky and calibrator at 2.759 K, which is far from 2.725 K, and that they suppressed the amplitudes of the top and bottom traces to give the false impression that a “near null” was obtained at 2.759 K. But COBE was in Earth orbit at an altitude of about 950km and it had no protection from extraneous microwaves. COBE-FIRAS had a shield, but it was only for RF/thermal, not for microwaves. Microwaves are emitted by water. About 70% of the surface of the Earth is covered by water and the atmosphere also contains water. Microwaves emitted from the oceans of the Earth and water in the atmosphere are scattered by the atmosphere so that in steady state conditions an isotropic bath of microwaves floods the atmosphere. Microwaves from Earth’s atmosphere is what the COBE-FIRAS detected, not a cosmic signal. COBE-FIRAS did not detect a cosmic signal at all. It detected an Earth Microwave Background (EMB).
(8) Also aboard COBE was the Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR). You will recall from my previous post that a differential instrument collects radiation via two separate antennae and these two detections are compared to one another by means of subtracting one antenna dataset from the other antenna dataset. Any signal that is supposed isotropic is the same in both antennae and in all directions the antennae are pointed and does not vary with time. Consequently, the alleged CMB monopole signal, which is supposed isotropic, is the same in each antenna and so when subtracted it disappears from the resulting difference dataset. Data produced by a differential instrument is difference data. It therefore does not matter what the temperature of the supposed CMB monopole signal is, it does not matter if it is blackbody radiation or not, and it does not matter if it is actually there or actually not there. A differential instrument is blind to isotropic signals. A differential instrument can only detect anisotropies. Thus, the COBE-DMR were blind to the monopole signal. Now when George Smoot, Principal Scientist on the DMR, removed the dipole signal by data-processing, he puzzled very puzzled as to why his supposed anisotropies did not appear in his images. After all, if all this processing is well, and there are anisotropies in the alleged CMB, they should have appeared by then. But they didn’t. He tried every which way to make them appear, but they didn’t. Finally, on the spur of the moment, he decided to data-process out the supposed quadrupole signal. Lo and behold, his anisotropies appeared. Here is what Smoot (1993) said:
“We were confident that the quadrupole was a real cosmic signal. . . By late January and early February, the results were beginning to gel, but they still did not quite make sense. I tried all kinds of different approaches, plotting data in every format I could think of, including upside down and backwards, just to try a new perspective and hoping for a breakthrough. Then I thought, why not throw out the quadrupole—the thing I’d been searching for all those years — and see if nature had put anything else there! … “Why, I puzzled, did I have to remove the quadrupole to see the wrinkles?”
Smoot and his team were beside themselves with their ‘discovery’. Later Smoot and John Mather shared a Nobel Prize for all this. However, when Smoot systematically data-processed out the quadupole signal he systematically introduced ghost signals into his image. He and his colleagues mistook these data-processing remnants for data!
Here is Robitaille’s (2009a) response to Smoot:
“The answer to this question is one of data processing. The raw maps do not contain any systematic signal variations on their own. The signals were random in nature. However, when Smoot and his colleagues imposed a systematic removal of signal, they produced a systematic remnant. In essence, the act of removing the quadrupole created the multipoles and the associated systematic anisotropy. Once the quadrupole was removed, the multipoles appeared as extremely consistent variations on the maps. As previously mentioned, these findings have no relevance to cosmology and are purely an artifact of signal processing.”
And this (Robitaille 2007b):
“Apparent anisotropy must not be generated by processing”.
Recall that these supposed anisotropies are in micro-K and the foreground from the galaxy is in mK and the dipole signal is also inmK. So the alleged anisotropies are ~1000 times weaker than the noise that contaminates the images. Now it is well known to imaging scientists and scientists working in radiometry laboratories that it is impossible to extract such a weak signal from such a high level of noise unless the experimenter has either (1) a priori knowledge of the nature of the signal source, or (2) the ability to physically manipulate the signal source. Neither of these options was available to COBE. It is also well known to those scientists that data-processing for such weak signals in such a contaminated environment (the galactic signal) produces ghost signals. Data-processing is what produced Smoot’s anisotropies, not the Universe. Smoot and his colleagues could not tell the difference between data and data-processing induced spots before their eyes. CBE-DMR could not even zero the galactic foreground and the all-sky anisotropy map published by Smoot et al contained the foreground contamination, which appeared as ragged red band across the centre of their map.
(9) So COBE-FIRAS did not detect a CMB and COBE-DMR did not detect anisotropies in the alleged CMB. COBE-FIRAS detected microwave signals from Earth. COBE-FIRAS did not obtain a null at 2.725 K and it did not obtain a null at 2.759 K either. It obtained no null. The COBE-FIRAS team could not obtain a null anywhere, because FIRAS was so defective. They never got a null between sky and calibrator. They manufactured a “near null” at 2.759 K by doctoring their interferograms. The blackbody curve at 2.725 K was also manufactured in order to corroborate their false “near null” for their alleged CMB. They omitted all data < 2cm^(-1), and shifted the vertical axis of their graph a whole division to the left in an attempt to disguise this fact. In their earlier reports the FIRAS team reported data < 2cm^(-1) but later reports dropped this data, without any explanation whatsoever. As I previously remarked, it is the lower frequencies which diffracted most over the FIRAS shield. The FIRAS team merely threw out all data < 2cm^(-1). The FIRAS team reported that they got higher than expected intensities at the lower frequencies and lower than expected intensities at the higher frequencies; which is precisely what must happen with diffraction over the shield. Since they could not actually get a null they blamed instrument errors and so bundled them all into their ‘calibration file’, and they arbitrarily applied a 4% reflectance, and they tried to calibrate in flight by using the Moon, amongst many other useless band aids.
(10) What about the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP)? Recall that WMAP was a differential instrument and so it was completely blind to the alleged CMB isotropic monopole signal. WMAP was located at L2, about 1.5 million km from Earth, positioned so that Earth was always between it and the Sun. Since it was a differential instrument WMAP did not detect a CMB temperature at 2.725 K. It was incapable of such a measurement. It was designed only to detect anisotropies, and hence its name. However, just like COBE-DMR it had to extract a supposed signal that is ~1000 times weaker than the galactic foreground. It therefore suffered from the very same incapability of the COBE-DMR. None of the WMAP images are unique. WMAP can’t reproduce images from its own datasets. WMAP anisotropy maps are composites of images at 5 different frequencies. These 5 images were combined by arbitrarily assigning positive or negative coefficients to each frequency, to produce a final image. This method was called Internal Linear Combination (ILC). The only restriction to these coefficients was that they sum to 1. The purpose of these shenanigans was solely to try to zero the galactic foreground (remember that the galactic foreground is anisotropic noise that must be data-processed out). The WMAP team arbitrarily weighted a particular frequency band (the V-band). Why? - Because other bands were so fogged by noise that they were quite useless (e.g. the K-band). Not only that, no ILC could zero the foreground, so the WMAP team arbitrarily divided up each image into 12 sub-images, 11 of which were in the galactic foreground. They then proceed to ‘clean’ these composites by arbitrarily applying different integrated linear coefficients to each sectional image, and even varied these coefficients by as much as 100% in adjacent sectional images. None of this comes anywhere near to minimal standards in image processing. The WMAP team made up their own rules for image processing, violating all accepted standards in imaging science. One can vary these integrated linear coefficients at will to produce completely different images. Consequently there is no WMAP anisotropy image that is unique. Tegmark and his colleagues ‘cleaned’ WMAP raw images by a different method to ILC’s. Their anisotropy map is very different to the WMAP anisotropy map. Not only that, Tegmark et al crucially relied upon the alleged cosmic blackbody curve at 2.725 K produced by COBE-FIRAS. The anisotropy map from Tegmark et al is no better than the WMAP anisotropy map. They contain no valid data. All such maps are meaningless.
(11) What about the European Space Agency (ESA) Planck satellite? It was located at L2. Its LFI was capable of operating in both absolute and differential modes. It carried on board two 4K blackbody reference loads by which its Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) could in fact make an absolute mode measurement. The Planck team has reported an anisotropy map using both its High Frequency Instrument (HFI) and the LFI. They allege it is in close correlation with WMAP’s anisotropy map. However, the Planck anisotropy map is on a different scale to the WMAP anisotropy map, and so they are not in fact in close correlation. They are very different maps! Also, since WMAP anisotropy maps are not unique and hence meaningless, Planck’s anisotropy map is an alleged match with demonstrable nonsense. How did the Planck team manage such a feat? It stinks! Moreover, the Planck team never reported detection of a monopole signal at L2. That’s because there is no monopole signal at L2. And that’s because the signal detected by COBE-FIRAS is from Earth.
(12) Penzias and Wilson detected a 3K signal from the ground with a primitive horn that was swamped by microwaves from the atmosphere. Their detection was not cosmic. There has been no detection of a CMB.
Unless the proponents of the alleged CMB produce a monopole signal at L2 the case is closed. They have not done so, and they never will. So the case is closed. There is no CMB afterglow of some big bang expanding universe.
(13) There have been recent developments on the alleged CMB alignment of the dipole signal and multipoles of the alleged CMB. It is claimed that there is an alignment of the dipole and multipoles that makes the Earth very special so that it is not only at the centre of the solar system but also at the centre of the Universe. Thus, it is claimed that not only is the solar system geocentric, but so is the Universe. Max Tegmark, along with other various proponents of black holes and big bangs and CMB big bang afterglow, appear in a cinema film called The Principle, supposed to be released sometime in 2014. This film promotes now the geocentric universe on the alleged alignment of the dipole signal, and the multipoles of the so-called CMB. Here is the trailer for the film:
www.theprinciplemovie.com/
So the alleged CMB is now touted as proof of Earth at the centre of the Universe.
REFERENCES
Fixsen D.J. and Mather J.C. The spectral results of the farinfrared absolute spectrophotometer instrument on COBE. Astrophys. J., 2002, v. 581, 817–822.
Mather J.C., Cheng E.S., et al., A preliminary measurement of the cosmic microwave background spectrum by the cosmic background explorer (COBE) satellite, Astrophys. J., 1990, v.354, L37-L40.
Max Tegmark, Angélica de Oliveira-Costa1 & Andrew J. S. Hamilton, A high resolution foreground cleaned CMB map from WMAP, Phys. Rev. D., 2003.
Robitaille P.-M. On the Earth Microwave Background: Absorption and Scattering by the Atmosphere, Prog. In Phys., 2007, v. 3, 3-4.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-10-01.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. WMAP: A Radiological Analysis, Prog. In Phys., 2007b, v. 1, 3–18.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-08-01.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. The Earth microwave background (EMB), atmospheric
scattering and the generation of isotropy. Prog. In Phys., 2008, v. 2, 164–165.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2008/PP-13-24.PDF
Robitaille P.-M. Water, Hydrogen Bonding, and the Microwave Background’, Progress in Physics, Vol.2, April, 2009, Prog. In Phys., (Letters to the Editor), v. 2, L5-L8.
www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2009/PP-17-L2.PDF
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