The blog of Hilton Ratcliffe

From chapter 3 of the third edition of The Virtue of Heresy:
 The tidal wave caused jointly by Max Planck’s 1900 quantum hypothesis and Einstein’s relativity swept the scientific world, and by 1930, physics was standing on its head. As professor of mathematics at the University of Leningrad, Alexander Friedmann enthusiastically promoted these ideas, and his [...]

In reminiscing over the enormous contribution the late Tom Van Flandern made to physical science, I re-read his essay, “Physics has its Principles”. Tom epitomised principles and ethics to me, so I share with you today the abstract and concluding paragraphs:
Abstract. Physicists and mathematicians have fundamentally different approaches to describing reality. The essential difference is [...]

We live in a dynamic and violent universe, and the emissaries of time gone by lie scattered in their trillions throughout the Realm. They are part of a cosmic archive, a virtual treasure chest of secrets waiting to be explored. A seemingly endless array of lights from prehistory fills the heavens, and the better we [...]

Dr Tom C Van Flandern 26 June 1940 - 9 January 2009.
On that overcast Saturday morning, after yet another starless night, I awoke with great sadness to the following email from Tom Van Flandern’s son Mike:
“At 8:54AM on Friday January 9, 2009 Tom Van Flandern passed on. I cannot begin to express what this man [...]

Here is an extract from my Hypography thread Is Newtonian Mechanics an advantage or a limitation in astrophysics?
Quote from The Virtue of Heresy:
“There are no Black Holes, no Dark Matter and Dark Energy, no curved spacetime, no ultimate speed limits, no beginning and no end. By simply accepting infinity as a fact of life, we avoid [...]

What is this blog about? Let me state some assumptions that I make, and you are welcome to comment.
1. The Universe is infinite in both space and time.
2. Space is 3D Euclidean. No other space exists besides that.
3. A vacuum does not exist.
4. The Universe is the product of pre-emptive design.
5. The speed of light, [...]

Hi Wanderers,
I am writing two books simultaneously, much to the chagrin of my collaborators and publishers. Book two, “The Static Universe - A Challenge to Scientific Prejudice”, a fairly technical, scholarly work with Sir Patrick Moore, is nearly complete, and I intend taking the manuscript and a bottle of tranquilisers to Sir Patrick’s home in Selsey, [...]

Is Cosmology fact or fiction, science or fairy tale? Do we need it? is it good for us? Does it have any useful purpose? Should we be confined to a Standard Model?