Olbers Paradox- presentation-

IT WAS ALSO REALLY KEPLER’S PARADOX-If this be true, and if they

are suns having the same nature as our Sun, why do not these suns
collectively outdistance our Sun in brilliance? Kepler in 1610

Olbers Paradox was a problem that arose because of the Newtonian

conception of the Universe which was based on three permises-

1. The Universe is inifinitely old

2. The universe is static in size and that size is massive

3. The stars are uniformly distributed across the universe.

Olber asked the basic question- why is the night sky dark? The
paradox stems from the following-
Imagine the Universe as a space and then imagine that it is made
up of a series of shells.

As we move away from Earth, the number of stars in each shell

must increase proportionally- that is there are four times as many
stars in a shell that is twice as far away as the first shell, because
the stars are uniformly distributed.

However, the brightness of these stars is four times less (there is a

relationship relating brightness and distance).

Hence, the amount of energy coming from each shell is exactly the
same.

As there are an infinite number of shells the amount of energy or

light in the sky is infinite, so the night sky must be bright.

This analysis was put forward by a Scientist called Jean Phillippe de

Chesaux in 1744, and he concluded that the actual amount of light
that should be hitting us should be 180,000 times more intense than
was actually hitting the Earth. He attempted to resolve the paradox
by suggesting that some of this light would be absorbed by inter
stellar dust. However, this does not hold because this dust and
clouds would be as hot and as bright as the stars from which they
had absorbed light.

ALTERNATIVELY- one can look at it like this- if there is an uniform

distribution of stars across an universe that is massive in scale then
everywhere we look in the night sky we must see a star.
RESOLVING OLBER’S PARADOX-

THE PARADOX ITSELF HAS A NUMBER OF PROBLEMS-

First of all it doesn’t take into account the fact that the stars in
themselves block each other, meaning that not all of the stars are
visible from Earth.

Clearly, if you imagine a forest of trees, you can only see a few of
those trees. How far you can see, or the ‘lookout distance’, is
dependent on the distance between stars, the volume that an
average star inhabits and the cross-sectional width of the star.

From this equation, the look-out distance is V/a, where V is the

volume and a is the width, and there is a set number of stars.
According to this, all our lines of sight terminate at a star, and if
every star is given an average surface temperature of 5000K, then
the entire sky looks like it is radiating at this temperature- or we live
in a furnace.

PARADOX FALLS BECAUSE OF MODERN EVIDENCE-

We know mass and energy are equivalent, so we can calculate how

many stars we need in order to reach the surface temperature of
stars here on earth.

As stars convert 0.1% of their mass into light, we need 10 ^13

hydrogen atoms per cubic meter and these stars must be separated
by an average distance of 0.1 light years. So the Universe needs to
be more dense.

RESOLVING THE PARADOX WITH A FINITE UNIVERSE-

Using the equations for lookout distance, we can find that the look
out distance is 10^23 light years, while the number of visible stars
is 10^60.

As the universe is homogenous, all stars are shining within it. People
estimate that the average lifetime of a star is 10^10 years, but if
we look beyond this distance, we’er looking at stars that are not yet
luminous. Their light hasn’t reached us. The total amount of light is
then 10^-13 of the amount we need for a bright sky.

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY PUT FORWARD BY KEPLER-

He viewed each star as having a box around it and that space

everywhere has radiation- as per a bright sky. It takes some time for
this box to fill up with radiation and this is the time between
emitting and absorbding light. The distance traveled by the light is
the same as the lookout distance and the time required to fillit up is
10^23 light years.

The stars shine for a small amount of this time, hence explaining the
paradox.

EXPANDING UNIVERSE-

Commonly, people explain this paradox by proposing that the sky is

finite but unbounded. So if our lookout distance is larger than the
universe, then we see ‘beyond’ the stars in the universe and look
into darkness.

Ok, assume that the Universe is like a sphere- in that it is finite, but
endless. It’s almost like a planet covered in trees. Now also imagine
that light can bend and that they bend along this planet. If we look
out, we can see an endless number of trees. If our look out distance
is more than half the circumference, then we see each tree more
than once. That means in a finite universe each star would be seen
a 1000 times

THIS PARADOX IS

Lord Kelvin then wrote a paper showing that there were not enough
stars to cover the entire night sky. He went one step further by
showing that even if there were as many stars as needed, because
they had a finite amount of energy they could not burn forever and
emit light forever. So they still would not emit enough light to
brighten the sky. He began to think in terms of distances and took
Ole Roemer’s research showing the finite speed of light to tell us
that the light hadn’t reached us yet.

In a few years the below was put forward due to advances in

telescopic technology-

FINITE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE-

This was argued by Kelvin in 1901. Simply if the Universe is not

inifinitely old then it means that we cannot see some of the light of
the oldest stars because they lie more than 14 billion light years
away, which is the age of the universe. In other words their light has
not reached us yet.

EXPANDING UNIVERSE-

Because stars are also moving away from is, it means that their
light is ‘red shifted’ because of the Doppler effect. Because they are
moving away the frequency of the light they emit changes, and
moves it out of the visible spectrum, meaning that we cannot ‘see’
all of the light.

But this red shift does NOT resolve Olber’s paradox. Again, imagine
the box. If the universe expands, the radiation in the box should be
weak. However, calculations say that the radiation in the box is
exactly the same as if it were not moving. This expansion actually
reduces radiation by a factor that is never less than ½- the radiation
of the bright sky needs to be reduced by 10^-13.

The real answer is that there is too much space between the stars-
we don’t have enough energy to fill the dark universe.