Talk:Olbers's paradox

another sufficient argument to solve the paradox
If you hypothesize that the stars are distributed randomly in the universe, then the brightness of stars as seen from one point (the earth for instance) falls as a power-law of exponent 5/2. The integral in every direction of the expected brightness is thus finite and would solve the paradox. Adding a more realistic universe (expanding) would just add to the effect. is that a valid argument? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LaurentPerrinet (talk • contribs) 09:04, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

The solution of the Paradox of Olbers
Let's first perform a thought experiment and then give full solution.

The thought experiment.

We start from a number of assumptions. Assumption (1) is the Cosmological Principle, which says that, when considered at sufficiently large scale, the spatial distribution of material in the universe is homogeneous (average matter/energy density is the same finite value everywhere). The described space of Olbers certainly meets this criterion.

We neglect the 2.7 K background radiation that does not originate in stars (2) and also we neglect the Dark Matter (3) and Dark Energy (4). We neglect the existence of black holes (5). We assume that the universe is static, so there is no expansion of the universe, we neglect the big bang (6). The universe is infinitely large (7).

Visible starlight originates from stars because star material is converted into light particles (photons) according to E = mc2, which then escape from the star and enter empty space. We now perform the thought experiment. Suppose we convert, according to E = mc2, all matter in the universe into visible light, all star matter, all planets and all gas and dust, everything that has energy and is not yet visible light. Now we have the maximum visible light density you can achieve with 10^-26 kg/m^3 (which is the average mass density of our universe). What remains then is a radiation bath or photon gas that is uniformly distributed all over space, if you look on a sufficiently large scale. Compare this photon gas to the air in a large enclosed hangar somewhere on Earth. The molecules of the still air are not stationary at all but moving criss-cross through the hangar. Theoretically it could be that at a certain moment the movement of all air molecules in the hangar is such that they happen to gather all in one half of the hangar, the other half leaving vacuum, but statistics show that the chance for this is too low to take into account. So is the photon gas. Every sufficiently large piece of space contains about the same amount of radiation and a certain area can only contain more radiation at the expense of neighboring areas which will then contain less radiation. On a sufficiently large scale, the probability of this is too small to occur. Remember that the radiation IS the starlight. If you were standing in the radiation bath, being the last remaining piece of material in the entire universe, and you opened your eyes you would always and everywhere see the same light intensity in all directions, no matter how much time would pass. The night sky in this thought experiment (it is always night then, you could say) then has a constant brightness and is therefore not infinitely bright at all. Due to several causes (not all dust and gas will ever contract to stars, stars cannot burn up completely, the universe is expanding) the night sky that we observe on Earth is still less bright than that from our thought experiment. Olbers' paradox is thus in fact resolved.

Note that this solution is independent of the size of the universe and whether this size is finite or infinite. The solution is independent of the age of the universe or whether its life span is finite or infinite. It makes no difference to the solution whether the universe is expanding or not, although expansion will reduce the brightness of the night sky. All that matters is the average mass energy density.

So far for the thought experiment.

Now for the full solution.

Where is the error in the reasoning as formulated by Olbers? Let's try to imagine how Olbers saw the universe. All the stars were like the Sun, bright stars were closer suns and fainter stars were suns further away. All the suns were created and ignited simultaneously at the "Moment of Creation", a moment that we will call T = 0. The stars were evenly distributed over space and in that space they all stood still with respect to each other and with respect to our Sun, they would never leave the place of their origin. The space was infinitely large with an infinite number of stars in it. Olbers may have thought that the stars would shine forever, at least until the "End of Time". Olbers may have thought that starlight did not need time to go from a star to us.

We add to this picture two pieces of modern knowledge: 1) the Sun (and therefore all other stars in Olbers' universe) have an estimated lifespan of 10 billion years and 2) the speed of light is 3 x 10^8 m/s. We conclude that in the universe of Olbers all stars will die out simultaneously 10 billion years after T=0.

Realize that at moment T = 0 (actually 8 minutes after T = 0, that is the time light needs to traverse from the Sun to the Earth) on Earth only our Sun is visible. The other stars are already there, but their light has not yet reached us. In the course of the first 10 billion years, star after star becomes visible, the nearest stars first, then the nearest stars just behind them, and finally a sphere with a radius of 10 billion light-years is visible around the Earth full of stars.

Then, it's 10 billion years after T = 0, all the stars are put out at once. We don't see this. The only thing WE see at that moment (8 minutes after that moment) is that the Sun goes out. It is night from now on. But from that moment we also see stars disappearing over the years, the nearest stars first, then the nearest stars just behind them, etc.

Now think of the space around the Sun as divided into spherical shells of 1 light-year thickness centered around the Sun. A star is said to be in a spherical shell if the star's center of gravity is in it. As the stars in the nearest visible shell go out, at the same time the stars in the spherical shell just outside the farthest visible shell, light up for the first time. Those are not new stars, in fact those stars had already died now, more than 10 billion years after T= 0; the light of their ignition at time T=0 has only reached us now because of the great distance.

And this goes on forever. Olbers correctly noted that each spherical shell per unit time casts the same amount of starlight onto Earth as any other spherical shell of the same thickness and center. As a result, the brightness of the nearest spherical shell with visible stars (which is disappearing) and the brightness of the most distant spherical shell with visible stars (which is appearing) will be equal. As a result, the total brightness of the observed starlight will remain constant over time.

And that result agrees neatly with the result from the thought experiment. However, in the course of time the starlight that falls on Earth will be supplied by ever more stars at ever larger distances. Even though the stars themselves are no longer there, their light still haunts until the end of time.

The mathematically formulated paradox of Olbers is reformulated here as a process of ever more shells becoming visible, one on top of the other, in doing so creating a sphere of increasing radius full of stars. However, what Olbers did not take into account is the disappearing again of shells because the stars in it had died and the light they used to send has ceased to exist. The visible entirety of stars is not a sphere but a shell, with thickness of 10 billion light years here. That is the error in the reasoning as formulated by Olbers.

Also in the universe as we know it, there will come a day when all the gas and all the dust that can contract into stars, indeed has done so and all the stars that have been ignited finally have burned up. Let's for convenience set this at 10^12 years after T = 0 (just a number, no try to be accurate!)

When you adjust the window of your computer screen such that the width of the screen slowly decreases, you usually see rearrangement of the text while at the same time the present pictures without changing size are pushed slowly to the vertical center line until they seem to stack in a column. Now imagine the spacetime diagram of the universe. The line segments that are the entire lifetime of the stars are the mentioned pictures. Now in mind slowly push the starting point and the final point of those 10^12 years toward each other, while the star lifetimes maintain same length of time, until the 10^12 years has shrinked to average star lifetime. Like the pictures of the screen stack when the width of the screen had approached the average picture width, so will the star life line segments be pushed more and more next to each other in the same period of time. Then perform the solution of the paradox of Olbers as described. Then slowly release the compressed time in reversed order until nowadays universe is obtained again. During all these actions the output of light from the stars remains unchanged, only the stretch of time in which it occurs, changes. It takes a longer time but the end result still is the same universe of dead stars and a radiation bath of starlight that haunts it forever.

Albertus P. Kiekens (talk) 16:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Disagree with hiding Talk entries
Two Talk entries here have been hidden by David Eppstein and replaced by prominent WP:OR notices. I disagree with hiding Talk entries on the basis that adding their information to the article would violate WP:OR. Talk entries violating WP policy should not be hidden; they should simply be marked as violating WP policy and no further action should be taken. My reason is that violators of WP policy frequently do so out of ignorance of the policy and do not deserve the punishment of having their words censored by hiding them. Note: I have no conflict of interest in this situation. David Spector (talk) 15:44, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

The possessive of "Olbers"
A recent claim (see notice at top of this page), says, "Singular possessives should end with apostrophe + "s" regardless of spelling (MOS:POSS).

In this case, the WP manual of style violates several external stylebooks, including those of Associated Press and others. However, it accords with some style books that do not distinguish people's names, such as Los Angeles Times.

Also, there is a tradition behind the article title, and that tradition has always used the form Olbers'.

I regret that, due to an injury and a project, I do not have the time to do adequate research. But I do oppose the move to Olbers's. David Spector (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems the move request was denied. So why was it moved. Shall it be reverted? — zmm ~talk~ 18:29, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Archives not accessible
The index of the talk page archives is not working. I found only one recent archive from the bot's revision history, but the box here is broken. Can it be fixed please? I thought maybe it has to do with the page renaming, but | an edit I made failed to fix it. — zmm ~talk~ 18:28, 17 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Update: fix is in place thanks to the kind help here. — zmm ~talk~ 06:35, 18 September 2023 (UTC)