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From: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Olber's paradox
Message-ID: <303@drivax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Feb-86 14:55:07 EST
Article-I.D.: drivax.303
Posted: Wed Feb 26 14:55:07 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Feb-86 21:55:35 EST
References: <8602210943.AA05597@s1-b.arpa>
Reply-To: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Organization: Digital Research, Monterey, CA
Lines: 44

In article <8602210943.AA05597@s1-b.arpa> REM%IMSSS@SU-SCORE.ARPA writes:
>(If the number of the Fixt Stars were more than
> finite, the whole superficies of their apparent light would be infinite)
>
>M> Date: Fri, 14 Feb 86 09:53:56 PST
>M> From: mcgeer%ji@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Rick McGeer)
>M> Of course, the solution to the above paradox is that the universe
>M> expands, and hence the light from the furthest galaxies is redshifted,
>M> asymptotically to invisibility, and hence the total illumination of
>M> the sky is finite.
>
>Not quite correct, "A" (not "the") solution.
>
>Here's another, not needing redshift, nor even expansion although
>needing finite time: It's been a finite time since the Universe
>started, thus stars have burnt for only a finite time. Looking back in
>time, we see the complete life history up to the present for nearby
>stars, but only the early parts for stars further away because more
>recent life history hasn't had time to be transmitted to us at the
>speed of light. What we observe is a cone of space-time extending back
>to the origin of the Universe, a cone of finite space-time volume thus
>having only a finite amount of star*years of light-emitting, thus
>having only a finite total amount of light we can see. Therefore, even
>ignoring inverse-square dimming and redshift dimming, we have a finite
>total amount of light in the night sky. The inverse-square and
>redshift merely decrease an already-finite amount of light by orders
>of magnitude.

Another solution (maybe): All stellar objects tend to "clump" into
solar systems, galaxies, clusters, ad infinitum. So instead of spreading
evenly throughout the sky, we just see light from these collections, the
scope of said clumps depending on how far away the object(s) is/are.

-- 

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|Whatever I write are not the opinions or policies of Digital Research, Inc.,|
|and probably won't be in the foreseeable future.                            |
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Bruce Holloway

....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
(I'm not THAT Bruce Holloway, I'm the other one.)