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

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.

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.

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 rath

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!

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 li