[HN Gopher] Supernovae Evidence for Foundational Change to Cosmo...
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       Supernovae Evidence for Foundational Change to Cosmological Models
        
       Author : jandrewrogers
       Score  : 85 points
       Date   : 2024-12-23 16:44 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | api wrote:
       | Good wikipedia article on these types of cosmologies including
       | timescape cosmology:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhomogeneous_cosmology
        
         | numpy-thagoras wrote:
         | Many advancements in science have happened because we stopped
         | for a second, and then looked to generalize our assumptions.
         | Consider,
         | 
         | e.g.
         | 
         | Euclidean geometry -> non-euclidean geometry; Classical
         | analysis -> nonstandard analysis; Linearity -> non-linearity;
         | Homogeneity -> inhomogeneity; Flat spacetime -> curved
         | spacetime; Singular probabilities -> superposition.
         | 
         | All of these were loosening of certain criteria that opened up
         | many possibilities. It is certainly erroneous to assume we
         | must, by necessity, have a homogeneous cosmology.
        
       | molticrystal wrote:
       | This paper argues that the Timescape model [0] provides a better
       | fit than the cold dark matter model when examining Type Ia
       | Supernovae. According to the Timescape model, clocks run faster
       | in voids where the gravitational field is less, and significant
       | differences exist between a galaxy floating in a void and one
       | like the Milky Way Galaxy. The Timescape model suggests that
       | other models, which fail to account for these differences, lead
       | to less accurate calculations and less plausible solutions.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhomogeneous_cosmology?useski...
        
         | vlovich123 wrote:
         | If clocks run slower in the presence of gravity, wouldn't it
         | stand to reason it runs more quickly in a void where there's
         | less gravity? Or is the model saying that clocks run even
         | faster in a void than Einstein's theory predicts?
        
           | vecter wrote:
           | Clocks run at "normal" speed (i.e. "1x" speed) in the absence
           | of a gravitational field. The stronger the gravity, the
           | slower they run (i.e. less than "1x" speed).
        
             | vlovich123 wrote:
             | Right so is the paper saying that lambda CM completely
             | ignored clock differences due to heterogeneity in mass
             | distribution in the universe where isolated galaxies would
             | be experiencing less time slowing than galaxies near other
             | galaxies which would experience more time dilation?
        
               | raattgift wrote:
               | In the standard cosmology the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe
               | effect captures the redshift/blueshift of distant light
               | sources (up to the Cosmic Microwave Background) as it
               | traverses relatively dense regions and relative voids.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachs%E2%80%93Wolfe_effect
               | 
               | Note that in the next paragraph I depart significantly
               | from the vocabulary that the Timescapes programme
               | proponents have been using for the past twenty years.
               | 
               | ISW and comparable spectroscopy is easy enough to think
               | about in terms of an accelerating cosmic expansion, i.e.,
               | relative voids are becoming spatially bigger with the
               | expansion. It becomes much less intuitive how to fit the
               | data if one keeps relative voids at roughly constant
               | volume instead implying that there is a significant false
               | vacuum above the ground state and in voids the false
               | vacuum is _slowly_ decaying to that state. (Outside the
               | supervoids, near matter, this false vacuum decays much
               | more slowly still). Because  "vacuum" in the voids isn't
               | really vacuum, one is stuck with a running function on
               | the constant c (it gets faster with time from the
               | formation of the CMB; this is because the false vacuum
               | evolves towards a real vacuum) or adapting lightlike
               | geodesics by imposing refraction (since the false vacuum
               | is a medium).
               | 
               | The usual terminology is reasonably capture in the first
               | paragraph here at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhomoge
               | neous_cosmology#Inhomo...> ("Inhomogeneous universe").
               | The following short section ("Perturbative approach") is
               | what is done in the standard cosmology when one wants to
               | do detailed studies of filamentary distributions and
               | other structures that are lumpy at some (larrrrrge)
               | length scale of interest: the perturbed homogenous
               | background is practically always the standard FLRW.
               | 
               | The justification for perturbation theory on FLRW is that
               | even though there are dense spots (notably most galaxies'
               | central black holes), principles like the Birkhoff
               | theorem capture the idea that as you get far enough away
               | from a galaxy it behaves more and more like a small
               | shell, and this happens at _intragalactic_ scales for
               | these SMBHs: gravitationally, even to its arms '
               | structure, it makes practically no difference whether
               | Andromeda's central bulge has a lot more stars/gas/dust
               | or whether it has one, two, or six central SMBHs (at
               | enough spatial separation that they're not mutually
               | orbiting in a way that would generate gravitational
               | radiation our observatories are sensitive to).
               | 
               | The same idea applies to galaxies->galaxy
               | clusters->filamentary structures: as you "zoom out" the
               | density variations become less important: filaments are
               | pretty sparse on average.
               | 
               | The Timescapes programe wants a sharper difference in
               | matter sparseness between voids and filaments, and
               | proposes that gravitational backreaction by the matter is
               | responsible for generating that: the presence of matter
               | steepens the density of matter over time (without the
               | visible matter clearly becoming denser). I don't
               | personally see how that's much different from a false-
               | vacuum decay in the voids, conceptually. (ETA: well, it
               | depends somewhat on how the Timescape void fraction
               | evolves, but the local universe VF doesn't run void
               | clocks fast enough, unless we do violence to the
               | Copernican principle.)
               | 
               | (Also ETA, mostly a note-to-self: I also don't understand
               | how they capture the angular diameter turnover point in
               | their dressed geometry <https://journals.aps.org/prd/abst
               | ract/10.1103/PhysRevD.80.12...> PDF available from
               | institution at <https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/36fe829
               | a-0e7a-45d6-8db6-c2...> (cf <https://astronomy.stackexcha
               | nge.com/questions/21006/understa...>.))
               | 
               | Finally, I think the most important result of this latest
               | Timescapes paper is a reminder to everyone that supernova
               | data are a mess. A good X-mas present would be a couple
               | readily visible Milky Way supernovae.
               | 
               | -
        
         | brotchie wrote:
         | Pet theory is that our universe is run on some external
         | computational substrate. A lot of the strangeness we see in
         | quantum physics are side effects of how that computation is
         | executed efficiently.
         | 
         | The inability to reconcile quantum field theory and general
         | relativity is the that gravity is a fundamentally different
         | thing to matter: matter is an information system that's run to
         | execute the laws of physics, gravity is a side effect of the
         | underlying architecture being parallelized across many compute
         | nodes.
         | 
         | The speed of light limitation is the side-effect of it taking a
         | finite time for information to propagate in the underlying
         | computational substrate.
         | 
         | The top-level calculation the universe is running is constantly
         | trying to balance computation efficiently among the compute
         | nodes in the substrate: e.g. the universe is trying to maintain
         | a constant complexity density across all compute nodes.
         | 
         | Black holes act as complexity sinks, effectively "garbage
         | collection." The matter than falls below the event horizon is
         | effectively removed from the computation needs of the
         | substrate. The cosmological constant can be explained by more
         | compute power being available as more and more matter is
         | consumed by black holes.
         | 
         | This can be introduced into GR by adding a new scalar field
         | whose distribution encodes "complexity density." e.g. some
         | metric of complexity like counting micro-states, etc. This
         | scalar field attempts to remain spatially uniform in order to
         | best "smooth" computation across the computational substrate.
         | If you apply this to a galaxy with a large central supermassive
         | black hole, you end up with almost a point sink of complexity
         | at the center, then a large area of high complexity in the
         | accretion disk, and then a gradient of complexity away towards
         | the edges of the galaxy. That is, the scalar field has strong
         | gradients along the radius of the galaxy, and this gives rise
         | to varying gravitational effects over the radius (very MOND-
         | like).
         | 
         | Some back of the napkin calculations show that adding this
         | complexity density scalar field to GR does replicate observed
         | rotation curves of galaxies. Would love to formalize this and
         | run some numerical simulations.
         | 
         | Would hope that fitting the free parameters of GR with this
         | complexity density scalar field would yield some testable
         | predictions that differ from current naive assumptions around
         | dark matter and dark energy.
        
           | cma wrote:
           | There's a Danny Hillis talk on this but I couldn't find it.
        
           | fsloth wrote:
           | "External computation susbtrate" is a useful idea if it leads
           | to falsifiable theories. As a "theory of everything" it sucks
           | because it's clearly not motivated by any specific maths or
           | observations, but by the human need to map nature into some
           | comprehensible analogue. Ie. taking some simpler subset of
           | nature and trying to pretend the rest of it is like that as
           | well. Usually nature so far has become more incomprehensible
           | the deeper we've looked at it.
           | 
           | Newtonian mechanics & mechanical clocks being hottest
           | precision technique led scientists at the time to viewing
           | nature as a clockwork. Now we have computers, we think
           | "nature is like computers" because it's an appealing
           | analogue.
           | 
           | But it's a false analogue imo. Just like clocks are a thing
           | enabled by nature (a subset, in every meaning of the word)
           | similarly computers are a subset of nature. So yes, nature
           | can think (with human brains) and nature can run computations
           | (with cpu:s impregnated with programs) but that also is just
           | a subset of nature.
           | 
           | Now: games of the mind and helpfull analogues rock. And
           | asking "how is nature analogous to a turing machine" is
           | interesting for sure. But just because a game is fun or
           | analogue appealing, should not one let forget in the
           | philosophical sense that one is playing only with a limited
           | subset of a thing.
        
         | T-A wrote:
         | > a better fit than the cold dark matter model
         | 
         | than the _Lambda_ Cold Dark Matter model.
         | 
         | Lambda, i.e. the cosmological constant, a.k.a. dark energy, is
         | what they do away with, not dark matter.
        
           | SpaceManNabs wrote:
           | Thanks for saving me time in dismissing this paper lol. Any
           | time somebody wants to get rid of dark energy, i run into
           | some garbage. Reminds me of the mond nuts
           | 
           | Just reading the rest of the comment section is enough to
           | help me verify that.
           | 
           | For some reason, hackernews always gets kooky when it comes
           | to this stuff.
        
             | webdoodle wrote:
             | Can't censor it, so you gaslight it?
        
             | andrewflnr wrote:
             | I don't know, the evidence for dark energy has always
             | seemed a lot sketchier than the evidence for dark matter.
             | Dark matter has lots of interlocking lines of evidence.
             | Isn't dark energy pretty much entirely based on various
             | cosmic distance measures that all have huge stacks of
             | assumptions embedded?
        
               | SpaceManNabs wrote:
               | I agree. Until i see better evidence for 1a, wmap, and
               | cluster formation in another theory, i really want all
               | the charlatans to be quiet. We dont know what dark energy
               | is, but we have decent evidence to say it is there and
               | also decent theory.
               | 
               | I am not saying this paper is made by charlatan btw. This
               | type of work attracts those people though.
        
       | ajross wrote:
       | Webb is turning out to be one of the most impactful pieces of
       | scientific apparatus of the last century or so. Not that it took
       | all the relevant data, but that it was the final thing that broke
       | open all the doors being held shut. We're watching a Kuhnian
       | paradigm shift in astronomy unfold in real time.
        
         | epicureanideal wrote:
         | I'll be happy to see all the dark matter, dark energy stuff
         | explained away.
        
           | SpaceManNabs wrote:
           | We have a century's worth of evidence for dark matter and
           | about 20 years worth of evidence for dark energy.
           | 
           | Once an alternative theory stands up to scrutiny, maybe we
           | shouldnt a priori dismiss things we dont understand?
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | There's been a general problem in astronomy for a long time that
       | it seems like there just hasn't been enough time for objects to
       | develop
       | 
       | The oldest version of this I know of can be seen in a diagram of
       | ways that large black holes could possibly form in this book
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation_(book)
       | 
       | which shows as early in 1973 people knew they had no idea how
       | supermassive black holes could possibly form. Lately these
       | problems have intensified because Webb seems to see that all
       | sorts of developments seemed to happen a lot more quickly than
       | they should of which leaves one wondering if the first billion
       | years were really the first ten billion years. Could Timescape
       | explain that?
        
         | api wrote:
         | AFAIK one possible explanation for the black hole issues could
         | be primordial black holes, which are also a candidate for at
         | least a component of dark matter.
        
           | PaulHoule wrote:
           | Yep. There is the idea that you could get little primordial
           | black holes (that maybe weigh as much as a mountain and could
           | be evaporating now) and the idea that you could get huge
           | primordial black holes. Also the occasional strange idea that
           | the universe might be cyclic (not too fashionable but can
           | fill the hole left by inflation) and that black holes can
           | survive the crunch.
        
             | numpy-thagoras wrote:
             | Black holes can survive a Big Crunch scenario? That can go
             | a long way to explaining many things. Can you please
             | provide a paper with more references to this, and
             | potentially one with an example mechanism?
        
             | api wrote:
             | I love the idea. It's one of our current physics hypotheses
             | I hope is true, because it means the universe would be full
             | of tiny things the size of a hydrogen atom with the mass of
             | asteroids.
             | 
             | "The devil's glitter?"
             | 
             | BTW they would not suck up planets and stuff like
             | inaccurate sci-fi. One could be going real fast and fire
             | right though the Earth and do little, maybe cause some
             | seismic events, but we would never know unless we knew
             | exactly what to look for. A tiny black hole would have a
             | tiny event horizon.
             | 
             | If you dropped one into a planet or star with a low enough
             | velocity that it didn't shoot out the other side it might
             | do a lot of damage, then come to rest in the middle and
             | slowly grow. I recall reading that one in Earth's core
             | would take possibly millions of years to do much since the
             | radiation pressure caused by accretion around it would
             | limit the rate of matter falling into it. Earth would
             | eventually become an Earth mass black hole but it would not
             | happen in any human lifetime, possibly not in the lifetime
             | of the human race.
        
       | mutagen wrote:
       | So Vernor Vinge was on to something[0] with his 'Zones of
       | Thought'...
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep#Setting
        
         | shepardrtc wrote:
         | Well his idea was that the laws of physics actually change
         | depending on the distance from the galactic center. Far enough
         | out, information can be transferred faster than the speed of
         | light. Too close and life stops working. Which honestly seems
         | much more fun than gravity slowing things down a bit.
        
       | scrubs wrote:
       | I'm surprised cosmology hasn't accounted for differences in
       | clocks given how central GR is to astronomy. Granted I am no
       | expert, but adding this dynamic was, until today, a bridge too
       | far, or thought to average out somehow and not be pertinent
        
         | itishappy wrote:
         | Huh?
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_time
        
         | codethief wrote:
         | > cosmology hasn't accounted for differences in clocks given
         | how central GR is to astronomy
         | 
         | Of course it has. Yes, LCDM's FLRW metric, by its defining
         | assumption of spatial homogeneity, doesn't allow the metric
         | (let alone the speed of clocks) to vary spatially. However, it
         | is very common to do perturbation theory on top of the FLRW
         | metric to account for density fluctuations. Besides, there are
         | also models like LTB (Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi) which give up on
         | homogeneity at the non-perturbative level (while still
         | preserving isotropy, though).
         | 
         | All in all, the idea that local voids could explain away the
         | Lambda in LCDM is anything but new. It's just that the OP's
         | timescape approach is the first one that seems to produce
         | promising results. (Disclaimer: I merely skimmed the paper.)
        
           | scrubs wrote:
           | Point taken. Thanks.
        
       | eximius wrote:
       | Is anyone familiar with the (ln B > x) notation being used? What
       | is this value being referenced?
        
         | the8472 wrote:
         | See section 2 of the paper.
        
       | tigerlily wrote:
       | This is the opening salvo in cosmology's Battle of Trafalgar.
       | Dave Wiltshire has lined up a set piece 20 years in the making
       | that is going to obliterate both lambda CDM and MOND and all the
       | rest.
        
         | dcsommer wrote:
         | Sounds fascinating. Anywhere I can read more about the build-up
         | to this moment? Has David Wiltshire written about this?
        
           | tigerlily wrote:
           | He's been quietly publishing over the years, and waiting for
           | instruments like Webb and Euclid to return data. Here's an up
           | to date list:
           | 
           | https://inspirehep.net/literature?sort=mostrecent&size=25&pa.
           | ...
           | 
           | Another list on his homepage, but not up to date:
           | 
           | http://www2.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/~dlw24/dlw-pub.html
           | 
           | I think the most exciting thing is probably the team he's got
           | together now, and some of the computational stuff his
           | associates have going at the moment.
        
       | jandrewrogers wrote:
       | An implication is that you would expect ancient advanced
       | civilizations to form in the voids.
        
         | largbae wrote:
         | Wouldn't such a civilization slow down as it gathers?
        
       | haxiomic wrote:
       | A very compelling argument that the need for dark matter may be
       | an artifact of a in incorrect assumption about the universe; the
       | extent to which it is homogeneous and large scale structures can
       | be ignored in calculations
       | 
       | Dr Ridden, an author of this paper, has a great explainer video:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhlPDvAdSMw
        
         | haxiomic wrote:
         | Typo: Dark Energy*, not Dark Matter
        
       | idw wrote:
       | "Cosmological models are built on a simple, century-old idea -
       | but new observations demand a radical rethink" (2023) < by David
       | Wiltshire, one of the authors of this paper, aimed at non-
       | physicists
       | 
       | https://theconversation.com/cosmological-models-are-built-on...
        
       | astro-cosmo-q wrote:
       | As someone who works decently close to, but not in, this area, I
       | am surprised to see this on the front page of HN. The paper
       | authors do not use correct statistical practices (e.g. H_0 cannot
       | be fixed "as a nuisance parameter" to remove a degeneracy with
       | another parameter - nuisance parameters must be marginalized
       | over!) and the authors fail to account for several effects in
       | their model (e.g. stretch/color factors for each supernova must
       | be varied) which are _known_ to be necessary for robust inference
       | of cosmological parameters from supernovae data.
       | 
       | This is an honest question since I have seen this phenomenon
       | occur a few times now with cosmology/astrophysics papers on HN:
       | How did the original poster find this? And why has it gotten such
       | interest/points? I sincerely hope it is simply a well-intentioned
       | interest in our universe (which it greatly heartens me to see!)
       | combined with naivete (not meant pejoratively, just to refer to
       | lacking context) wrt the technical nature of this work, but I am
       | interested to hear your thoughts.
        
         | throwaway81523 wrote:
         | It has been circulating on the intertubes. I saw it on a more
         | general interest site earlier today, before seeing it on HN
         | just now.
        
         | light_hue_1 wrote:
         | Funny. This is exactly how I feel about most of the AI/ML
         | papers posted here. Very strange selection of pretty sketchy
         | papers.
        
           | codethief wrote:
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-
           | Mann_a...
        
         | andrewflnr wrote:
         | > well-intentioned interest in our universe
         | 
         | I mean, probably. Though HN does have a taste for fringe
         | theories, which might color your interpretation of "well-
         | intentioned". And most of us aren't really qualified to assess
         | the statistical rigor of astrophysics papers, myself certainly
         | included.
        
         | necubi wrote:
         | I saw it floating around Twitter with some expansive commentary
         | "This could be an incredible revolution in Cosmology. The Dark
         | Energy model of the universe, which won a Nobel Prize in 2011,
         | may be completely wrong.", etc.
         | 
         | For whatever reason, engineers really hate dark energy and will
         | glom onto any fringe theory that appears to disprove it. Not to
         | psychoanalyze too much, but it seems to be a topic where non-
         | experts get to feel like they're smarter than those PhD
         | cosmologists because they watched a Sabine Hossenfelder video.
         | 
         | See literally any thread about dark energy (or dark matter,
         | which elicits similar reactions) on HN.
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | That is probably the same phenomenon that makes the most
         | sketchy papers on nutrition science to appear on popular news.
         | 
         | Sketchy things have the most interesting results. People that
         | want entertaining news select for interesting results, and the
         | sketchy ones get over-represented.
        
         | mmooss wrote:
         | > why has it gotten such interest/points?
         | 
         | For context: The top comment on most HN stories, especially
         | research, tries to completely discredit the OP, often by
         | finding flaws, and especially in statistical methods.
         | 
         | Everything has flaws. I think people are interested in what is
         | valuable and possible. Shakespeare's work has many flaws, but
         | that's not what people focus on.
         | 
         | Also, while you aren't responsible for all those other top
         | comments, why should I believe yours? Usually I just ignore
         | these comments (but I appreciate your curiosity).
        
           | JoeAltmaier wrote:
           | Failures in statistical methods are not covered by
           | 'everything has flaws'. Those are fatal, existential flaws.
           | Something that is not likely true (though it is erroneously
           | presented as likely of being true) are likely false.
        
             | mmooss wrote:
             | Working backwards ...
             | 
             | > Something that is not likely true (though it is
             | erroneously presented as likely of being true) are likely
             | false.
             | 
             | That doesn't make sense to me. Because something isn't
             | proven here, that doesn't make it more likely to be false;
             | it's just uncertain. Poor evidence is not evidence either
             | way. To say it's false, it would need to be proven false,
             | with good evidence. If I assert, 'the universe is expanding
             | because Pluto is further away today than yesterday', my
             | argument wouldn't support the claim but that doesn't
             | logically imply that the universe is not expanding.
             | 
             | > Failures in statistical methods are not covered by
             | 'everything has flaws'. Those are fatal, existential flaws.
             | 
             | Why are errors in statistical methods -- if they exist
             | here: we have a hot take by a random, anonymous Internet
             | commenter (using a new account) against scientists who
             | spent a long time on this work, and put their names and
             | reputations on it -- somehow more fatal than other errors?
             | 
             | For example, some statistical errors lead to weaker
             | results, but results nonetheless. Some lead to results with
             | a somewhat different meaning. (Some lead to stronger
             | results.)
             | 
             | We need to deal with imperfect information all the time and
             | find value in it, or we would have almost no information. I
             | spent last week solving a problem with several routers
             | interacting; I had some clear data, some unreliable
             | information, and some black-hole uncertainty; I had to work
             | with what I had and solve the problem. The idea that
             | science is exempt from that is a fantasy of non-scientists,
             | of the religion of science.
        
         | SpaceManNabs wrote:
         | I have mentioned this in two comments but HN gets really kooky
         | when it comes to cosmology. A few years ago i saw a barrage of
         | highly upvoted papers on MOND and de Broglie stuff.
         | 
         | It really made me wonder what else gets posted here that is
         | patently absurd but i dont have the prerequisite knowledge to
         | filter it.
        
         | codethief wrote:
         | I can't speak to the technical nature of the work, as I don't
         | work in the field, but the last-named author, likely the
         | advisor, seems to be a respectable researcher.
         | 
         | > I have served on the committee of the International Society
         | on General Relativity and Gravitation 2017-2022, and am a past
         | President of the Australasian Society for General Relativity
         | and Gravitation and a past President of the New Zealand
         | Institute of Physics. I served 8 years on the editorial board
         | of Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2012-2019.
         | 
         | http://www2.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/~dlw24/
         | 
         | So while your criticism may well be justified, you make it
         | sound like this is a fringe paper, which I don't think is the
         | case. So instead of opening a meta discussion about what
         | physics papers get posted & upvoted on HN and why (which is
         | hardly novel), I'd be much more interested in how big the
         | issues you're mentioning are and whether the results of the
         | paper could be salvageable. I at least do think that
         | Wiltshire's research is interesting and he has made good
         | points[0] about the challenges of coarse-graining spacetime
         | structures and where & why the underlying assumptions of LCDM
         | might fail to hold.
         | 
         | [0]: See e.g. the lecture notes on
         | https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3787
        
           | astro-cosmo-q wrote:
           | I am certainly not suggesting anything negative about the
           | character or reputation of the authors of the work. I think
           | that work on alternatives to the accepted concordance
           | cosmology model (LCDM) should definitely be explored, and
           | David Wiltshire et al. should pursue this if they deem it
           | promising.
           | 
           | As an aside: You may not find this compelling, which is
           | understandable, but I will note that the vast majority of
           | cosmologists (very conservatively 95%) do not question the
           | FLRW aspect of the cosmological concordance model (which is
           | what the paper here does away with in the alternative
           | timescape cosmology), even if they question other parts of it
           | (i.e. by considering dynamical dark energy, neutrino
           | interactions, etc.). I agree that timescape is an interesting
           | idea, but it seems like only a few people have been working
           | on it for over a decade now - unless you have a very (and I
           | think unfairly) dim view of professional cosmologists, if
           | there was a strong case to be made for the timescape model
           | based in data, the greater community would have adopted it by
           | now.
           | 
           | Finally, and independent of the sociological points above, an
           | answer to your question about specifics aside from the types
           | of statistical/modeling issues of the type I mentioned above.
           | Again this is not exactly my area and I have not done the
           | analysis myself, so I will refrain from strong opinions.
           | However, my immediate reaction to this is that it is easy to
           | fit one particular dataset (in this case _part_ of the
           | Pantheon+ supernovae sample) with a more complicated model
           | than LCDM, but often these types of models fail when other
           | cosmological datasets are included. Considering such joint
           | constraints with multiple datasets is not an "extra ask" of
           | alternatives to LCDM - to be taken seriously any alternative
           | model should hold up in a joint analysis of precision
           | cosmological datasets (see, for example, the tests of a more
           | seriously considered alternative model in the community,
           | early dark energy [0]). These days, this is often the
           | combination of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
           | Anisotropies, galaxy Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), and
           | one of several supernovae samples - see e.g. [1] for a
           | somewhat pedagogical overview. The failure to fit several
           | datasets is a common issue e.g. with many MOND papers. In
           | this case, the authors do not try to fit data to anything but
           | a single (modified) supernovae dataset. I would expect that
           | if they included a fit to CMB /BAO data, there would be
           | trouble with the timescape model, as this is exactly what was
           | found in an analysis of the timescape model in another state-
           | of-the-art supernova dataset [2] - there the timescape model
           | could not accommodate the supernova data when combined with
           | CMB/BAO data [2].
           | 
           | [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.09032 [1]
           | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.08991 [2]
           | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.05048
        
             | codethief wrote:
             | Thanks for elaborating!
             | 
             | > However, my immediate reaction to this is that it is easy
             | to fit one particular dataset (in this case part of the
             | Pantheon+ supernovae sample) with a more complicated model
             | than LCDM, but often these types of models fail when other
             | cosmological datasets are included.
             | 
             | This is what I was afraid of. Thanks for the links, in
             | particular for [2]!
        
         | shepardrtc wrote:
         | If this is the case then the paper is easily dismissed,
         | correct? How is it being published if the flaws are immediate,
         | obvious, and completely destructive to the idea being
         | presented? I'm legitimately asking - I've published papers and
         | reviewed them, and if I thought something was so thoroughly
         | wrong, I certainly wouldn't give it the ok.
        
         | astro-cosmo-q wrote:
         | A parenthetical remark just to clarify since I was reading
         | quickly. Wrt the second point in parentheses about stretch
         | factors - upon a second look it is not clear to me exactly what
         | is happening since they say the factors are both fixed for each
         | supernova but then also list the (global?) stretch and color
         | factors in Table 1 (implying that they are varied).
        
       | throwaway290 wrote:
       | Why is it a "change"? We already have two cosmology models. This
       | just gives one of them more support right?
        
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