Coming of Age in a Low-Density Universe
I was reminded just now that 30 years ago today, on 25th August 1994, this review article by myself and George Ellis was published in Nature (volume 370, pp. 609–615).
Sorry for the somewhat scrappy scanned copy. The article is still behind a paywall. No open access for the open Universe!
Can this really have been 30 years ago?
Anyway, that was the day I officially became labelled a “crank”, by some, although others thought we were pushing at an open door. We were arguing against the then-standard cosmological model (based on the Einstein – de Sitter model), but the weight of evidence was already starting to shift. Although we didn’t predict the arrival of dark energy, the arguments we presented about the density of matter did turn out to be correct. A lot has changed since 1994, but we continue to live in a Universe with a density of matter much lower than the critical density and our best estimate of what that density is was spot on.
Looking back on this, I think valuable lessons would be learned if someone had the time and energy to go through precisely why so many papers at that time were consistent with a higher-density Universe that we have now settled on. Confirmation bias undoubtedly played a role, and who is to say that it isn’t relevant to this day?
In the Dark 
August 26, 2024 at 12:37 pm
It is funny how one is influenced by the papers one starts out reading. I did my MSc (on dark matter mass functions using the peak formalism) 1993-1994 and was quickly convinced by the evidence in favour of a non-zero cosmological constant so all my code from then on always had omega=0.3 and lambda=0.7 as default – I presume I simply had not read widely enough to be fully aware of the field but it made the change to LCDM very easy. I do remember your article but can’t anymore remember what I thought of it, but I remember my general prejudice was always LCDM > OCDM > EdS so I presume I will have agreed with it but thought it did not go far enough 😀
August 26, 2024 at 3:20 pm
As we describe in the paper the APM angular clustering results by Eftstathiou et al (1990) were pretty decisive that Omega0 had to wait a few years for the SN (and corroboration with CMB showing k=0).
August 27, 2024 at 1:19 am
I am not disputing that of course, but I am a bit puzzled by your reference to Efstathiou et al (1990) because the Efstathiou, Sutherland & Maddox Nature paper was the one I had in mind when I mentioned being influenced by what you read. I read that as giving a convincing argument in favour of a non-zero lambda. [I was also influenced by finding that QSO number counts, ala Efstathiou & Rees 1998 worked better in a non-zero lambda universe].
August 27, 2024 at 10:56 am
You can fit the APM results just as well without Lambda – they’re really just sensitive to Omega – but you can’t fit them simultaneously with the CMB without Lambda.
August 26, 2024 at 5:13 pm
@telescoper.blog @redshiftdrift
I guess some hist./philos. of #cosmology could answer the question on the confirmation bias.
Based on my own diving into early cosmology (Einstein's 1917 model up to the 1930s models) I'd say most of the biases come from theor. assumptions and a few popular scientists with high visibility favouring them. It takes clear data, an alternative model, and further renowned scientists to make a change.
#DarkEnergy #DarkMatter #HistoryOfScience
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August 29, 2024 at 2:01 am
Peter: out of curiosity, you didn’t submit this manuscript on arXiv?
August 29, 2024 at 4:39 am
No, I was a relatively late adopter of arXiv, which got goin. I think my first papers on there were in 1995.