Burbidge, Geoffrey (1925 - 2010 Jan 26)

[neufer]

Geoffrey Burbidge dies at 84; astrophysicist co-discovered how elements are synthesized in stars
By Thomas H. Maugh II January 31, 2010



<<Astrophysicist Geoffrey Burbidge, who with his wife and two other colleagues determined how elements are synthesized in the nuclear reactors of stars, died Tuesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla after a long illness. He was 84.

Widely honored for his contributions to astrophysics, cosmology and the study of radio galaxies, Burbidge became notorious in recent years for his refusal to accept the widely held view that the universe originated in a Big Bang, arguing instead that matter is continually created, emerging as quasars ejected from energetic galaxies. But the English-born scientist's place in posterity is preserved by his work determining how all the heavy elements in the universe can be synthesized from the simple hydrogen atom in the intense fusion furnaces of stars.

Over a period of 18 months spent scribbling on blackboards in a windowless room at Caltech, Burbidge; his wife, Margaret; American physicist William Fowler; and British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle overcame the roadblocks that had beset other theoreticians and provided a clear pathway to each of the elements. Their 104-page 1957 paper in the Reviews of Modern Physics "was without question one of the most important papers of all time in astrophysics," said Mark Thiemens, dean of the division of physical sciences at UC San Diego, where the Burbidges spent most of their careers.

Astrophysicist George Fuller, director of UC San Diego's Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, said, "This paper laid the foundation for an entirely new kind of synthesis of astronomical observations with frontier nuclear and particle science, paving the way for much of modern astrophysics and cosmology."

Two years later, Geoffrey, then 34, and Margaret, 40, received the American Astronomical Society's highest prize for young astronomers. In 1983, Fowler received the Nobel Prize in physics for his role in the collaboration. Many of their colleagues believed that the Burbidges and Hoyle were excluded from the award because of their failure to bow to the prevailing influence of the Big Bang theory. Burbidge, however, never publicly expressed bitterness about his exclusion.

He later spent considerable time studying radio galaxies and was the first to determine the enormous amounts of energy involved in the radio emissions. His studies ultimately led astrophysicists to consider gravity as the energy source for these objects, as well as for quasi-stellar objects, or quasars. "Much of the Burbidges' work revolved around the nature of quasars and active galactic nuclei," said astrophysicist Art Wolfe, a former director of the astrophysics center at UC San Diego. "During the 1960s, the Burbidges were virtually alone in their efforts to measure the masses of galaxies from the rotation speeds." Geoffrey Burbidge's penetrating ideas and questions stimulated much research by others, even though his ideas were not always confirmed.

Quasars ultimately proved to be the cause of his isolation from other cosmologists. Quasars, extremely bright objects, have a very high red shift -- a displacement in their spectra -- that is believed by Big Bang theorists to mean that they are exceptionally distant from the Earth. Burbidge and Hoyle, however, argued that the quasars are emitted from relatively nearby galaxies at relativistic speeds, which accounts for their red shift. The scientists believed that the quasars are created in these energetic galaxies and that they are the source of new matter in the universe, keeping it at a relatively steady state of mass as other matter is lost in energy-producing reactions. Their view was largely abandoned, however, after the 1964 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, widely believed to be a remnant of the Big Bang.

The Burbidges spent recent years identifying quasars that they believed were relatively nearby and supported their point of view, but other astronomers seemed to be paying little attention. Hoyle died in 2001. With Burbidge's death, there remain few strong proponents of this view.

Geoffrey Burbidge was born Sept. 24, 1925, in Chipping Norton, England, the son of a builder. His primary interests were math and history, and he intended to study history at the University of Bristol. With World War II and his family's precarious finances, however, he decided to study physics because he could get financial support. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1946 and his doctorate in physics at University College London in 1951.

He had no interest in astronomy, he said, but in a graduate seminar met astronomer Margaret Peachy. They were married in 1948 "and that is how I got into astronomy," he often said. The couple had been together ever since, making stops at a variety of institutions before settling at UC San Diego in 1962. He was director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona from 1978 to 1984.

He also was editor-in-chief of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics for 30 years and scientific editor of the Astrophysical Journal for many years. Even after his formal retirement from UC San Diego in 2002, Burbidge and his wife went to their office every day to continue their research and writing. In addition to his wife, Burbidge is survived by a daughter, Sarah, of San Francisco; and a grandson, Connor Loeven.>>

[bystander]

...
Quasars ultimately proved to be the cause of his isolation from other cosmologists. Quasars, extremely bright objects, have a very high red shift -- a displacement in their spectra -- that is believed by Big Bang theorists to mean that they are exceptionally distant from the Earth. Burbidge and Hoyle, however, argued that the quasars are emitted from relatively nearby galaxies at relativistic speeds, which accounts for their red shift. The scientists believed that the quasars are created in these energetic galaxies and that they are the source of new matter in the universe, keeping it at a relatively steady state of mass as other matter is lost in energy-producing reactions. Their view was largely abandoned, however, after the 1964 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, widely believed to be a remnant of the Big Bang.
...

I don't understand this. If the radiation was emitted from nearby galaxies at relativistic speeds, wouldn't it be blue shifted? In order to be red shifted, wouldn't it have to be going away from us? In which case, how would we ever see it? What am I missing here?

[neufer]

I don't understand this. If the radiation was emitted from nearby galaxies at relativistic speeds, wouldn't it be blue shifted? In order to be red shifted, wouldn't it have to be going away from us? In which case, how would we ever see it? What am I missing here?

If I recall correctly, the idea was that quasars were emitted from our own Milky Way.

I had the pleasure of meeting Burbidge & his wife when I was in graduate astronomy at Univ. of Md. c1970. Maryland had a tendency to draw off beat characters like Burbidge, Öpik, Joseph Weber, "kovil-like electromagnet plasma solar system dynamicists" ... and (of course) myself.

[harry]

G'day Neufer

Please explain what you said.

If I recall correctly, the idea was that quasars were emitted from our own Milky Way

.


Which quasars?

[harry]

G'day

The intrinisc properties of AGN of both galaxies and stars in particular the jets formed give a wrong data to redshift. Jets that are pointed towards us give the redshift as if they are moving away. The problem become even more when you have multible jets.

Wikipedea gives a range of mechanisms that create redshift and blueshift.

[harry]

G'day

This paper may be of interest in light of Geoffery's death.


http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.2402
A Realistic Cosmological Model Based on Observations and Some Theory Developed Over the Last 90 Years

Authors: Geoffrey Burbidge
(Submitted on 14 Nov 2008)

Abstract: This meeting is entitled "A Century of Cosmology." But most of the papers being given here are based on work done very recently and there is really no attempt being made to critically review what has taken place in the last 90 or 100 years. Instead, in general the participants accept without question that cosmology equates to "hot big bang cosmology" with all of its bells and whistles. All of the theory and the results obtained from observations are interpreted on the assumption that this extremely popular model is the correct one, and observers feel that they have to interpret its results in terms of what this theory allows. No one is attempting to seriously test the model with a view to accepting it or ruling it out. They are aware, as are the theorists, that there are enough free parameters available to fix up almost any model of the type.
The current scheme given in detail for example by Spergel et al (206, 2007) demonstrates this. How we got to this stage is never discussed, and little or no attention is paid to the observations obtained since the 1960s on activity in the centers of galaxies and what they imply. We shall show that they are an integral part of a realistic cosmological model. In this paper I shall take a different approach, showing first how cosmological ideas have developed over the last 90 years and where mistakes have been made. I shall conclude with a realistic model in which all of the observational material is included, and compare it with the popular model. Not surprisingly I shall show that there remain many unsolved problems, and previously unexpected observations, most of which are ignored or neglected by current observers and theorists, who believe that the hot big bang model must be correct.

[harry]

G'day

Neufer wrote:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 1076.story wrote:
...
Quasars ultimately proved to be the cause of his isolation from other cosmologists. Quasars, extremely bright objects, have a very high red shift -- a displacement in their spectra -- that is believed by Big Bang theorists to mean that they are exceptionally distant from the Earth. Burbidge and Hoyle, however, argued that the quasars are emitted from relatively nearby galaxies at relativistic speeds, which accounts for their red shift. The scientists believed that the quasars are created in these energetic galaxies and that they are the source of new matter in the universe, keeping it at a relatively steady state of mass as other matter is lost in energy-producing reactions. Their view was largely abandoned, however, after the 1964 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, widely believed to be a remnant of the Big Bang.
...

Burbidge was on the right track. The journal writing does not give any credit to his work. The view was never abandoned.

This paper may give some interest to GRB, although it will take years to confirm the actual origin of GRB as to disc or core origin.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5046
Gamma-Ray Burst Central Engines: Black Hole Vs. Magnetar

Authors: B.D. Metzger (Princeton University)
(Submitted on 27 Jan 2010)

Abstract: Discovered over forty years ago, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) remain a forefront topic in modern astrophysics. Perhaps the most fundamental question associated with GRBs is the nature of the astrophysical agent (or agents) that ultimately powers them: the central engine. In this review, I focus on the possible central engines of long-duration GRBs, and the constraints that present observations place on these models. Long GRBs are definitively associated with the deaths of massive stars, but whether the central engine is an accreting black hole or a rapidly-spinning, highly-magnetized neutron star (a "proto-magnetar") remains unsettled. This distinction has been brought into particular focus by recent MHD simulations of the core-collapse of massive, rotating "collapsar progenitors," which suggest that powerful magneto-centrifugal outflows from the proto-neutron star may stave off black hole formation entirely. Although both black hole and magnetar GRB models remain viable, I argue that the magnetar model is more mature in the sense that it provides quantitative explanations for the durations, energies, Lorentz factors, and collimation of long GRB outflows. Given these virtues, one promising strategy to break the present stalemate is to further develop the magnetar model until inescapable (and falsifiable) predictions emerge. This course of action signals a renewed challenge to translate time-dependent jet properties (power, magnetization, and Lorentz factor) into observables (gamma-ray light curves and spectra).

[harry]

G'day

Previous posts discussed the critics to Burbidge. In this paper he deals withe the critics.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9412045
Note on a Comment by Edward L. Wright

Authors: F. Hoyle, G. Burbidge, J.V. Narlikar
(Submitted on 14 Dec 1994)

Abstract: Recently Wright (1994, preprint) has criticized a paper of ours on the quasi-steady state cosmology (Hoyle et al. 1994, {\em M.N.R.A.S.,} {\bf 267,} 1007) arguing that the results from a radio source survey by Allington-Smith (1982 {\em M.N.R.A.S.,} {\bf 199,} 611) show that our model published in the paper referenced above is incorrect, and claiming farther that this result of his invalidates the quasi-steady state cosmology. In this paper we have dealt with his criticisms and have shown that he is wrong.