For the benefit of students taking New Cosmology MAE 87 and MAE 192, following is
Dr. Schild's reply to the Referee's Report to the Astrophysical Journal Letters Editor. Note
that the referee makes no attempt to understand our fluid mechanical explanation of the
preferred direction of galaxy spins, quasar polarization, and CMB multipole direction alignments as due to
turbulence in the plasma and fossils of big bang turbulence. All these axes are aligned in the same
direction, called the "axis of evil" since no such alignment should exist in Old Cosmology.
So far, ApJ has only been willing to publish papers that assume Old Cosmology (no fluid mechanics).
*********************Referee's Report*************************************
Title: Lessons From the Axis of Evil
Authors: Schild & Gibson
> This paper is a very short, incomprehensible catalogue of references to
> nearly every "offbeat" theory of the past 5 years. Even though Schild
> is the first author, it is obvious from the slugcomment that it was
> prepared by Gibson.
Not at all true. We see the real enemies of standard cosmology to be the
MOND theory and String Theory, and an important part of our preparing this
paper is to show that the revisions implied by the AE can be much less
severe by getting the hydrodynamics of structure formation correct. Then
there will be no need for the really whackey revisions to standard
cosmology proposed. This is a subplot of our entire manuscript. We think
that making this case is entirely appropriate for ApJ Letters.
The second sentence is a brilliant piece of detective work, that confirms
the author list, but seems intended to imply that there is something wrong
with co-author Gibson. In fact, the paper was written by Schild.
> The claimed "2-4-8-16" alignment is either "ell=2, 4, 8 and 16" in
> which case it is wrong, or it is "dipole, quadrupole, octupole and
> hexadecapole" in which case it is wrong.
Wrong and wrong. The data for the alignment of the galaxy rotations have
been extensively discussed by Longo (2007) as having a dipole character.
Our discussion suggests that this appearance of a dipole has to do
with observations to the limit of the SDSS and therefore the local
supercluster. We still think that our statement "2-4-8-16 alignment"
is the most efficient way to compress a longer discussion in a tightly
limited manuscript.
> The paper mentions a direction for the axis of evil, without citing a
> reference, but does not mention the direction of the infamous cold
> spot, except to say that the axis of evil "points toward" it. This
> claim is certainly false.
Wrong. The referee's statement is certainly false. In our compressed
manuscript we state the direction of the axis only once, and the referee
seems to think that all references to it should be the same, but of course
the AE intersects the plane of the sky at two points, and the referee
apparently did not bother to notice that one reference is to the South
Galactic Pole direction, and most references are to the North. We don't
think that we have gotten refereeing by an expert.
> The abstract claims 300 Mpc voids vs 30 Mpc superclusters as evidence
> for the HGD. Since the voids are about 1000 times less dense than the
> supercluster this seems to be a natural consequence of any model and
> not evidence for the HGD.
Wrong again. We are glad that the referee agrees with our estimates of the
sizes associated with the largest cosmic structures, but seems not to
understand that voids of the size scale observed associated with the AE are
much larger than any predicted by LCDMHC cosmology, and ours appears to be
the first scientific document correctly stating these scales as a
prediction of HG theory. By itself this is a reason to publish the
manuscript.
> There is no comprehensible explanation of Gibson's theory here. The
> one figure is a cartoon with no explanatory power. There are a large
> number of self references, and the references to Bershadskii are part
> of a tight self-referential circle with Gibson. For example, the ADS
> shows 6 citations to Bershadskii and Sreenivasen (2002), of with 2 are
> by Gibson & Schild, 3 are self-citations by Bershadskii, leaving only
> one outside the circle.
This one is a laugh riot. The referee contends that the manuscript is too
self-referencing, and then complains in the following paragraph that
the 300 pages of refereed literature describing the results of HG theory
have not been summarized in two sentences for the present 4-page letter.
The manuscript has 8 references to the development of the theory, and we
find it sufficient here to summarize the qualitative results in our
comparison to the really new science implied by the AE.
> Presumably the predictions for large scale structure and for the
> CMB anisotropy are different under Gibson's model than under LCDM.
> How are they different? Where are the dynamical equations? Where
> are the initial conditions so someone outside Gibson's cabal can
> verify his calculations? Finally, do Gibson's predictions agree
> with the 99.9% of the data that are consistent with LCDM, and make
> the existence of an "axis of evil" more likely? The authors cannot
> just assert that they do. They have to prove it. Where are the
> Monte Carlo's? Where are the statistical tests?
We take exception to the referees comment that 99.9% of data support the
LCDMHC picture, since 99.9% of astronomers have gone outdoors and looked at
the sky but noticed that the extremely compact (cusp profiled) subhalos
fundamental to the theory and predicted to outshine the globular clusters
are nowhere to be seen.
Our predictions and conclusions are necessarily qualitative, which is
within the guidelines for ApJ Letters, because the String Theory and
LCDMHC theory predictions to which we compare HAVE failed qualitative
predictions. Our many estimates and several predictions follow from analytical
calculations, equations 1-2, and no statistical tricks are needed to follow
our scientific results. Does the referee have a standard format for
manuscripts that we need to know about?
> If answers to these questions were provided, I am quite certain that
> they would show that Gibson is still confusing overdamping with
> instability and is unable to solve the Navier-Stokes equation in even
> the simplest cases.
This insulting remark has no place in science refereeing. Prof. Gibson has
been a Fellow of the American Physical Society for 25 years, and has taught
the derivation and solutions of the Navier Stokes equations to over 1000
university students.
> To conclude, the paper offers no new data, no new analysis of old
> data, and is based on a theory with almost no support in the
> scientific community.
The most unfortunate aspect of this referee rant is that the referee offers
no helpful scientific advice that might improve the manuscript. Surely the
Editor recognizes when a report is designed to pick on a few loose threads
in a manuscript written to a page limit and castigate the authors with no
science issues or suggestions for improvement.
Because the referee's report is entirely antagonistic and negative, we ask
for a second referee who understands the hydrodynamical issues in play. We
suggest that the manuscript be sent to any of the authors from our
reference list who have commented in FAVOR of the AE. Because the issues
are largely in the sphere of hydrodynamical structure formation in a
post-turbulent regime, we would particularly recommend:
1. Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
Title: ICTP Director
Abdus Salam Honorary Professor
E-mail: director@ictp.it .
URL: http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~krs
Professor Sreenivasan is an expert on turbulence and fluid mechanics, and
has published many key papers in astrophysics and=20
cosmology. He has been awarded
nearly every honor available to leaders in the fluid mechanics community.
References to his work with Alexander Bershadskii=20
relevant to our paper are included
in the revised version. He is director of the Abdus Salam International Cen=
ter
for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).
2. Alexander Bershadskii, ark2@eudoramail.com .
Dr. Bershadskii is an expert on the statistical geometry, mathematics and
nonlinear physics of turbulence as applied to cosmology. He has pioneered
the analysis of the cosmic microwave background temperature anomalies in
comparison to signatures of turbulent mixing at various Reynolds number.
In his words, "the fingerprints of Kolmogorov are=20
all over the sky". He was the
local organizer for the 9-12 May 2005 ICTP workshop on "Nonlinear Cosmology:
Turbulence and Fields".
3. Norbert Peters, N.Peters@itv.rwth-aachen.de .
Institut f=A8ur Technische Verbrennung, RWTH-Aachen, Templergraben 64, Aache=
n,
Germany. Professor Peters is an expert on turbulent combustion,
turbulent mixing, and is presently an Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechani=
cs.
http://www.itv.rwth-aachen.de
*****************
Summary: Because the referee has offered no comments that can improve the
manuscript, we request a second referee. We re-submit the original
manuscript with 2 trivial changes; we delete an unnecessary reference and
we insert another. The new reference is to Hutsekekers et al (2005).
There have been many articles discussing the AE in the popular literature
(SCIENCE NEWS, SCIENCE, NEW SCIENTIST etc) and we think that a topical
report discussing the qualitive predictions of the cosmological theories
under discussion is appropriate, according to ApJ Letters guidelines, since
the quantitative predictions of HG dynamics and other cosmologies have been
published elswhere.
***************** ORIGINAL FULL REFEREE REPORT *************************
Title: Goodness in the Axis of Evil
Authors: Schild & Gibson
This paper is a very short, incomprehensible catalogue of references to
nearly every "offbeat" theory of the past 5 years. Even though Schild
is the first author, it is obvious from the slugcomment that it was
prepared by Gibson.
The claimed "2-4-8-16" alignment is either "ell=2, 4, 8 and 16" in
which case it is wrong, or it is "dipole, quadrupole, octupole and
hexadecapole" in which case it is wrong.
The paper mentions a direction for the axis of evil, without citing a
reference, but does not mention the direction of the infamous cold
spot, except to say that the axis of evil "points toward" it. This
claim is certainly false.
The abstract claims 300 Mpc voids vs 30 Mpc superclusters as evidence
for the HGD. Since the voids are about 1000 times less dense than the
supercluster this seems to be a natural consequence of any model and
not evidence for the HGD.
There is no comprehensible explanation of Gibson's theory here. The
one figure is a cartoon with no explanatory power. There are a large
number of self references, and the references to Bershadskii are part
of a tight self-referential circle with Gibson. For example, the ADS
shows 6 citations to Bershadskii and Sreenivasen (2002), of with 2 are
by Gibson & Schild, 3 are self-citations by Bershadskii, leaving only
one outside the circle.
Presumably the predictions for large scale structure and for the
CMB anisotropy are different under Gibson's model than under LCDM.
How are they different? Where are the dynamical equations? Where
are the initial conditions so someone outside Gibson's cabal can
verify his calculations? Finally, do Gibson's predictions agree
with the 99.9% of the data that are consistent with LCDM, and make
the existence of an "axis of evil" more likely? The authors cannot
just assert that they do. They have to prove it. Where are the
Monte Carlo's? Where are the statistical tests?
If answers to these questions were provided, I am quite certain that
they would show that Gibson is still confusing overdamping with
instability and is unable to solve the Navier-Stokes equation in even
the simplest cases.
To conclude, the paper offers no new data, no new analysis of old
data, and is based on a theory with almost no support in the
scientific community.