Cosmic Illusions

A critique of black-hole-black-body radiation, black-hole thermodynamics, entropy bounds, inflation cosmology, and the lack of gravitational aberration is presented. With the exception of the last topic, the common thread is the misuse of entropy and, consequently, the second law. Hawking’s derivation of the entropy loss due to black hole emission rests on Kirchhoff’s radiation law which equates the rates of absorption and emission of energy in any given frequency interval. Black-body radiation cannot, therefore, be used as a mechanism for black-hole evaporation. A derivation of the Planck factor from an exponential Doppler shift shows why the temperature cannot be proportional to the acceleration;accelerations do not cause Doppler shifts. Inflationary cosmology is based on a misconception that the adiabatic condition of Einstein’s equations hold, and, yet, there can be an enormous increase in the entropy. The cause for the increase is a negative pressure which contradicts the thermodynamic definition of positive pressure as the derivative of the entropy with respect to the volume times the temperature: Increases in volume cause corresponding increases in the entropy. A first-order phase transition cannot occur under adiabatic conditions, cannot generate entropy, and the latent heat cannot be used to reheat the universe. Finally, a negative pressure is invoked to explain the absence of gravitational aberration, assuming that gravity propagates at the speed of light. It is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown, within the framwork of applicability of its basic concepts. Albert Einstein on