Back in March or April I was asked by Dave Talbott of the Thunderbolts project to speak at the 18th annual Natural Philosophy Alliance conference - which was held this past week.  For those that are interested here is the link to my paper that it in the conference proceedings:

http://www.worldsci.org/php/index.php?tab0=Abstracts&tab1=Display&id=6152

I spoke on friday afternoon and then gave a brief talk about Halton Arp and accepted the NPA Sagnac award on Arp's behalf.

Dave

I was going to present papers at NPA 18 but domestics got in the way. I did them in absentia.
Overall what did you think?
Was it worth it?
ie did you move your theories on?
Would you recommend us to actually 'turn up'/ at these events apart from the social?
I find conferences good as normally I am out in the backwater and they inspire me to keep going. But where there enough in your area to warrant going all that way?
Just a thought.
NPA is a high powered ATM and they do good work. i enjoyed my time at CCC2. Is NPA taking over?
Cheeers
Lyndon

Gah! How did I miss this? I'm sorry for missing this, David :)

How frustrating is it repeating the same salient points over and over again? I liked this bit of your paper - part of the problem in a nutshell:

DGR's paper said:

Ironically, while cosmologists will propose the possible existence of completely dark galaxies [27] when bridge like filaments are present but no companion is evident, the bridges are immediately dismissed as evidence for interaction if there is a
significant difference in redshift between the two apparently connected objects.  For example Borchkhadze et al [30] presented
a study of 16 interacting galaxy systems and noted for ESO 234-19 that  “The reproduction (figure 1i) shows a diffuse object between them.  However, the radial velocities differ with about 2200 km s^-1 so that a connection is probably excluded.”   It should be noted in both the NGC 7603 and NEQ3 case that if the companion galaxy is removed as a candidate, then there is no candidate to explain the formation of the bridge unless a hypothesis such as that of [27] is adopted.

This.

I didn't know about the case of NGC 1275. I think the discussion has been bandied about here before as to whether it was possible to catch something high-z with something low-z clearly behind it. Mind you, Rubin, if I'm reading correctly, attributes the difference to plain old velocity:

Rubin said:

Moreover, the velocity dispersion in the relevant part of the cluster is so high that this velocity difference is not unusual.

Is there something in Rubin's paper where it stands out that his interpretation may be a bit forced in places, or is this actually not a strong ATM case, to receive such a fairly short mention in your paper?

Has a QSO ever been caught out in front of a normal galaxy and remained unchallenged in this classification?

Have you had anyone respond to your Ks-TFR research at all? I'd find it interesting to hear the counterarguments.

How was the conference, by the way? Why couldn't Arp be there in person?

You know, I think I'd rather see a CCC3 than a shift over to NPA. The association with Alex Scarborough and earth-internal nucleosynthesis (really?... really?) and a planetary model not followed by exoplanets so far... just gives me the heebies :)

-- Ritchie

Here are some cases with high z object in front of low z object (including NGC 1275). NGC 7319 must be one of the more remarkable cases of QSO apparently in front of a low z galaxy.

Oh, by the way, Vera Rubin is a she.

Thank you for that list, Ari! What do you think of the ATM case for NGC 1275?

Now I'm truly embarrassed - I should know better, especially with our Margaret Burbridge!

I'm intrigued by her MOND leanings:

Vera Rubin said:

"If I could have my pick, I would like to learn that Newton's laws must be modified in order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distances. That's more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of sub-nuclear particle."

I'd be interested to see if there are further developments with NGC 7319. I see the Burbridges were in on that, too :)

What do you think of the ATM case for NGC 1275?

It's a strange one. Having high velocity clouds is entirely different to having QSO-galaxy associations or other such things. In the spectrum of discordant redshift evidence it is completely in its own band. However, in this case it is difficult to say if the relatively small velocity difference is enough to call it an ATM case.

Here is a link to the presentation I gave:

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/19489

Regarding the value of the NPA -  it was an interested audience and I enjoyed the talk.  I guess it depends upon your goals.  Speaking at the NPA doesn't do anything to convince mainstream astronomers to take alternative ideas seriously, but it gives you a chance to talk to others interesting at looking at alternatives to the mainstream.

Dave

Regarding NGC 1275 -- This example is important because it is an extended object - so there is no disputing that the 3000 km s-1 higher redshift object is in front of the lower redshift object.  The problem with QSO's is that they are virtually starlike and therefore it is difficult to establish them as foreground/background because superposition cannot be determined visually as it can in the NGC 1275 case. 

Just how significant the 3000 km s-1 difference in NGC 1275 is remains unclear.  It is twice the largest accepted peculiar motions in large clusters and it is not clear how such velocities can be generated.   My focus has been to test for evidence that deviations from the Hubble law > 3000 km s-1 are real.  My NPA paper discusses examples from the literature and then evidence from my K-TFR studies.

Dave