Gravitational formation of galaxies

CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Ithaca, New York

Center for Radiophysics and Space Research
Phillips Hall

Mr. D. B. Larson
755 N.E.Royal Court
Portland 12, Oregon

August 23 1961

Dear Mr. Larson,

Thank you for your letter, which I only received this last week, after it was forwarded to me from England. I would be very much interested in seeing the detailed calculations of how you would propose to gravitationally form galaxies in your cosmological model. As you know, the same forces which you describe, namely the cosmic expansion and gravitational attraction forces also are of prime importance in the Bondi-Gold-Hoyle steady state theory, and there too one might think that eventually matter falls back into galaxies. In fact a considerable amount of matter probably does just that. However, it is a relatively small amount, not nearly as much as would be required to regenerate galactic masses at a fast enough rate I believe that without detailed calculation one cannot at present tell whether a given cosmological model, be it steady state or evolutionary, will or will not be able to support adequate rates of galaxy formation. Order of magnitude estimates have often proven notoriously misleading, in just this type of work.

Sincerely yours

Martin Harwit

International Society of  Unified Science
Reciprocal System Research Society

Salt Lake City, UT 84106
USA

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