Customer Reviews

Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets (Paradoxes Resolved, Origins Illuminated)

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Hard reading? Techno-babble? The people must have read the wrong book! Reader, don't be scared. If you are a devotee to the subject, this is the book for you. It is easy, straightforward reading, no math required. As for shaky philosophy, the author is faithfully reproducing Ernst Mach's propositions - and even a certain Einstein found his inspiration in Mach's lectures. Personally I have no bones to pick with what I read, but if I ever had the inclination of writing such a book, I certainly would leave out a few things.

Van Flanders has a lot to talk about: "Faster than light motion in time is possible / Gravitation progresses faster than light / the physical universe has five and only five dimensions / it is infinite in extent in all five dimensions / there was no Big bang to start the universe / the universe is not expanding / the universal microwave radiation is of nearby origin / there are no black holes in the universe / quasars are associated with our own and nearby galaxies / galaxies are arranged in waves in an immense medium /gravitational shielding is possible / the classical description of quantum entities is incorrect / the Bell inequality in quantum physics should be violated / There is no "Oort Cloud" of comets / comets and asteroids are quite similar in nature / comets and asteroids are accompanied by satellites / a former major planet exploded between Mars and Jupiter / this explosion occurred just 3 million years ago / this explosion was the origin of comets and asteroids / this explosion may be connected with the origin of man / the great pyramids in Egypt are perhaps 9000 years old / artificial structures may exist on the surface of Mars / tidal forces on the sun and giant planets are significant / there may be a sunspot-planet link / solar eclipses are best viewed away from the centre line / Mercury was originally a moon of Venus / our Moon originated from the Pacific basin of the Earth / the Moon no longer shows us the same face it used to / the Martian moons are the survivors of a great many moons/ a great rift on Mars is the impact site of a former moon / Jupiter's Red Spot is a floating impact remnanat / Saturn's rings are only a few million years old / Solar system bodies have received black carbon deposits / the moons of Neptune were violently disrupted / Pluto and Charon are escaped moons of Neptune / Another undiscovered planet probably exists beyond Pluto"

Not that I or anybody has to agree to all this, but Van Flanders propositions his hypothesis as a true scientist, he is not preaching gospel. He deserves a fair hearing. If I try to imagine how his own peers may view this rich enchilada - oh well, at present the author must be living in the remotest Siberia. It's not about being right or wrong, and the author may very well be more often right than wrong, but it doesn't add much credibility where it counts most for a man of his qualifications. One has to hand it to him, Van Flandern has courage!

But for us lay people and lesser mortals, this book is a fun ride, this much I can promise you.

From the back cover:

"Tom Van Flandern is both an insider and an outsider. A professional astronomer for twenty-five years, he is well versed in the customs of mainstream science. On the other hand, after a long review of the assumptions underlying a large portion of received truth in astronomy and cosmology, he has come to a radical conclusion: much currently accepted theory is wrong..."

This is a hard book to read for the layman with little background in science, whether you have a good vocabulary or not; whether you are bright-normal, or not. It is difficult to read because it requires of you that you think while you are reading. It requires of you that you read the same passage over more than once, and then try to visualize what the author is saying. It requires of you that you use all of your intelligence, and then perhaps decide after struggling with the concept that you will go on and see what else he has to say, without fully grasping what he has just said.

The author is a very bright gentleman, that much is obvious. And, as far as I could follow him, I found his reasoning to be impeccable. And his results, his conclusions, I found to be exciting.

I hope he is right.

He questions Einstein, and uses Einstein's own theory to prove him in error, and he does it without depending upon arcane mathematical formulae. He uses plain language and diagrams that any bright layman, who reads carefully, can follow. But, I warn you, the territory into which you will be drawn is not for sissies.

He is saying that the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is nonsense.

He is saying that the speed of light is not the fastest thing around: That gravity makes it look like a slowpoke. That lightspeed is not the limiting speed.

He is saying that the universe is both infinitely old, and infinite in size. There is no end to it in space, and it had no beginning in time. It is neither expanding, nor is it due to collapse. Space and time are infinite, and there are only five dimensions with which we may measure: Three of space, one of time, and one of scale.

He is saying that there was once a planet, "Planet X," between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, which exploded and is now the source of the asteroid belt and of the comets that, from time to time, invade our solar system.

He is saying that space is filled, not only with a light carrying medium (shades of Ether!) but also with a smaller, faster, universal gravity medium (C-gravitons) which push the planets and their moons and stars together by bombarding them, rather than their being drawn together by some mysterious force, and he demonstrates it with deductive reasoning which is, to say the least, very persuasive.

If you have any curiosity about these things, this is the book for you. You will find it exciting and challenging. If, on the other hand, you are content to leave such esoteric matters up to those who are smarter and better qualified, and would rather play computer games with your spare time, join the multitude!

Van Flandern points out that Oort himself views the mechanism of the Oort Cloud to be highly dubious. VF points out numerous ways in which VF's theories can be disproven, and states his openness to being proved wrong if by doing so, more truth is uncovered. One of his recurring themes is that we should always be willing to re-examine, re-evaluate and rescind theories which do not accord with observations rather than the more typical approach of the mainstream which is to either throw out the aberrant observations or devise ever more twisted additions to the status quo to accomodate the data which doesn't fit.

Not just in Astronomy but in all things we should be open to new and challenging information, and willing to change our cherished beliefs if they are obviously at odds with reality.

The mainstream probably considers VF a wacko, but then again, that's what they thought of Galileo.

If you have any interest in pondering matters scientific, I can't recommend this book too highly. This is the most interesting new book on any subject that I've read in years, and the most interesting of its type -- exciting, even -- I've ever read. Yet it's a quite `easy' read, containing hardly any explicit mathematics. Van Flandern is an astronomer with such impeccably well established credentials that his peers can't completely dismiss his `maverick' theories. From a simple, sensible starting point he carries the reader, by purely deductive reasoning, to a new view of the basic nature of things: from electrons to galaxies, from the nature of a photon to the cause of gravity to the origin of the solar system. Along the way, several paradoxes of existing theories (relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.) are explained and then resolved (or their resolutions indicated) in the most simple and easily understandable expositions I've ever seen. Those acquainted in some detail with existing theories will appreciate the creative brilliance of Van Flandern's insights, the kind that seem to turn on a mental switch that blasts away every shadow in your field of vision at once, and the kind with which his book literally teems (the unpretentious simplicity of the author's conversational style may disguise its radical significance from the casual reader). Challenging much of existing scientific orthodoxy, Van Flandern's new theory is able to cover the ground of several current theories at once, but more simply and directly than any, with fewer inconsistencies, and without requiring the abandonment of a `common sense' view of the world. (It has now been reported that the newly operational Hubble telescope's inability to find so-called `dark matter' has thrown scientists into turmoil because currently accepted cosmological theory requires that the universe be about 90% filled with it. This is precisely one of Van Flandern's predictions [amongst many more]: that no dark matter would be found by the Hubble scope, because there is no dark matter; that there was no need for scientists to infer its existence in the first place; that the phenomena which led them to infer it were already predicted and fully explained by Van Flandern's own simple view of gravitation [and by the way, there are no `black holes' either, according to Van Flandern]). My guess is that many more of Van Flandern's predictions are destined to be verified, and I believe this book may eventually find a place at the base of future scientific inquiry in many fields, not the least of which may be the philosophy of science (specifically its epistemology). If you are curious about such things as the nature of matter and the origin of the solar system, but feel inadequately equipped to grasp what modern science has to say about such things, read this book. You will not get the all-too-common condescending attempt to water-down the `mysteries' of modern science into a form intelligible to little-non-scientist you, but rather a straightforward new theory, logically derived in front of your eyes, which challenges the roots of many of today's complex accepted paradigms, yet whose essence is simple enough to be thoroughly communicated to the intelligent layman without `losing in the translation'. Morris J. Markovitz / "Morry on the Market" / 50 Broadway, Suite 3700 / New York, NY 1000

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Van Flandern was a consultant to the government regarding the Global Positioning System. Doubts had been expressed that the GPS could remain accurate due to a relativistic effect known as "frame dragging", but TVF concluded that, through a slightly too convenient coincidence, "frame dragging" didn't apply to this particular narrow case. It's clear that he understands conventional theories very well, and that's what made it possible for him to develop his Meta Model, the discussion of which comprises the first half of this book.

I can see how the Meta Model discussion would not get high marks, as it clearly didn't in at least one of the earlier reviews here. I read most of it, finally got bored, and skipped into the second half of the book (first edition ISBN 1556431554) which pertains to TVF's Exploding Planet Hypothesis.

When he wrote the first edition, the Alvarez theory was gaining momentum elsewhere in the sciences, as the position of the impact crater that ended the Cretaceous had been located at Chicxulub (the crater had been located circa 1960, but the Alvarez theory didn't come around until 1980 -- see "Night Comes to the Cretaceous" by James Lawrence Powell, ppback 0156007037 hardcover 0716731177).

TVF didn't mention any of that, spending time instead on the "Face on Mars". At that time (early 1990s) the newest surface photos from Martian orbit were still those of Viking from the 1970s. The "Face" did exist, and it was an artifact -- but it existed only in those photos, and was only an artifact of the lower resolution of the Viking cameras, as opposed to that of the recent (late 1990s) orbiter. I don't see how any reasonable person can look at the higher res photos (as opposed to both the Viking photos and the low res photos from the new orbiter, which can mimic the resolution of Viking) and conclude that the "Face" is artificial. This devotion to a completely discredited idea is not to TVF's credit, and as someone who respects his intellect and many of his ideas, I wish he'd knock it off.

The best part of either edition is the discussion of TVF's Exploding Planet Hypothesis (EPH). He uses the model to explain things like the tipped axis of Uranus, disturbed moon system of Neptune, retrograde rotation of Venus, Earth-crossing objects, and various other things which have made thoughtful people wonder for a very long time. In the original edition the EPH was about 3.2 million years ago.

This new edition extends the EPH by adding an earlier exploding planet dated to 65 million years ago, in order to provide a source for the object which crashed into the Earth and ended the dominion of the dinosaurs. TVF's extension seems a bit ad hoc, but once a single unexplained planetary explosion has been posited, additional ones shouldn't be considered surprising or forbidden. On the other hand, TVF had already questioned the (also ad hoc) Oort Cloud idea, and that's the leading competitor (and dominant paradigm) for a source of the Chicxulub object. Since TVF is devoted to building a single comprehensive model to explain oddball characteristics of various solar system objects to replace the dozens of (also ad hoc) unique explanations.

[see "Shoemaker by Levy" ISBN 0691002258 for some brief comments quoted from Shoemaker regarding the role played by Jupiter in sweeping the Solar System of transitory debris -- TVF needs multiple exploding planets because such debris would either be kicked out of the system or bent into untroubling orbits within ten million years, mostly due to the presence of Jupiter]

TVF's discussion of the origin of Earth's own Moon is a great reason to buy this book, and a great place to begin reading it for those who are like me, and enjoy picking at a book here and there. It's also a discussion I'd like to criticize a little. TVF discusses the four basic models of lunar formation, then picks them off one by one, as he offers his own model (fission from Earth due to overspin). The problem with his critique of the capture model is that his arguments apply also to his overspin model, and there's nothing he can do about it. Furthermore, the early presence of water on the Earth (a discovery that I think antedates this new edition of "Dark Matter") reduces the likelihood that the Moon was born of fission from Earth, either due to TVF's model or the more conventional impact model which is the dominant one of the five presented.

Despite the catastrophic character of an exploding planet, TVF's model is really quite uniformitarian, and for those who object to catastrophism on a priori grounds, this book and his EPH should provide a great introduction to the topic that fascinates one's friends and neighbors without letting on to anyone that you're secretly hoping to join the winning side. :^)

I have read this book twice already! For those of you interested in cosmology (the way the solar system and universe work) then this book is great. Tom Van Flandern cleary and succinctly puts forward his meta-model of the universe in a way that puts mainstream astronomy to shame. I have always believed that things can be logically explained and make sense in the cosmos around us. This book does just that. He makes a killer argument about an infinite universe in both time and scale, pointing out many reasons as to why the big-bang is a failure. Van Flandern discusses the speed of gravity by using the sun-earth-moon system to show that gravity must be travelling far quicker than the speed of light. I like how this book embraces many aspects of astronomy all in one. Best of all is his discussion regarding the basis of science, in that we should think of new models based on the existing evidence as opposed to fitting evidence to an old model. This book is a very worthwhile read and will open your eyes to what mainstream astronomy has been keeping from you.

I read the first edition of Tom Van Flandern's book and it's excellent--a well written and absorbing work! While you may not agree with everything the author proposes (at least for now), you'll realize just how much intensive research and mathematical wizardy went into the author's exploration of current cosmology! Van Flandern is probably 100 years ahead of his time in the field of astronomy, especially in the re-examination of ideas like planetary breakups, the birth of the Earth-Moon system, and the origin of tektites. The author is a neo Kepler for the New Millennium, notably when it comes to rethinking science's blind faith in our present paradigm of the universe and solar system. (Especially fascinating is Van Flandern's discussion about the origins of asteroids and comets. How is it the majority of scientists have come to accept a concept like that of the so-called "Oort Cloud" based on little evidence?) If you don't mind having your scientific be! ! lief system rattled a bit, then get this book and read it!

Tom Van Flandern's book adds a new dimension to cosmology--not only does it present a novel approach to timeless issues, it stands up to the closest scientific scrutiny. The author has a proven track record and top notch credentials, so when he begins his hard-hitting critique of the status quo it's a breathtaking read, for laymen and scientists alike. Let's be honest about the Big Bang Theory--even the most respected scientists today will readily admit it is full of holes. But it takes a new look, like Tom Van Flandern's book, to explain not only why the theory is wrong but what to substitute in its place. This is a significant book and if you read it you will get a thrill just as those who read Copernicus and Galileo must have gotten a thrill to realize they were reading about the future of science. Read it--you won't be disappointed.

I watched a recent episode of the popular series "The Universe" after reading this book and had a very different impression than I would have prior to reading it. Listenting to a respected astronomer "pontificating" about how "we have not yet detected Dark Matter, but it has to be there, because the Big Bang Theory says it has to be there, and the Big Bang Theory is an article of faith..." seemed almost foolish, in the context of Van Flandern's theories.

Van Flandern covers a lot of ground in his excellent book and I confess that I skimmed through the chapters explaining celestial mechanics. The book covers many topics and it is unlikely that everyone will want to read every chapter (pick and choose).

Among many other interesting things, Van Flandern asserts that gravity waves (or particles)propagate at a speed that is 20 billion times the speed of light! To put that into perspective, it means that a graviton would traverse the entire span of the known universe (plus or minus ten billion light years)in 1.5 years!

To me, Van Flandern's key take away message is that scientists today have gone astray of the "tried and true" Scientific Method and rely more and more on inductive reasoning to attempt to prove their theories, rather than observations and the use of deductive reasoning. Van Flandern cites as one example the increasingly complicated, convoluted and hard-to-fathom "fixes" offered to maintain support for the Big Bang Theory, when new observations do not fit the model.

Van Flandern also asserts that scientists today are behaving more-or-less the way the Church behaved 400 years when it banned Galileo's writings. To put it another way, we are "back-sliding" into personal attacks and bullying when a scientist's theories differ from those that are commonly accepted - especially anything that treads on the "sacred ground" of The Big Bang Theory and Special Relativity. Van Flandern predicts that historians will one day look at the last hundred years of certain aspects of scientific research (notably astrophysics)with a degree of distress and humor.

Van Flandern also admonishes scientists for refusing to acknowledge acumulated credible observations over the last 20 or so years that collectively support "artificiality" as the explanation for the geometric structures and "Face", on Cydonia on the planet Mars. Van Flandern is not a crack pot - he is a highly credentialed scientist. Review the evidence and draw your own conclusions.

You may completely disagree with Van Flandern's observations, theories and conclusions, but it is hard to disagree with his logic.

This is a terrific book - buy it and read it.

I was extremely impressed by the amount of thinking that went into this book. Whether you agree with Van Flandern or not, he goes deep, challenging fundamental assumptions at every turn. His writing is also first rate. Van Flandern is very good at communicating difficult ideas -- not an easy thing to do.

I started out skeptical about exploding planets. By the end the author had almost convinced me. In the process I learned a great deal about celestial mechanics. I found especially appealing his idea that gravity has limited range of 2 parsecs. That would explain so many things. Like Van Flandern, I regard the Big Bang as a lot of nonsense. I also suspect that he is probably correct about the origin of the Valles Marineris on Mars -- the deepest canyon in the solar system. What an ingenious idea. And I admire Van Flandern for discussing controversial subjects, such as the monuments of Mars. His updated synthesis is the best I have seen yet. Clearly R.C. Hoagland benefitted greatly from Van Flanern's ideas. What a story.

I disagree with the author in several areas. Van Flandern could be correct that most comets originated from a disintegrated planet. That is plausible, though whether this happened via an explosion or a collision, I still have my doubts. I suspect there have always been rogue objects of unknown origin moving through the solar system. His explanation why these objects could not come from interstellar space was not entirely clear to me. Hale Bopp was much too large to be derived from a moon sized body.

The book was published before the discoveries of Hyakutake's ephemeral tail and cometary x-rays, which in my view are diagnostic for an electrical cometary connection. I wonder if Van Flandern is aware that several years ago a physicist in New Mexico demonstrated that terrestrial lightning causes x-rays, a discovery that's been confirmed many times, since. I believe that cometary x-rays and those caused by lightning are one and the same phenomenon.

I subscribe to the solar capacitor model. In my view the astronomer Bessel was correct long ago when he argued for an electrical connection between sun and comet. Van Flandern's discussion of comets touches on but neglects to discuss in full a most telling point: That comets are wildly variable in their brightness. Why, for example, was Halleys' comet 200X as bright after perihelion as before, at the same distance from the sun? Fred Hoyle described its display as a series of explosions. This sort of show could not be due to reflected light, alone, even if Van Flandern is correct that some of the material in the coma is debris from the original break up. I believe the extreme variability of X-ray generation and brightness is caused by solar flares and coronal mass ejections. In other words, there is a direct connection between sun and comet. Nor can a break up model account for the preponderance of smoke sized particles in the coma. The same is true for the vast cloud of hydrogen surrounding comets. All of this suggests electrical phenomena -- which NASA and mainstream science continue to ignore and dismiss.

I believe that comets draw in ionized material from the rear via the tail. And free hydrogen is attracted to the negatively charged nucleus from all directions. This is not my model. I don't take credit for it, though I won't mention the originator's name because I promised him I would not. (His initials are J M)

A few other points: I doubt very much if the rings of Saturn are as old as Van Flandern thinks. Back when the fine detail in the rings first became known, the astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier argued that the rings could not be older than 10-20,000 years. After which the fine detail would gradually wash out and be lost. I suspect that physicist Paul LaViolette is correct that the rings are the signature of a recent event (see his book Earth Under Fire). In LaViolette's view this was caused by a galactic superwave. LaViolette thinks the cosmic wave pushed the sun's nebular cloud of dust back into our solar system, wreaking all manner of havoc, causing the ice ages etc. The same explanation would account for the zodiacal disk, a remnant that apparently is tipped 3 degrees away from the plane of the solar system, i.e., in the direction of the galactic center. Again, this is Paul's argument.

My other point of disagreement concerns Venus. Van Flandern's link with Mercury implies that Venus is a very old planet. How, then do we account for its tremendous heat? Venus should have cooled down long ago. The Magellan Mission showed that the planet is 85% volcanic -- though I suspect even this high number understates the reality. Could a greenhouse cause this? Of course not. The heat is coming from the planetary core. But why? Simple. Venus is very young, perhaps only a few thousand years old. I've studied the so called Venusian impact craters and can discern no difference between them and the planet's volcanic craters. Some of the "impact" craters actually have large associated lava extrusions. In my view most or all of them are volcanic in origin. Venus has many volcanic features unique in the solar system -- why? Simple. It is the youngest planet, by far.

I believe Venus was originally a giant comet that was captured by the sun. I know celestial mechanics can't explain the how of this -- but if it's shown that large comets do attract ionized material from the rear they can actually add enormous amounts of mass, which would slow them down, shortening their period and making capture a realistic possibility. I suspect that some of the other planets (and some of the moons) had a similar origin.

In short, I largely agree with Van Flandern. But I also hold for an altogether different capture mechanism (originated by J M) governed by electromagnetism. In an unpublished draft of his Principia Isaac Newton wrote:

"He who investigates the laws and effects of electrical forces with the same success and certainty [by which I have investigated celestial mechanics] will greatly promote philosophy [i.e., natural philosophy], even if perhaps he does not know the cause of these forces. First the phenomenon should be observed, then their proximate causes, and afterward the causes of the causes, should be investigated, and finally it will be possible to come down to the causes of the causes (established by phenomena) to their effects, by arguing a priori..."