I don't think space is expanding.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Reformed Offlian

We're not talking about how the light behaves on a scale of billions of lightyears, we're talking about how it behaves right here, in the atmosphere and in our telescopes, depending on what object it comes from. Right here on earth, these things don't work, if we're looking at certain galaxies. Right here on earth, our apparatus doesn't work the way we think it does, if it's pointed at certain galaxies. That's not a question of scale, that's special pleading for an arbitrary set of objects.

If all those objects happen to be at least million of light years away, that's a question of domain of applicability.

Nuclear physicists don't worry about Hubble's constant, because the distances involved are too small.

In fact, only cosmologists worry about Hubble's constant because their domain is the only place Hubble redshift appears.

[Reformed Offlian]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

If all those objects happen to be at least million of light years away, that's a question of domain of applicability.

No reason to think that's true. You admitted yourself you didn't have a rationale for adding a kluge to Snell's law, and that you'd have to "get back to me".

Quote:

Nuclear physicists don't worry about Hubble's constant, because the distances involved are too small.

In fact, only cosmologists worry about Hubble's constant because their domain is the only place Hubble redshift appears.

Sure. But you are proposing a change to Snell's law to explain away something that *doesn't* appear, with no actual explanation for why we shouldn't expect it to appear.

The only thing your model actually proposes is that light from distant sources is redshifted because it moves slower than c through space. You haven't explained how that places such light outside the domain of applicability for Snell's law, although you seem to want people to agree with you that it somehow does, anyway.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Reformed Offlian

Sure. But you are proposing a change to Snell's law to explain away something that *doesn't* appear, with no actual explanation for why we shouldn't expect it to appear.

If light enters a medium that is a billion light years long, it will travel for a billion light years at the speed of light in that medium. It's velocity over time will be a flat line.

If light travels at c - H * D in a vacuum (the hypothesis being tested) then it starts at c, and dips over millions of years. The velocity over time would be a curve.

The curve of the light in a vacuum would intersect the flat line of the light in a medium once.

[Reformed Offlian]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

If light enters a medium that is a billion light years long, it will travel for a billion light years at the speed of light in that medium. It's velocity over time will be a flat line.

If light travels at c - H * D in a vacuum (the hypothesis being tested) then it starts at c, and dips over millions of years. The velocity over time would be a curve.

The curve of the light in a vacuum would intersect the flat line of the light in a medium once.

Why should anybody believe that?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Reformed Offlian

Why should anybody believe that?

Which part do you object to?

You don't have to believe the hypothesis.

You can believe in dark energy. Or believe nothing. I'm not telling you how to live your life.

[Reformed Offlian]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Which part do you object to?

You don't have to believe the hypothesis.

You can believe in dark energy. Or believe nothing. I'm not telling you how to live your life.

Sounds like we're done here, then. I know I am. HAND.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Reformed Offlian

Sounds like we're done here, then. I know I am. HAND.

Cheers. Thanks for hanging in this long.

[Mike Helland]

For what distances can we be assured by observation that Newton's First Law of Motion of holds true?

Surely we can all agree not a trillion light years, yes?

[Little 10 Toes]

more educated members than I will say that all current evidence shows newton's first law is correct to any distance.

Do you have any evidence otherwise?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Little 10 Toes

more educated members than I will say that all current evidence shows newton's first law is correct to any distance.

Even a trillion light years?

Quote:

Do you have any evidence otherwise?

Yes, cosmological redshift.

Speed of wave = frequency x wavelength

We observe a decrease in frequency.

Either light doesn't travel at c forever to infinity... or we add extra space for it to travel through accomplishing the same thing.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

What do they look like?

To your eye, they look like color.

To sensitive scientific equipment, they look like oscillating electromagnetic fields.

Quote:

You're saying that if photons lose energy by traveling in space, they should also gain energy by traveling backwards?

That would depend. If they are scattering off something, then that process will increase entropy, and while it might occasionally produce an increase in energy, in general it would not.

But you don’t actually have a mechanism for them to lose energy, only hand waving. So there is no way to evaluate it.

Quote:

We observe redshift. We don't observe systemic blue shifts.

And you want to solve this by introducing this mechanism with no internal consistency, which you pulled out of nowhere, despite having basically no understanding of physics...

And you think you have even the slightest chance of being right?

Yeah, no. Every significant revolution in physics was made by people who understood what came before. That was always necessary. There are no examples of someone with no knowledge coming in and making a major discovery. It doesn’t happen, for a reason.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

To your eye, they look like color.

Let's take a poll.

A) Who sees photons?
B) Who sees thing?

I see things.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

But you don’t actually have a mechanism for them to lose energy

It's an observed fact that they do.

That's my starting point.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Let's take a poll.

A) Who sees photons?
B) Who sees thing?

I see things.

No. Your brain interprets what you see as things. And for good reason. The photons you see are an excellent proxy for the things you are interested in. But it's still just photons that you're seeing.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No. Your brain interprets what you see as things. And for good reason. The photons you see are an excellent proxy for the things you are interested in. But it's still just photons that you're seeing.

Is that a vote for A (I see photons) or B (I see things)?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

It's an observed fact that they do.

That's my starting point.

Apparently that's your ending point too, because you haven't actually thought about this any deeper than that.

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Let's take a poll.

A) Who sees photons?
B) Who sees thing?

I see things.

Let's take a poll.

A) Who sees the sun going round the earth?
B) Who sees the earth going round the sun?

I think I see the sun going round the earth, but I know the earth is really going the sun.

Likewise I think I see things, but I know what I'm really seeing is photons.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Apparently that's your ending point too, because you haven't actually thought about this any deeper than that.

Starting point is the redshifts:

1. Observation: decrease in frequency proportional to distance
2. Known fact: speed of a wave = frequency x wavelgnth
3: Conjecture: observed drop in frequency means drop in speed
4. Hypothesis: speed of photon is v = c - H * D
5: Compared with existing observations: hypothesis leads to more redshift close by, correlating with the so called Hubble tension
6. Tests:
6.1: Add a distant shutter to a space telescope and see if reshifted galaxies disappear simultaneously with nearby galaxies
6.2 Use a space telescope to observe a high z galaxy on the horizon at maximal proceeding and receding velocities

That's like... 5 more steps than the starting point.

I think you have a good experiment to disprove the hypothesis.

If you'd like acknowledgements for this experiment in my work, please let me know in a private message.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

Likewise I think I see things, but I know what I'm really seeing is photons.

Is that a vote for photons or things?

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Is that a vote for photons or things?

As you are reading this, do you see text or pixels?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Modified

As you are reading this, do you see text or pixels?

That looks more like a new poll than an answer for A or B.

To answer your question, I see text.

If I put my face really close to the screen, I see pixels.

How should I move my face to see the photons?

[Mike Helland]

This is diverging from an observational approach to cosmology, and the ontological possibilities of the a photon... which.. is totally OK with me.

I'm going to assume that taking my nonsense anywhere outside of this thread is a bad idea.

So... I would like to suggest, all metaphysics is still up for discussion (because I personally like it), but that should be considered tangential to observations and the predictions of mathematical models.

Any comments on that?

[Pixel42]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Is that a vote for photons or things?

I'm not interested in having a pedantic discussion about the meaning of the word 'see'.

Photons are what is actually entering my eyes. My brain uses them to create useful images of things. Those are meaningful statements which help us to understand what is happening. Your poll is neither helpful nor meaningful.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

Your poll is neither helpful nor meaningful.

So.... c.

Do you think the first law of motion applies to infinite distances?

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Originally Posted by Pixel42

I'm not interested in having a pedantic discussion about the meaning of the word 'see'.

Photons are what is actually entering my eyes. My brain uses them to create useful images of things. Those are meaningful statements which help us to understand what is happening. Your poll is neither helpful nor meaningful.

Don't say that.
It's very helpful in deflecting the discussion away from the fact that the presented theory thus far is both internally inconsistent and counter to observations.
And it's very meaningful in that it shows the OP would rather engage in pedantics then actually addressing those issues.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by Lukraak_Sisser

Don't say that.
It's very helpful in deflecting the discussion away from the fact that the presented theory thus far is both internally inconsistent and counter to observations.
And it's very meaningful in that it shows the OP would rather engage in pedantics then actually addressing those issues.

I said that metaphysics are worth discussion but we should focus on what is observed and what the mathematical models predict is observed.

Is that fair?

[Mike Helland]

How is the velocity of photon v, being v = c - H * D internally inconsistent?

It is clearly externally inconsistent with anything based on inertia at infinite scales, but what are the internal inconsistencies?

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

No, the point clearly isn't taken. If there were "less stuff" in that direction, that wouldn't produce a cold spot in the CMB. The fact that you're able to make, and repeat, that erroneous belief demonstrates that you have no idea what a black-body spectrum is or how a temperature is calculated from one. As a result your thoughts are so poorly informed as to be worthless. Your level of ignorance is far too profound to be addressed in a forum like this; you need to bring your level of knowledge up to at least undergraduate level before it's even worth trying to explain to you what you're getting wrong, and that could take years.

Dave

I really don't see why the tone taken here should be considered helpful in any way.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

So the crisis in cosmology is basically fake news?

I don't think so, but it is a little overblown. As I understand it, the crisis is the discrepancy between the measurement of the expansion rate between that measured with the CMB and the rate derived from local measurements. While they are relatively close to each other, they are outside of the each other's error bars, which suggests that there's a problem.

I've heard some physicists say that it's probably measurement error of some sort that we haven't considered yet, and so won't turn out to be anything. That's always possible: those error bars aren't accurate.

But it could also be a sign that the assumptions underlying one or both of those measurements (the fundamental model used to derive the results) are inaccurate. That would be pretty awesome and lead to new physics. People are working on that problem, but it's pretty hard to come up with new models that are in line with all the other data we already have and can solve this discrepancy.

We'll have to wait and see. I doubt your idea is going to be it, though (it doesn't seem to predict a black-body spectrum for the CMB, so until you can solve that problem I think it's sort of dead in the water), but it's always fun to think about. Maybe you can refine your model and find a way to bring it more in line with current experimental/observational results.

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

I really don't see why the tone taken here should be considered helpful in any way.

It's a bit difficult to come up with a more positive tone in which to discuss an attempt to explain the Hubble shift and the CMB to someone who doesn't understand the basics of what either is. And the tone is really no different to that of a certain well-known Asimov quote on the subject of being wrong.

But you're right; trying to explain to people who think they know vastly more than they do isn't helped by stating the facts in a way that comes across as insulting. Sadly, sometimes it isn't helped by taking any other tone either.

Dave

[WhatRoughBeast]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

True, and Newton's first law of motion.

Everyone tends to think I'm some relativity crank.

I'm just following the hypothesis. Newton's first law may not be true to infinity.

Do you have evidence its true to infinity?

We have evidence of red-shifting.

If you'll reread my answer, you'll note that I said nothing about Newton's 1st.

And yes, we have evidence of red-shifting. You explain such red-shifting as evidence that that such light has a different value of c. Or at least you did in your original post. Then we get

Quote:

Stars? If they're affected by the Hubble flow.

In my model stars and galaxies still have peculiar motion that leads to velocity shifts.

Cosmological redshifts are posited to be their own phenomenon.

Really? I seem to have misunderstood your theory. My recollection goes something like

Quote:

Redshift is an observed drop in frequency.

Take literally.... redshift would lead to a drop in frequency

I make a hypothesis based on this:

v_photon = c - H * D

It's basically Hubble's Law, but moved to the speed of a photon, instead of the speed of a galaxy.

So, yes, you posit cosmological redshifts as "their own phenomenon" (whatever that means), but now you seem to be contradicting your own theory. I am merely pointing out that light is not "just" a bunch of little bullets which we call photons - in fact it is also a wave phenomenon, and that wave phenomenon has characteristics which are incompatible with your theory.

So, what exactly does "Cosmological redshifts are posited to be their own phenomenon." mean, and why would it exempt your theory from my criticism?

Quote:

Instead of an objects light cone defined by c, it's defined by c - H * D.

Hubble's constant is built into the light cone.

That's all very well, but "light cone" is not some arcane, inexplicable object. It's a straightforward abstraction useful in discussing relativity, and it depends on the propagation velocity of light. Which in turn depends on the properties of space-time itself - and you would have space lose unique values of those properties.

Light from a star is not an object, just as photons are not independent objects like tiny bullets, each with a serial number which allows it to behave differently from other bullets from other sources. Your theory requires that light from two different stars which are at different distances will behave differently even if their wavelengths are identical - since their "individual" values of c are different, then by your own statement their frequencies will be different.

Do you have any evidence at all that this is true? Any evidence at all? Or is evidence irrelevant to your theory?

[jadebox]

Okay. I am not an expert on physics so this might be a silly question. And please excuse the anthropomorphism. It makes it easier to phrase the question.

Mike ... How does the photon "know" how long it has been travelling?

[Reformed Offlian]

Originally Posted by jadebox

Okay. I am not an expert on physics so this might be a silly question. And please excuse the anthropomorphism. It makes it easier to phrase the question.

Mike ... How does the photon "know" how long it has been travelling?

He'll probably answer something like: "The same way galaxies 'know' how fast to recede from us." His idea is that photons are somehow slowed down by the Hubble flow as they travel over cosmological distances.

A more interesting question might be: What does Mike think the Hubble flow *is*, and why does he expect to see it in a universe that isn't expanding?

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by WhatRoughBeast

So, what exactly does "Cosmological redshifts are posited to be their own phenomenon." mean, and why would it exempt your theory from my criticism?

You said redshifted stars.

Hubble redshift applies to galaxies.

Stars with redshift are just moving away from us.

[Mike Helland]

Originally Posted by jadebox

Okay. I am not an expert on physics so this might be a silly question. And please excuse the anthropomorphism. It makes it easier to phrase the question.

Mike ... How does the photon "know" how long it has been travelling?

THe model looks like this:

photon = {d: 0}

We keep track of distance with "d".


How does the Earth know where it is?

How does the law of gravitation know d? It's (m1*m2) / d^2

Gravitation knows distance. Why not electromagnetism?

[Mike Helland]

F_G = G*(m1*m2)/d^2

That's the universal law of gravitation

To calculate the Earths orbit, we need to know the mass of the Earth, the mass of the sun, and their distance.

Where is d stored?

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

How should I move my face to see the photons?

There was a study that showed that people (using their eyes) can detect individual photons in otherwise dark conditions, not 100% of the time but at a rate significantly higher than chance.

[Myriad]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

6.1: Add a distant shutter to a space telescope and see if reshifted galaxies disappear simultaneously with nearby galaxies

I expect an asteroid whose orbit in the solar system has been tracked for over 125 years would serve as a suitable "shutter."

So, here's some bad news for Mike Helland's claim: Radio Interferometric Observation of an Asteroid Occultation [of a radio galaxy].

I note that on the date of the observation, 372 Palma was over 3 au, or 25 light-minutes, from Earth. The distance and redshift of 0141+268 has not yet been measured but typical distances to nearby radio galaxies (in catalogs of which, 0141+268 does not appear) are around 100 megaparsecs (325 million light years). So significant redshift (at least a few percent, probably much more) should be expected.

If the radio waves (photons) from 0141+268 passing through the solar system are slowed in velocity by even a fraction of a percent due to redshift, the predicted timing and position of the occultation as described in the paper would have been thrown way off, and no perturbation of the radio signal would have been observed at the predicted location during the predicted ten-second window.

Helland's conjecture of cosmic redshift being associated with slowed velocity of light is thereby directly falsified.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

Starting point is the redshifts:

1. Observation: decrease in frequency proportional to distance
2. Known fact: speed of a wave = frequency x wavelgnth
3: Conjecture: observed drop in frequency means drop in speed

Your conjecture is... strange. It makes no sense. It breaks all sorts of physics, with no justification, when there’s a far easier solution: a drop in frequency means an increase in wavelength.

There’s really no point in pursuing it beyond this, to be honest. Seriously, you’ve got no idea how much physics this would need to break, and I’m not even talking about relativity.

Quote:

5: Compared with existing observations: hypothesis leads to more redshift close by, correlating with the so called Hubble tension

It also leads to Maxwells equations not working.

Quote:

6. Tests:
6.1: Add a distant shutter to a space telescope and see if reshifted galaxies disappear simultaneously with nearby galaxies

Don’t need to.

In addition to the differential redshift that this would cause due to earths orbit, our orbit also shifts the angle at which objects are observed. And that angle is also going to change if the speed of light changes. Astronomers need to account for this when viewing distant objects, and they do. The angular adjustment doesn’t depend on distance, as it would under your hypothesis.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Mike Helland

How is the velocity of photon v, being v = c - H * D internally inconsistent?

Because you will get incompatible answers if you calculate this in different reference frames.