Congratulation to the hundreds of answers you got!

Hubble was a genius, of course.

And Zwicky proved him true in the same year, 1929,

as the new fundamental science of Cryodynamics has shown for 7 years by now.

Take care, everyone.

Otto E. Rossler

Thanks for the entertaining irony. But the mother of all ironies is that truth (historical and objective) is like a double edged sword. It hurts both sides; but its hurts most to the one on the wrong side of that truth; to the extent that they cannot remain passive for long and reacts one way or the other - a paradox of guilt! The first comment in this forum is an example!

I have raised a question on a simple historical fact that Hubble never accepted the “expanding” interpretation of his work until the end of his life. This fact (truth) is never contradicted by anyone (except now by our all-knowing Herr Otto E. Rossler). Even Allan Sandage, the nemesis of Hubble on the question of the expanding universe, admitted this fact in an article titled, “EDWIN HUBBLE 1889-1953”, JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ ROYALE D'ASTRONOMIE DU CANADA, Vol. 83, No.6 December 1989 Whole No. 621

Even the most recent astronomical evident shows that Hubble is right! :

http://cosmologyscience.com/cosblog/spiral-galaxy-bx442-supports-hubbles-belief-redshift-does-not-mean-expansion/

Herr Rossler brings in the irrelevant case of maverick Zwicky, whose idea of “dark matter” was first ridiculed by everybody, but after the “discovery” of so-called “dark energy” (the polar opposite of "dark matter") Zwicky’s “dark matter” has now become Kosher! But it now seems that “dark energy” is not that dark and it may not even exist!! http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35596

And what’s about “dark matter”? It seems that in it's search, the LHC is empty-handed so far. But it is evident that the LHC is very successful in producing lots of “MICRO BLACKHOLES” and these are accumulating to produce a “SUPERMASSIVE ‘INTELLECTUAL BLACK HOLE' IN THE CENTRE OF EUROPE”! AMEN!

I suppose there are two ways a name for an idea can be a misnomer. One is if it is named after a person, and that person did not promote the idea or believe it was correct. The other way is if the words have actual meaning in themselves, and the meaning of those words do not match the idea described by the description of the idea.

To my understanding, Hubble's Law is essentially a description relating the velocity and distance of nearby galaxies. Hubble did some of these measurements himself, and to my knowledge, he felt he had found a pattern that gave a relationship that should indicate that they all matched a pattern d = v T, where T was some time that all the galaxies were together... I don't know what value Hubble found for that constant, but it has been revised to 13.7 billion years. However, the reciprocal of this value of T, can be expressed in km/second per MegaParsec.

There is a common misconception I think among professional cosmologists that the idea that Hubble's Law could be accomplished by a simple form d = v T, where T is the age of the universe (the time since the big bang) is an impossibility. The reason is that they think that the domain for such an equation must allow for velocities from 0 to infinity. They frequently argue that the only way a universe can be expanding and isotropic, it must be also homogeneous in Cartesian Space. They are incorrect, because there is no trouble having a model that is homogeneous in rapidity space--that is, the velocities take on velocities v=c tanh(phi) and hence there is an upper limit to the velocity of the speed of light. This model is isotropic from the point-of-view of any particle that is "in the Hubble Flow"... that is, any particle that has either not accelerated since the beginning of the universe, or has accumulated into an amalgamation of particles which is colocated with the trajectory that particles would have taken had they not accelerated since the beginning of the universe.

There are a number of arguments against this sort of model, though none of them are scientifically sound. For instance, Peebles encyclopedic work on cosmological models gives some incorrect descriptions about what Milne's model is, than says that Milne's model is "not very interesting"

The "interesting" models, hold, that Hubble's Law should not be expressed in the form d = v T, but rather v = H_0 d. The simplest version is called a de Sitter model, where the Hubble's constant is not a time-varying quantity, but literally a constant. In these, the distance may be changing, but that change is not associated with a velocity THROUGH space, but rather, with a movement OF the space.

As for which class of models Hubble promoted, I don't know... On the scale of a human civilization d/dt( H_0 ) is so close to zero that we might not be able to detect its change.

However, I don't think that the most distant galaxies actually obey Hubble's Law... or more accurately, I think they DO obey Hubble's law but a much smaller value of Hubble's constant, and with a much greater degree of noise. The theory essentially requires just one strange phenomenon. There was a Primary Big Bang approximately 40 billion years ago, and then a Secondary Bang about 13.7 billion years ago. The Secondary bang explains the local behavior of galaxies. The Primary Big Bang explains the observation of redshift-to-distance of artifacts discovered, for instance, by the High Z Supernova team.

This model either does not require dark matter, or points to diatomic hydrogen as the relevant particle. To my knowledge diatomic hydrogen is utterly transparent and nonreactive to light up to some ultraviolet wavelength that can break the two particles apart... Though people will point to the emission spectrum of diatomic hydrogen, which is produced by passing a high current through a fluorescent tube, I think this is only produced because electrons are literally ripping through the gas. But one should not presume that the reverse (absorption) spectrum is produced when it is exposed to visible light. Virtually all of the light capable of actually being absorbed by a diatomic hydrogen molecule will be absorbed within 100 Astronomical Units of the star that produced it. In the 206,000 Astronomical units of a Parsec, that typically lies between stars, even in a dense galaxy, I imagine the diatomic hydrogen is thick and perfectly transparent, with vastly greater density than the estimates regularly given by those who are mystified by the amazing speed with which galaxies rotate.

An ancient Greek astronomer named Hipparchus invented a Magnitude scale to measure the brightness of stars. He gave the brightest a value of 1 and the dimmest stars he could see a value of 6.

In 1856, Norman Robert Pogson formalized the system by defining a first magnitude star as a star that is 100 times as bright as a sixth-magnitude star, thereby establishing the logarithmic scale still in use today.

It seems rather amazing to me that they can put such extraordinary precision on the distance to these galaxies... without any mention of what color-filters they are using, or precisely what their standard candles are, or their theories about how bright these objects must be in the absolute, and how these distributions of color are shifted into the red so that they must be measured by other filters... There is no mention of the complexity of this problem at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble%27s_law

Considering the lack of detail, one might as well guess that they have actually pulled great rulers out of their pockets and measured the distances directly.

Finally, to be clear... The answer to your question, " Is Hubble Law a Deliberate and Opportunistic Misnomer?" The answer is, NO, definitely not.

Because Hubble's Law is the claim that distances and velocities were related by some constant factor... This was a pattern that Hubble believed was true. This was a pattern that Hubble identified. This was the pattern that was named after him.

Now on the other hand, if someone comes along and points to a group of data which are not following that pattern, and then say "that data obeys Hubble's Law" which is commonly done, I think, it is not "Hubble's Law" whose meaning has suddenly become a misnomer, but the person who claims that the data is obeying Hubble's Law is simply incorrect.

Another situation that might arise, is that data regarding the distance of standard candles may be collected, interpreted, and summarized, with none of the details of that collection being offered. I have seen quite a number of IAUC (International Astronomical Union Circulars) where it appears, at best, they may have magnitude measures through Red, Green, Blue filters, and at worst, they might simply have a single number.

While, there might be all manner of sophisticated techniques to deal with phenomena which are known, those techniques will of course go wrong, if there are any phenomena which are unknown to the experimenter, and turn into some systematic error in the data. Not only that, but since there is disagreement about the phenomena that would affect the magnitude measurement, I regard any experimenter who simply reports "distance" without reference to the raw data, or to the methods by which they collected the data, or converted that data into distance, as useless for discovering the truth or falsehood of the theories they promote.

When these papers refer to "distance" then, when actually, they have no direct measurement of the distance, and then they pat themselves on the back for confirming their theory, unfortunately, I am unable to tell whether their word "distance" is a "deliberate and opportunistic misnomer". All I know is I have no way to independently confirm that their method for confirming their spectral analysis of given any given galaxy would convince me that the galaxy lies at the distance they claim, and for all I know, the word "distance" could be a deliberate and opportunistic misnomer.

In fact, I think it is almost definitely the case, when it comes to any "standard cosmological model" you will find proponents of these models saying such things as "at large distances, measurements of velocity become meaningless." or other philosophically equivalent equivocations.

Philosophize this: If you have an idea that seems well-defined in your head--say "dog" or "foot" or "foozeball", or "hippogriff" (that is you can visualize it perfectly well, in three dimensions of space over time,) and then someone tells you it is "meaningless", is it a misnomer? Clearly the person saying "it is meaningless" must have some meaningless idea in their head, which is invoked when the word is said. The question then, is what idea was spoken, and what idea was understood. The claim to "meaninglessness" is a confession of "no faith" in the person speaking, of course, as you are simply saying "i am not listening to you, because the words coming out of your mouth have no meaning." The appropriate response, of course, to words which have conveyed no meaning are "Huh?" or "What?" or "Could you please explain with different words, or give diagrams or an example?" Claiming the words have no meaning, though, is an accusation of the speaker--that he is simply using words without intending those words to mean anything. Claiming that the word "distance" has no meaning, though, I think, is a misnomer, because the word distance has such a well-established meaning that the person claiming it has no meaning must be thinking of some other meaningless concept. The question is whether a meaningless concept of distance actually can exist. Which of course it cannot, because meaningless word is a reference to no concept. So the person claiming that the word "distance" is meaningless, is not only using a misnomer, but if he claims to have greater understanding for distance, which he claims is meaningless, he is a fraud, because a meaningless word has no content to have any understanding--let alone greater or lesser understanding.

Jonathan Doolin

Aside from your three long comments, you seem to be oblivious to the simple fact I pointed out that Hubble never accepted (believed) in expanding universe that gives credibility to the Big Bang theory and by proxy GR! Hubble very clearly said (the quote in my initial statement),“expanding models are a forced interpretation of the observational results." How much more specific one can get?

The truth is; Edwin Hubble and Halton (Chip) Arp are the two greatest astronomers of modern times. Arp (I knew him personally), who passed away in December, 2013, always maintained that redshift is not a measure of cosmic distance; as did Hubble. But the good name of great Hubble is being misappropriated to gain credibility of something and to make a theory Kosher that Hubble (like Arp) never accepted!

What is more, those high redshift values that do not fit the theory are re-calculated (relativistically modified) using the equations of the same very theories of relativity that redshifts are supposed to “prove”! What better tautology one can have!

But the biggest irony of all these expansion, accelerated expansion and so on is that Supernova SN1a used as “Standard Candle” is not a Standard Candle at all!. SN1a was supposed to be due to a mechanism in which a white dwarf steals matter from its binary companion, reaches the Chardrashekhar limit and explodes giving a fixed luminosity no matter where this explosion happens, so the intensity measurement gives a direct relation to its distance. But now it has been found out that more than one mechanism are involved in the so-called Supernova SN1a (such as collision between two neutrons starts etc.) which will never give the supposed fixed luminosity expected from the ideal mechanism discussed above. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2014/08/28/type-1a-supernovas-cosmic-candle-mystery/

So, how “Standard” is their “standard” for distance measurements? –none! They just arbitrarily put it wherever or whatever is convenient: Arthur Eddington’s dictum applies : “Experimental data is valid only when it supports a good theory”.

And further irony is that another group of astronomers using the same Supernova SN1a data contradicts the claim of the (Nobel winning) accelerated expansion!

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep35596

,“expanding models are a forced interpretation of the observational results. " How much more specific one can get?

I would need to see something I call a "positive statement" attributed to Hubble, about how he, personally, interpreted the observational results. Or if he simply regarded it as a pattern between magnitude and redshift. I would also have to see whether he believed that this was a true law, that should hold as a property of the universe, or if he believed that it was a pattern, that was associated with some common circumstance shared by the galaxies he found in view. My understanding was that Hubble recognized that the magnitude/redshift relationship he discovered seemed to fit the same curve as would be predicted by a constant d/v = H_0 pattern, but he recognized that this could have several different interpretations... On the Wikipedia page on Hubble's Law,

" Although widely attributed to Edwin Hubble, the law was first derived from the general relativity equations, in 1922, by Alexander Friedmann who published a set of equations, now known as the Friedmann equations, showing that the universe might expand, and presenting the expansion speed if this was the case.[6] Then Georges Lemaître, in a 1927 article, proposed the expansion of the universe and suggested an estimated value of the rate of expansion, which when corrected by Hubble became known as the Hubble constant "

My personal feelings are that Friedmann's model is a rather "forced interpretation" of the observational results, but I have no idea if that is what Hubble means when he says "expanding models." The trouble with Friedmann's model isn't that it is expanding, but that it assumes that all objects are affected by an observer dependent force I could certainly imagine Hubble being offended that his data was being used to confirm Friedmann's Model. But I don't know if he had some other model that he DID promote, or if he simply objected to the models that he saw proposed.

"But now it has been found out that more than one mechanism are involved in the so-called Supernova SN1a (such as collision between two neutrons starts etc.) "

I am familiar with the issue... Using a standard candle should involve an honest discussion of just what you're looking at, and how sure you are that the object is definitely "standard". The Chandrasekhar mass... IIRC A ball of Carbon, 1.44 times the mass of the sun, when just a bit more matter is added, should reach a critical mass where the Carbon atoms.... I forget how they call it... Is it photodisintegration? Anyway, I can't remember the difference between Supernova Type Ia, and Ib, etc. To my understanding the phenomena produces an explosion which has a very distinctive wave-form... The wave form could be identified, much like you can tell you hear the sound of someone's keys drop on the floor. It is a distinct sound... Now, if that Chandrasekhar limit has an uncertainty like, it could happen anywhere from 1.3 to 1.6 solar masses, then that would create a relevant uncertainty in the data. My main concern though, is whether the telescopes they are using to detect the supernova have the resolution to be sure they have certainly identify the "sound" so-to-speak of a supernova Type 1a, or if, as you say, some of the events have such poor resolution that they have no idea if it might be two neutron stars colliding.

" And further irony is that another group of astronomers using the same Supernova SN1a data contradicts the claim of the (Nobel winning) accelerated expansion! "

My guess is that they are taking the same data but trying to see how that same data would work in another model... That is, "forcing" it into another model. I tried something similar some time back, http://www.spoonfedrelativity.com/pages/HypothesisVsImpression.php

I used their same data, with the same distance and redshift, (by the way, I have no idea how they got the distance) but I saw no evidence, from the data, that the universe was stretching. Rather, in the model I "forced" it into, I found that the different supernova's must have left our position at different times.

Now, that might seem an absurd hypothesis, because surely, there is no phenmenon that would keep all those particles together and then released at different times... Except... Actually, if you really think about it... why not? The universe should have been very dense, and if dense enough, particles would have collided with one another until the density decreased to the point where particles could have a motion without obstruction. From any given point-of-view, the spread would come off in layers, with the outer layers being freed to move first.