Are Quasars and Galaxies Redshifts Truly Quantized?

[Suede]

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0712/0712.3833v2.pdf

Fourier spectral analysis has been carried out on the quasar number count as a function of redshift calculated from the quasar data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR6 data release. The results indicate that quasars have preferred periodic redshifts with redshift intervals of 0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1. Within their standard errors these intervals are integer multiples 4, 5, 7, 10 and 20 of 0.062. Could this be indicative of an intrinsic redshift for quasars as has been suggested by some?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2006ApJ...648..140B

The redshift distribution of all 46,400 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog, Third Data Release (DR3), is examined. Six peaks that fall within the redshift window below z=4 are visible. Their positions agree with the preferred redshift values predicted by the decreasing intrinsic redshift (DIR) model.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/w53r42223xl51247/

Evidence is presented for redshift quantization and variability as detected in global studies done in the rest frame of the cosmic background radiation. Quantization is strong and consistent with predictions derived from concepts associated with multidimensional time. Nine families of periods are possible but not equally likely. The most basic family contains previously known periods of 73 and 36 km s–1 and shorter harmonics at 18.3 and 9.15 km s–1.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1989ApJ...345...72C

Using new data for unassociated galaxies with wide H I profiles and values of period and solar motion predicted by Tifft and Cocke (1984), a periodicity has been found which is significant at the conventional 5 percent level. Together with Tifft's work on galaxy pairs and small groups, this result appears to provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis that measured galaxy redshifts occur in steps of a little more than 72 km/s or a simple multiple of this period.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990MNRAS.243..431G

Power spectrum analyses of the corrected redshifts are used to search for a significant periodicity in the prescribed range 70-75 km/s. No such periodicity is found for the dwarf irregulars, but there is a possible periodicity of about 71.1 km/s for the bright spirals. In a further exploratory study, the sample of 112 spirals is divided up according to environment. The spirals in high-density regions of the cluster show no quantization, whereas those in low-density regions appear to be partially quantized in intervals of about 71.0 km/s.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1991MNRAS.253..533G

The present study investigates the notion that extragalactic redshifts are periodic in ranges around 24.2, 36.3, or 72.5 km/s for an independent sample of 89 nearby spirals, in the general field, with accurately determined heliocentric redshifts. A strong periodicity of about 37.2 km/s is found, against a white noise background, for an assumed solar vector coincidental, within the uncertainties, with that corresponding to the sun's probable motion around the Galactic Center. Comparison with sets of synthetic data simulating the overall characteristics of the real data show the periodicity to be present at a high confidence level.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1987JApA...8..241A

Published observational data on galaxies of redshift z less than about 1000 km/s are compiled in extensive tables and diagrams and analyzed, searching for additional Local Group members among fainter higher-redshift galaxies. A concentration toward the center of the Local Group and a concentration associated with NGC 55, NGC 300, and NGC 253 are identified in the south Galactic hemisphere and characterized in detail. The galaxies near the centers of the concentrations are found to obey a quantization interval of Delta-cz0 = 72.4 km/s, as for the Local Group (Tifft, 1977); the accuracy of this finding is shown to be to within + or - 8.2 km/s (for galaxies with redshifts known to + or - 8 km/s) and to within 3-4 km/s (for a subset of galaxies with more accurately measured redshifts).

http://www.springerlink.com/content/r826358852wg46u5/

Samples of 97 and 117 high-precision 21 cm redshifts of spiral galaxies within the Local Supercluster were obtained in order to test claims that extragalactic redshifts are periodic (P36 km s–1) when referred to the centre of the Galaxy. The power spectral density of the redshifts, when so referred, exhibits an extremely strong peak at 37.5 km s–1. The signal is seen independently with seven major radio telescopes. Its significance was assessed by comparison with the spectral power distributions of synthetic datasets constructed so as to closely mimic the overall properties of the real datasets employed; it was found to be real rather than due to chance at an extremely high confidence level.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1996A&A...310..353G

Persistent claims have been made over the last ~15yr that extragalactic redshifts, when corrected for the Sun's motion around the Galactic centre, occur in multiples of ~24 or ~36km/s. A recent investigation by us of 40 spiral galaxies out to 1000km/s, with accurately measured redshifts, gave evidence of a periodicity ~37.2-37.7km/s. Here we extend our enquiry out to the edge of the Local Supercluster (~2600km/s), applying a simple and robust procedure to a total of 97 accurately determined redshifts. We find that, when corrected for related vectors close to recent estimates of the Sun's galactocentric motion, the redshifts of spirals are strongly periodic (P~37.6km/s). The formal confidence level of the result is extremely high, and the signal is seen independently with different radio telescopes. We also examine a further sample of 117 spirals observed with the 300-foot Green Bank telescope alone. The periodicity phenomenon appears strongest for the galaxies linked by group membership, but phase coherence probably holds over large regions of the Local Supercluster.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t17401650822m547/

A project intended to examine the long-standing claims that extragalactic redshifts are periodic or quantized was initiated some years ago at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. The approach taken is outlined, and the main conclusions to date are summarized. The existence of a galactocentric redshift quantization is confirmed at a high confidence level.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0211/0211091v1.pdf

It is pointed out that the discrete velocities found by Tifft in galaxies are harmonically related to the discrete intrinsic redshifts found in quasars. All are harmonically related to the constant 0.062±0.001, and this is the fourth independent analysis in which the redshift increment 0.062 has been shown to be significant. It is concluded that there is a quantized component in the redshift of both quasars and galaxies that has a common origin and is unlikely to be Doppler-related.

Halton Arp, Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies
http://books.google.com/books?id=_JY...result#PPP1,M1


Hi

I seem to see a recurring theme here.

Like, ~37 km/s and ~73 km/s periodicities show up over and over and over again in any cogent study of redshifts.

Jonathan, I'm glad to see you've read some of Arp's work.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Hi Suede - welcome to Physics Forums!

That's an interesting list of references (some of which weren't working just now but seem to be improving). It appears that they are mostly concerned with the quantization of intrinsic redshift (for galaxies within a cluster as well as quasars) rather than its existence, and I think that whole idea is on somewhat dodgy ground as it seems that the statistical strength of the arguments is getting weaker as the amount of data is getting larger.

If quasars aren't black holes, then it would certainly be possible that some the evolution of new quasars could proceed in a stepwise way (for example regularly blowing off layers on reaching certain critical energy density levels). However, I'd prefer to consider the evidence for or against decreasing intrinsic redshift without getting into the issue of quantization.

Do you have a similar list of references which claim to prove that there is no intrinsic redshift, or which criticize the articles you've listed? I'd like to see a more balanced view.

 

[Suede]

Hi Suede - welcome to Physics Forums!

That's an interesting list of references (some of which weren't working just now but seem to be improving). It appears that they are mostly concerned with the quantization of intrinsic redshift (for galaxies within a cluster as well as quasars) rather than its existence, and I think that whole idea is on somewhat dodgy ground as it seems that the statistical strength of the arguments is getting weaker as the amount of data is getting larger.

If quasars aren't black holes, then it would certainly be possible that some the evolution of new quasars could proceed in a stepwise way (for example regularly blowing off layers on reaching certain critical energy density levels). However, I'd prefer to consider the evidence for or against decreasing intrinsic redshift without getting into the issue of quantization.

Do you have a similar list of references which claim to prove that there is no intrinsic redshift, or which criticize the articles you've listed? I'd like to see a more balanced view.

Yeah I just fixed a bunch of those links.

They got hosed up when I collected them.

As for the counter arguements, you can look up intrinsic redshift on wiki which is dominated by people opposed to the idea. You're not going to find many published papers refuting it though, just a lot of ad hom attacks and pontification.

I haven't seen any published papers refuting the findings to date.

 

[Nereid]

1) http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...712.3833v2.pdf

Fourier spectral analysis has been carried out on the quasar number count as a function of redshift calculated from the quasar data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR6 data release. The results indicate that quasars have preferred periodic redshifts with redshift intervals of 0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1. Within their standard errors these intervals are integer multiples 4, 5, 7, 10 and 20 of 0.062. Could this be indicative of an intrinsic redshift for quasars as has been suggested by some?

2) http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2006ApJ...648..140B

The redshift distribution of all 46,400 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog, Third Data Release (DR3), is examined. Six peaks that fall within the redshift window below z=4 are visible. Their positions agree with the preferred redshift values predicted by the decreasing intrinsic redshift (DIR) model.

3) http://www.springerlink.com/content/w53r42223xl51247/

Evidence is presented for redshift quantization and variability as detected in global studies done in the rest frame of the cosmic background radiation. Quantization is strong and consistent with predictions derived from concepts associated with multidimensional time. Nine families of periods are possible but not equally likely. The most basic family contains previously known periods of 73 and 36 km s–1 and shorter harmonics at 18.3 and 9.15 km s–1.

4) http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1989ApJ...345...72C

Using new data for unassociated galaxies with wide H I profiles and values of period and solar motion predicted by Tifft and Cocke (1984), a periodicity has been found which is significant at the conventional 5 percent level. Together with Tifft's work on galaxy pairs and small groups, this result appears to provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis that measured galaxy redshifts occur in steps of a little more than 72 km/s or a simple multiple of this period.

5) http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990MNRAS.243..431G

Power spectrum analyses of the corrected redshifts are used to search for a significant periodicity in the prescribed range 70-75 km/s. No such periodicity is found for the dwarf irregulars, but there is a possible periodicity of about 71.1 km/s for the bright spirals. In a further exploratory study, the sample of 112 spirals is divided up according to environment. The spirals in high-density regions of the cluster show no quantization, whereas those in low-density regions appear to be partially quantized in intervals of about 71.0 km/s.

6) http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1991MNRAS.253..533G

The present study investigates the notion that extragalactic redshifts are periodic in ranges around 24.2, 36.3, or 72.5 km/s for an independent sample of 89 nearby spirals, in the general field, with accurately determined heliocentric redshifts. A strong periodicity of about 37.2 km/s is found, against a white noise background, for an assumed solar vector coincidental, within the uncertainties, with that corresponding to the sun's probable motion around the Galactic Center. Comparison with sets of synthetic data simulating the overall characteristics of the real data show the periodicity to be present at a high confidence level.

7) http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1987JApA...8..241A

Published observational data on galaxies of redshift z less than about 1000 km/s are compiled in extensive tables and diagrams and analyzed, searching for additional Local Group members among fainter higher-redshift galaxies. A concentration toward the center of the Local Group and a concentration associated with NGC 55, NGC 300, and NGC 253 are identified in the south Galactic hemisphere and characterized in detail. The galaxies near the centers of the concentrations are found to obey a quantization interval of Delta-cz0 = 72.4 km/s, as for the Local Group (Tifft, 1977); the accuracy of this finding is shown to be to within + or - 8.2 km/s (for galaxies with redshifts known to + or - 8 km/s) and to within 3-4 km/s (for a subset of galaxies with more accurately measured redshifts).

8) http://www.springerlink.com/content/r826358852wg46u5/

Samples of 97 and 117 high-precision 21 cm redshifts of spiral galaxies within the Local Supercluster were obtained in order to test claims that extragalactic redshifts are periodic (P36 km s–1) when referred to the centre of the Galaxy. The power spectral density of the redshifts, when so referred, exhibits an extremely strong peak at 37.5 km s–1. The signal is seen independently with seven major radio telescopes. Its significance was assessed by comparison with the spectral power distributions of synthetic datasets constructed so as to closely mimic the overall properties of the real datasets employed; it was found to be real rather than due to chance at an extremely high confidence level.

9) http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/1996A&A...310..353G

Persistent claims have been made over the last ~15yr that extragalactic redshifts, when corrected for the Sun's motion around the Galactic centre, occur in multiples of ~24 or ~36km/s. A recent investigation by us of 40 spiral galaxies out to 1000km/s, with accurately measured redshifts, gave evidence of a periodicity ~37.2-37.7km/s. Here we extend our enquiry out to the edge of the Local Supercluster (~2600km/s), applying a simple and robust procedure to a total of 97 accurately determined redshifts. We find that, when corrected for related vectors close to recent estimates of the Sun's galactocentric motion, the redshifts of spirals are strongly periodic (P~37.6km/s). The formal confidence level of the result is extremely high, and the signal is seen independently with different radio telescopes. We also examine a further sample of 117 spirals observed with the 300-foot Green Bank telescope alone. The periodicity phenomenon appears strongest for the galaxies linked by group membership, but phase coherence probably holds over large regions of the Local Supercluster.

10) Halton Arp, Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies
http://books.google.com/books?id=_JY...result#PPP1,M1


Hi

I seem to see a recurring theme here.

Like, ~37 km/s and ~73 km/s periodicities show up over and over and over again in any cogent study of redshifts.

Jonathan, I'm glad to see you've read some of Arp's work.

(I've added numbers, to help readers with my comments, below)

Welcome to PF, Suede.

It looks quite an impressive list, doesn't it?

And as many of the papers on your list have been around for a long time, I'm sure you won't be at all surprised to learn that Tifft et al.'s claims (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)* have been given a pretty thorough working over. And some curious things emerge from these papers - and the couple of dozen or so that you don't cite:

a) despite the apparent similarity in findings, between papers, a closer read of them shows that most are, in fact, inconsistent - would you like to go through a sample in detail?

b) there is a paper which points out that the statistical methods used, in most of the early papers, is wrong, rendering the stated conclusions invalid (I'll see if I can dig it up, if anyone is interested)

c) the later the paper, generally, the weaker or more limited the 'redshift periodicity' reported. For example, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511260" (2005):

We discuss the distribution of radial velocities of galaxies belonging to the Local Group. Two independent samples of galaxies as well as several methods of reduction from the heliocentric to the galactocentric radial velocities are explored. We applied the power spectrum analysis using the Hann function as a weighting method, together with the jackknife error estimation. We performed a detailed analysis of this approach. The distribution of galaxy redshifts seems to be non-random. An excess of galaxies with radial velocities of $\sim 24 {km} \cdot {s}^{-1}$ and $\sim 36 {km} \cdot {s}^{-1}$ is detected, but the effect is statistically weak. Only one peak for radial velocities of $\sim 24 {km} \cdot {s}^{-1}$ seems to be confirmed at the confidence level of 95%.

2) uses SDSS DR3, and http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0806" in their own, announcing DR5; here's what they had to say:

Repeating the analysis of Richards et al. (2006) for the DR5 sample reveals no structure in the redshift distribution after selection effects have been included (see lower histogram in Figure 3); this is in contrast to the reported redshift structure found in the SDSS quasar survey by Bell & McDiarmid (2006).

IOW, a more careful analysis, using a larger set of data (a superset of DR3), found no signal.

1) is in its second version, and AFAICS is not yet published, despite going up in arXiv over a year ago. Maybe we should wait until it appears in a relevant peer-reviewed journal before commenting?

Oh, and 10), the book by Arp? Well, anyone can write a book, can't they? No peer-review required wrt any claims made, is there?

* not all these have Tifft as an author (Guthrie and Napier are an independent pair, for example), but they all address the ~24/36/72 km/s apparent redshift periodicity

 

[Nereid]

Yeah I just fixed a bunch of those links.

They got hosed up when I collected them.

As for the counter arguements, you can look up intrinsic redshift on wiki which is dominated by people opposed to the idea. You're not going to find many published papers refuting it though, just a lot of ad hom attacks and pontification.

I haven't seen any published papers refuting the findings to date.

Our posts crossed Suede, and as only the first two on your list have anything to do with quasars, how about we ask a mentor to split out the quantisation/periodicity/discretisation of galaxy redshifts into a separate thread?

As I indicated in my earlier response, there isn't much need to "refut[e] the findings to date" ... largely because they are mutually inconsistent!

 

[Suede]

Oh here's one:

A 2005 paper done by two chinese atstronomers.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2002MNRAS.336L..13H

We have used the publicly available data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey to test the hypothesis that there is a periodicity in the redshift distribution of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) found projected close to foreground galaxies. These data provide by far the largest and most homogeneous sample for such a study, yielding 1647 QSO-galaxy pairs. There is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1 +z), or at any other frequency.



To which I quote Scott:

Recently mainstream astronomers have joyfully announced that they can find no quantization effects in the observed redshift values of quasars. Of course not! The raw measured total redshift values of the universal set of all known quasars are not quantized. It is the inherent redshift z values that are!

 

[Nereid]

Oh here's one:

A 2005 paper done by two chinese atstronomers.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2002MNRAS.336L..13H

We have used the publicly available data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey to test the hypothesis that there is a periodicity in the redshift distribution of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) found projected close to foreground galaxies. These data provide by far the largest and most homogeneous sample for such a study, yielding 1647 QSO-galaxy pairs. There is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1 +z), or at any other frequency.



To which I quote Scott:

Recently mainstream astronomers have joyfully announced that they can find no quantization effects in the observed redshift values of quasars. Of course not! The raw measured total redshift values of the universal set of all known quasars are not quantized. It is the inherent redshift z values that are!

Who is "Scott"?

Where is this quote from (source please)?

 

[Suede]

Lets not be so choosy when selecting our quotes.

Looking at the full quote that refutes the Bell findings:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.0806v1.pdf

Repeating the analysis of Richards et al. (2006) for the DR5 sample reveals no structure in the redshift distribution after selection effects have been included (see lower histogram in Figure 3); this is in contrast to the reported redshift structure found in the SDSS quasar survey by Bell & McDiarmid (2006). To construct the lower histogram we have partially removed the effect of host galaxy contamination (by excluding extended objects), limited the sample to a uniform magnitude limit of i < 19.1 (accounting for emission-line effects), and have corrected for the known incompleteness near z ∼ 2.7 and z ∼ 3.5 due to quasar colors lying close to or in the stellar locus. Accounting for selection effects significantly reduces the number of objects as compared with the raw, more heterogeneous catalog, but the smaller, more homogeneous sample is what should be used for statistical analyses.



What?

So they limited the magnitude of the selection, "corrected" for incompleteness (how they "corrected" I'd love to know), and then make the claim that a small sample size is what should be used for statistical analyses.

Where did these guys learn stats?

Larger sample sizes always reflect a higher degree of accuracy in statistical analysis.

 

[Nereid]

Lets not be so choosy when selecting our quotes.

Looking at the full quote that refutes the Bell findings:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.0806v1.pdf

Repeating the analysis of Richards et al. (2006) for the DR5 sample reveals no structure in the redshift distribution after selection effects have been included (see lower histogram in
Figure 3); this is in contrast to the reported redshift structure found in the SDSS quasar survey by Bell & McDiarmid (2006). To construct the lower histogram we have partially removed the effect of host galaxy contamination (by excluding extended objects), limited the sample to a uniform magnitude limit of i < 19.1 (accounting for emission-line effects), and have corrected for the known incompleteness near z ∼ 2.7 and z ∼ 3.5 due to quasar colors lying close to or in the stellar locus. Accounting for selection effects significantly
reduces the number of objects as compared with the raw, more heterogeneous catalog, but the smaller, more homogeneous sample is what should be used for statistical analyses.



What?

So they limited the magnitude of the selection, "corrected" for incompleteness (how they "corrected" I'd love to know), and then make the claim that a small sample size is what should be used for statistical analyses.

Yes, that's right.

Selection effects are the bane of astronomers' lives, and recognising (first), characterising (second), and correcting for them (last) takes up an enormous amount of their professional life.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with astronomy, Suede, so please don't take the following example as being condescending ...

If you want to know how stars are distributed by inherent brightness ('intrinsic luminosity' or 'absolute luminosity') - how many are within each narrow range of brightness, within a sufficiently large volume - how would you go about it?

Well, for starters you'd measure the observed brightness of all the stars in the sky, wouldn't you.

But many stars emit most of their 'light' in parts of the EM spectrum that either doesn't get through the atmosphere, or which is partially blocked by it ... so you have to find a way to convert your observed brightness numbers to 'above the atmosphere' numbers (and that's very difficult to do; in fact until instruments could be put on rockets, or satellites, close to impossible).

But many of the stars in the sky are clearly dimmed by stuff between us and the stars, especially dust, so you have to find a way to convert your estimated 'above the atmosphere' brightness numbers to 'removing the effect of dust absorption'.

But the stars in the sky are clearly not all at the same distance from us, so you have to find a way to account for this, by estimating each one's distance.

When you've done all this - and to get this far took astronomers several centuries (!) - you find something quite interesting: there are lots and lots of really (intrinsically) faint stars near to us, and very few intrinsically bright ones! So much so that even today we're quite unsure of the details of the lowest part of the 'stellar luminosity function', because we can't be sure we've even seen all the really faint stars within ~100 pc (say), let alone been able to estimate their absolute luminosity.

One of the terrific things about SDSS is the huge amount of effort that went in, at the design stage, to addressing systematic effects (a superset of selection effects). Such care lead to the paper you quoted from - the survey data allows for correction of systematic effects relatively easily.

Now, would you really love to know how ("how they "corrected" I'd love to know")? I'd be happy to walk you through the details (they're all out in the open, in papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals), but it will require a considerable investment of your time (unless you've already got an advanced degree in astrophysics).

 

[Nereid]

[...]

Where did these guys learn stats?

Larger sample sizes always reflect a higher degree of accuracy in statistical analysis.

You added this after I quoted your post ...

May I ask what your professional training is, in physics, astronomy, or statistics?

I ask because this part of your post, that I'm quoting, seems to reveal gross ignorance, at least about astronomy and statistics.

 

[Suede]

I submit that "significantly" reducing the sample size as they have done will of course alter the findings in their favor.

When looking for redshift periodicity, it makes no sense to limit the selection down to a handful of QSOs when an entire raw catalogue of valid data is present.

Selection effects in statistics are inherent biases in the collection methods.

There are no biases in raw redshift data, it is what it is.

The larger the sample, the more accurate your results will be when looking for periodicity.

You'd have to convince me otherwise in order for me to accept that papers findings, and considering every stats textbook on the planet says otherwise, I'll go with the paper using the larger sample.

 

[Suede]

You added this after I quoted your post ...

May I ask what your professional training is, in physics, astronomy, or statistics?

I ask because this part of your post, that I'm quoting, seems to reveal gross ignorance, at least about astronomy and statistics.

Gross ignorance is eliminating valid data to make findings fit preconcieved notions of redshift distribution.

 

[Chronos]

Large numbers of contaminated data is not more statistically meaningful than a smaller, more carely selected and properly corrected data set. Contaminated data will always yield statistical anomalies. In that sense I suggest the larger data sets are little more than 'gee whiz' statistics. If these findings were truly valid and significant, wouldn't you think every grad student in the universe would be publishing supporting papers? Everyone wants a piece of any new discovery if one is to had - especially aspiring doctoral students looking to jump start their careers. Oddly enough, few such papers are to be found, despite the many years since quantized redshift was first 'discovered'. The silence is deafening. So I ask, how many of the papers you cite been further refined - as in several papers built one upon the other - that systematically affirm the original 'conclusions'?

 

[Suede]

Large numbers of contaminated data is not more statistically meaningful than a smaller, more carely selected and properly corrected data set. Contaminated data will always yield statistical anomalies. In that sense I suggest the larger data sets are little more than 'gee whiz' statistics. If these findings were truly valid and significant, wouldn't you think every grad student in the universe would be publishing supporting papers? Everyone wants a piece of any new discovery if one is to had - especially aspiring doctoral students looking to jump start their careers. Oddly enough, few such papers are to be found, despite the many years since quantized redshift was first 'discovered'. The silence is deafening. So I ask, how many of the papers you cite been further refined - as in several papers built one upon the other - that systematically affirm the original 'conclusions'?

I agree that "Large numbers of contaminated data is not more statistically meaningful than a smaller" however, if you took the time to look at the SDSS datasets, you'd see they have built in confidence definitions for each redshift listed.

In fact, if you took the time to read some of the papers I posted, you'd see things like:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0712/0712.3833v2.pdf
I obtained 80,398 quasar data from the SDSS BestDR6 database (Adelman-McCarthy et al 2007) available at cas.sdss.org/astro/en/. The data (downloaded on the 7th December 2007) were selected by specClass = 3 for QSO and 4 for HIZ_QSO, low redshift and high redshift quasars, respectively. These include any objects with spectra that have been classified by the spectroscopic pipeline as quasars (specClass = QSO or HIZ_QSO). The DR6 data used here were not filtered as was the DR5 quasar catalog, described in Schneider et al. (2007), found at www.sdss.org/dr6/products/value_added/qsocat_dr5.html. In that case the DR5 catalog quasars were chosen from those that have apparent i-band PSF magnitudes fainter than 15, absolute i-band magnitudes brighter than -22, contain at least one emission line or are unambiguously broad absorption line quasars, and have highly reliable redshifts. In the latter cosmological assumptions were required to obtain absolute magnitudes. For this analysis such assumptions were avoided.


But hey, why take his word that he found quantized intervals. Read his paper and follow the instructions. Its a pretty simple procedure. I bet we could walk through it right now.

The SDSS has published the data on publicly accessable SQL server.

You can query all 80,000 qso's yourself, pull out only those that have a scientific rating and a 95% or greater redshift confidence rating and do a Fourier analysis on the data right now.

http://cas.sdss.org/astrodr7/en/tools/search/sql.asp

--This query selects top X number of QSOs that are rated research grade with a redshift confidence rating of .95 or higher. Lists Dataset 7 redshift and dataset 5 redshift for all QSOs that appear in the DR5 catalog meeting that criteria.

select top 10 A.z as DR7z, A.zConf as DR7zConfidence, B.z as DR5z, a.sciencePrimary
from SpecObjAll as A, DR5QuasarCatalog as B
where A.specObjId = B.specObjId
and A.sciencePrimary = 1
and A.zConf >= 0.95


To get everything back meeting that criteria, just remove the "top 10" constraint from the query.

 

[Nereid]

Oh here's one:

A 2005 paper done by two chinese atstronomers.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2002MNRAS.336L..13H

We have used the publicly available data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey to test the hypothesis that there is a periodicity in the redshift distribution of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) found projected close to foreground galaxies. These data provide by far the largest and most homogeneous sample for such a study, yielding 1647 QSO-galaxy pairs. There is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1 +z), or at any other frequency.

(bold added)

Do you have the right paper?

Your link takes you to a paper with this abstract, but it's a 2002 (not 2005) paper, by E. Hawkins, S.J. Maddox and M.R. Merrifield, whose affiliation is stated as "School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK".

To which I quote Scott:

Recently mainstream astronomers have joyfully announced that they can find no quantization effects in the observed redshift values of quasars. Of course not! The raw measured total redshift values of the universal set of all known quasars are not quantized. It is the inherent redshift z values that are!

I don't know who Scott is, nor where you got this quote from, but again it seems there's a disconnect ... Hawkins et al. set out to test a specific 'intrinsic redshift' explanation (or model, if you prefer), as presented in papers they reference. Scott seems to be saying that such a test should surely fail because it's testing the wrong hypothesis. If so, then it's not germane.

Do you know if Scott has published his own hypotheses re 'intrinsic redshift'? If so, where?

To conclude: the redshift model Hawkins et al. tested is, it seems, the same one that one of the papers in the OP presents (or very similar to it).

 

[Nereid]

I agree that "Large numbers of contaminated data is not more statistically meaningful than a smaller" however, if you took the time to look at the SDSS datasets, you'd see they have built in confidence definitions for each redshift listed.

In fact, if you took the time to read some of the papers I posted, you'd see things like:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0712/0712.3833v2.pdf
I obtained 80,398 quasar data from the SDSS BestDR6 database (Adelman-McCarthy et al 2007) available at cas.sdss.org/astro/en/. The data (downloaded on the 7th December 2007) were selected by specClass = 3 for QSO and 4 for HIZ_QSO, low redshift and high redshift quasars, respectively. These include any objects with spectra that have been classified by the spectroscopic pipeline as quasars (specClass = QSO or HIZ_QSO). The DR6 data used here were not filtered as was the DR5 quasar catalog, described in Schneider et al. (2007), found at www.sdss.org/dr6/products/value_added/qsocat_dr5.html. In that case the DR5 catalog quasars were chosen from those that have apparent i-band PSF magnitudes fainter than 15, absolute i-band magnitudes brighter than -22, contain at least one emission line or are unambiguously broad absorption line quasars, and have highly reliable redshifts. In the latter cosmological assumptions were required to obtain absolute magnitudes. For this analysis such assumptions were avoided.

Indeed, that's the first paper you provide a link to, in the OP.

As I have already noted, it's not yet been published (apparently), nor even accepted for publication* ... and reading it carefully I found several rather big shortcomings (whether any relevant journal reviewer would recommend publication, edits, or rejection I cannot say).

But hey, why take his word that he found quantized intervals. Read his paper and follow the instructions. Its a pretty simple procedure. I bet we could walk through it right now.

The SDSS has published the data on publicly accessable SQL server.

You can query all 80,000 qso's yourself, pull out only those that have a scientific rating and a 95% or greater redshift confidence rating and do a Fourier analysis on the data right now.

http://cas.sdss.org/astrodr7/en/tools/search/sql.asp

--This query selects top X number of QSOs that are rated research grade with a redshift confidence rating of .95 or higher. Lists Dataset 7 redshift and dataset 5 redshift for all QSOs that appear in the DR5 catalog meeting that criteria.

select top 10 A.z as DR7z, A.zConf as DR7zConfidence, B.z as DR5z, a.sciencePrimary
from SpecObjAll as A, DR5QuasarCatalog as B
where A.specObjId = B.specObjId
and A.sciencePrimary = 1
and A.zConf >= 0.95


To get everything back meeting that criteria, just remove the "top 10" constraint from the query.

It almost seems like you are the author - are you?

In any case, the main problems with the paper, that I can see, have little to do with how to query the SDSS databases and perform analyses on the data so obtained; rather, they have to do with selection effects.

In a nutshell, the relevant astronomy literature has many papers on the difficulties of obtaining samples of quasars whose selection biases are both well-understood and well-characterised; the Schneider et al. 2007 paper discusses some of these challenges, and cites other papers which also address them. Unfortunately, Hartnett seems to have chosen to ignore all these, in his paper.

Would you, or any other reader, be interested in discussing some of the possible selection effects that Hartnett seems to ignore?

* if you have information to the contrary, please share it.

 

[Suede]

No, I'm not the author, and again, selection effects are a result of bias in collection methods.

Redshift data that is collected has no bias.

IMHO, all that is required in a search for quantization is that the redshift recorded has a high confidence in it's accuracy.

I posted 11 papers and a book in support of quantization, papers that refute the posted work are few and far between, and I call their methods into question, just as you seem to have a problem with the way the quantization papers were conducted.

If you have a problem with the way the first paper conducted the Fourier analysis, then do your own right here and now. The raw data is simple enough to obtain, I even posted a link to it. Whether the paper is published in a journal or simply accepted as by Arxiv as a scholarly work seems inconsequential to me considering access to the raw data is readily available.

I'll wager you can constrain the data down to less than a thousand records, if you are so inclined, and still see peak formation in the analysis.

 

[Nereid]

I missed this earlier post (bold added)

I submit that "significantly" reducing the sample size as they have done will of course alter the findings in their favor.

When looking for redshift periodicity, it makes no sense to limit the selection down to a handful of QSOs when an entire raw catalogue of valid data is present.

Selection effects in statistics are inherent biases in the collection methods.

There are no biases in raw redshift data, it is what it is.

The larger the sample, the more accurate your results will be when looking for periodicity.

You'd have to convince me otherwise in order for me to accept that papers findings, and considering every stats textbook on the planet says otherwise, I'll go with the paper using the larger sample.

You're being serious, aren't you; this isn't a joke, right?

The SDSS team made their procedures, operations, and observations open; there are several papers on them, plus detailed notes, tutorials, etc on http://www.sdss.org/" .

Let's start with the huge topic of "quasar target selection"*, which is how the SDSS operation (team, telescopes, cameras, software, etc, etc, etc) selected objects for observation by the spectroscopes. By definition, if the spectrum of an object was not taken, then it cannot have been included in the database with a SpecClass flag of either 3 or 4, can it? So if an object in the "astrometrically and photometrically calibrated catalog of objects found in the data from the imaging camera" is NOT selected by the SDSS quasar target selection algorithm but IS, in fact, a quasar, then we have a bias, don't we? And that's not counting the objects in the sky which should have been included in that (imaging) catalogue but weren't (and which, in fact, are quasars).

Here's a key paragraph (I've replaced the link to Richards et al. (2002) with one to the arXiv preprint):

The quasar target selection algorithms are summarized in this schematic http://www.sdss.org/dr7/algorithms/qsotargchart.gif" [...] for the full discussion of the sample selection criteria, completeness, target efficiency, and caveats.

Hmm ... "sample selection criteria, completeness, target efficiency, and caveats" ... that sure reads like a list of biases to me, as in "inherent biases in the collection methods"!

ETA: Suede's post #17 and mine (this one) crossed.

* more detail http://www.sdss.org/dr7/algorithms/target.html#qso".

 

[Nereid]

[...]

Whether the paper is published in a journal or simply accepted as by Arxiv as a scholarly work seems inconsequential to me

[...]

I have no doubt of that ... https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5374" (bold added):

One of the main goals of PF is to help students learn the current status of physics as practiced by the scientific community; accordingly, Physicsforums.com strives to maintain high standards of academic integrity. There are many open questions in physics, and we welcome discussion on those subjects provided the discussion remains intellectually sound. It is against our Posting Guidelines to discuss, in most of the PF forums, new or non-mainstream theories or ideas that have not been published in professional peer-reviewed journals or are not part of current professional mainstream scientific discussion.

 

[Nereid]

[...]

I posted 11 papers and a book in support of quantization,

[...]

You did?

There are links to only 9 papers in the OP (and one to a book); your subsequent posts contain no new papers (or books) "in support of quantization".

Where are the other two?

 

[Nereid]

[...]

I posted 11 papers and a book in support of quantization, papers that refute the posted work are few and far between,

Did you read my earlier post? Where I pointed out that:

a) you did not include the 2 dozen (or more) other papers on the ~72 km/s quantisation topic (that's a shorthand); and

b) most of the papers "in support of [the ~72 km/s] quantization" are mutually inconsistent?

Perhaps it's time to take a closer look at some of these mutually inconsistent papers?

and I call their methods into question,

I'd be quite interested to read your critique of the ("few and far between") papers "that refute the posted work".

Could you start by posting links to these papers (the ones doing the refuting)?

Let's confine ourselves to the ~72 km/s quantisation material for now, shall we, and leave the quasar redshift periodicities to later.

just as you seem to have a problem with the way the quantization papers were conducted.

[...]

Hmm ... I think my main point was that they are mutually inconsistent; if that can be shown, would you then "have a problem with the way the quantization papers were conducted" too?

 

[Suede]

"sample selection criteria, completeness, target efficiency, and caveats."


Has nothing to do with the quality of the redshifts recorded, which again, is all that matters when looking for quantization.

If a QSO has been identified by the team as being validated with a highly accurate redshift and research grade, then nothing else matters.

We aren't looking for handedness or grouping or any other astronomical effect. All we are concerned with is the quality of the redshift recorded for each object.

 

[Suede]

I have no doubt of that ... https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5374" (bold added):

Again, the theories of quantization have been published in several peer reviewed journals, which I clearly linked in the top of this post.

So the point is moot.

 

[Nereid]

"sample selection criteria, completeness, target efficiency, and caveats."


Has nothing to do with the quality of the redshifts recorded, which again, is all that matters when looking for quantization.

If a QSO has been identified by the team as being validated with a highly accurate redshift and research grade, then nothing else matters.

We aren't looking for handedness or grouping or any other astronomical effect. All we are concerned with is the quality of the redshift recorded for each object.

Thanks for this.

So, assuming (for now) that there are no selection issues with the objects with SpecClass flags of 3 and 4 in the SDSS database*, what does the finding that there is a certain structure in these ~80k records mean (the objects "have preferred periodic redshifts with redshift intervals of 0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1", for example)?

Does it, perhaps, "call[] into question the validity of quasar redshifts as cosmological distance indicators"?

What is necessary^ to get from the finding of a certain structure in the SDSS spectroscopic catalogue to a conclusion about the extent to which "quasar redshifts" may be "cosmological distance indicators"?

Specifically, how important is it to understand, and account for, biases in how the ~80k records were derived (or, if you prefer, obtained)?

* there are, of course, such issues (a topic for discussion later perhaps)
^ we'll leave "and sufficient" till later (maybe)

 

[Nereid]

Again, the theories of quantization have been published in several peer reviewed journals, which I clearly linked in the top of this post.

So the point is moot.

With regard to periodicities in the SDSS quasar redshift data is it central - you cited only two papers (one published, the other a preprint) in support of this, and I noted that the conclusion of the only published paper (#2 in the OP) was shown to be invalid (in a later paper).

You seem to be using "theories" in a non-standard way; AFAIK, the only theories in papers 3 to 9 in the OP (or in papers they reference or which cite them) are those of Tifft (et al.) and Arp (et al.), and in only the former is ~72 km/s quantisation explicitly addressed. The rest of the papers merely report results of analyses of observations (and, as I have noted, those analyses are largely mutually inconsistent).

But perhaps I am missing something - what are "the theories of quantization [that] have been published in several peer reviewed journals"?

 

[Suede]

Thanks for this.

So, assuming (for now) that there are no selection issues with the objects with SpecClass flags of 3 and 4 in the SDSS database*, what does the finding that there is a certain structure in these ~80k records mean (the objects "have preferred periodic redshifts with redshift intervals of 0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1", for example)?

Does it, perhaps, "call[] into question the validity of quasar redshifts as cosmological distance indicators"?

What is necessary^ to get from the finding of a certain structure in the SDSS spectroscopic catalogue to a conclusion about the extent to which "quasar redshifts" may be "cosmological distance indicators"?

Specifically, how important is it to understand, and account for, biases in how the ~80k records were derived (or, if you prefer, obtained)?

* there are, of course, such issues (a topic for discussion later perhaps)
^ we'll leave "and sufficient" till later (maybe)

If we find quantization effects, then its entirely possible that some or all of the observed redshift is not due to velocity (expansion) but due to other mechanisms. What those mechanisms may be is a subject for another topic, but it would certainly require us to rethink cosmological distances. Further research looking at the issue would clearly be warranted.

As for the biases in scientific studies I think its very important to account for them. Searching for quantization effects requires that the sample be random, large, and accurate. The larger and more random the sample the better. I don't fully agree with the first papers methodology, but I also don't agree with your countering paper done by the SDSS team.

Let's start with the huge topic of "quasar target selection"*, which is how the SDSS operation (team, telescopes, cameras, software, etc, etc, etc) selected objects for observation by the spectroscopes. By definition, if the spectrum of an object was not taken, then it cannot have been included in the database with a SpecClass flag of either 3 or 4, can it? So if an object in the "astrometrically and photometrically calibrated catalog of objects found in the data from the imaging camera" is NOT selected by the SDSS quasar target selection algorithm but IS, in fact, a quasar, then we have a bias, don't we? And that's not counting the objects in the sky which should have been included in that (imaging) catalogue but weren't (and which, in fact, are quasars).

Yeah you would have a bias, however when you increase the sample size, the anomolies such as you described begin to wash out of the data. The larger your sample, the less background noise apparent from inaccurate measurements or missing objects. By constraining the dataset 'significantly', you would increase error in your analysis for the scenario you just detailed.

Given a statistically large dataset such as the SDSS catalog, I do not agree that such tight constraints should be placed on the selection criteria because of the very scenario which you just described.

I am of the opinion that if redshift is quantized, we should expect to see quantization effects in ALL astronomical objects. Thus whether the object cataloged is or is not a QSO, is or is not missing from the dataset, becomes a non-issue.

 

[Suede]

With regard to periodicities in the SDSS quasar redshift data is it central - you cited only two papers (one published, the other a preprint) in support of this, and I noted that the conclusion of the only published paper (#2 in the OP) was shown to be invalid (in a later paper).

You seem to be using "theories" in a non-standard way; AFAIK, the only theories in papers 3 to 9 in the OP (or in papers they reference or which cite them) are those of Tifft (et al.) and Arp (et al.), and in only the former is ~72 km/s quantisation explicitly addressed. The rest of the papers merely report results of analyses of observations (and, as I have noted, those analyses are largely mutually inconsistent).

But perhaps I am missing something - what are "the theories of quantization [that] have been published in several peer reviewed journals"?

I linked the papers, they support quantization.

I don't need to link a library of evidence.

1 paper is enough to debate, I posted 11 and a book.

 

[Nereid]

Two things, just quickly ... (bold added)

If we find quantization effects,

[...]

Searching for quantization effects requires

[...]

I am of the opinion that if redshift is quantized, we should expect to see quantization effects in ALL astronomical objects.

[...]

1) It may be helpful - to me, and possibly to other readers, if not to you - to define this term "quantization", as you are using it.

In quantum mechanics, it has a precise meaning; we say that the energy levels of the H atom are "quantized", for example, and thus certain levels are forbidden (and the others mandatory, per the ergodic principle), with nothing in between.

As Tifft used the term, he meant something very much like this - discrete energy levels with everything in between forbidden.

However, in most, if not all, the material you cite, the term is either not used, or clearly does not have the Tifft meaning.

Would you please clarify what you intend to mean by the term?

2) Have you heard of BAO (baryon acoustic oscillation)? If so, do you appreciate that its signature in N-z diagrams may be similar to the sort of "quantization effect" of your first two sources?

BAO is a prediction of LCDM cosmological models, and the consistency of its signature in the local universe and in the CMB provides a good test of such models. If you've heard of BAO, you probably already know that these models passed this test with flying colours.

 

[Nereid]

I linked the papers, they support quantization.

Only in a vague, qualitative sense.

Let's take some time to go through some of them, shall we?

As I said earlier, 1) and 2) are quite different from 3) to 9) (as you yourself noted, in the OP): the former do not report any periodicity/quantisation/discretisation/whatever ~72 km/s (or ~24/36/144 km/s). Nor, in fact, could they claim to do so - the precision of the redshift measurements is not adequate.

(to be continued)

I don't need to link a library of evidence.

1 paper is enough to debate, I posted 11 and a book.

You did? I count 8 papers, one preprint (and a book).

In any case, surely the scientific thing to do is get independent verification of the effect (reported in one paper), isn't it?

If, collectively, the published papers on the ~72 km/s periodicity are, as a whole, mutually inconsistent, then what does the total body of evidence suggest?

To you, it seems, it suggests there is an effect, never mind that it can't seem to be independently verified (quantitatively).

To me, it suggests that if there is an effect it has not yet been characterised in an unambiguous way. And, by Occam's razor, it can be treated as non-existent, at least until someone finds a way to show the collective total evidence (dozens of published papers) is, in fact, consistent.

 

[Nereid]

[...]

As for the biases in scientific studies I think its very important to account for them. Searching for quantization effects requires that the sample be random, large, and accurate. The larger and more random the sample the better.

[...]

(bold added)

In the case of quasars, how would you go about determining if a sample is random (or not)?

To what extent would the method you use, to make such a determination, depend upon a precise, unambiguous definition of "quasar"?

 

[Suede]

Two things, just quickly ... (bold added)
1) It may be helpful - to me, and possibly to other readers, if not to you - to define this term "quantization", as you are using it.

In quantum mechanics, it has a precise meaning; we say that the energy levels of the H atom are "quantized", for example, and thus certain levels are forbidden (and the others mandatory, per the ergodic principle), with nothing in between.

As Tifft used the term, he meant something very much like this - discrete energy levels with everything in between forbidden.

However, in most, if not all, the material you cite, the term is either not used, or clearly does not have the Tifft meaning.

Would you please clarify what you intend to mean by the term?

2) Have you heard of BAO (baryon acoustic oscillation)? If so, do you appreciate that its signature in N-z diagrams may be similar to the sort of "quantization effect" of your first two sources?

BAO is a prediction of LCDM cosmological models, and the consistency of its signature in the local universe and in the CMB provides a good test of such models. If you've heard of BAO, you probably already know that these models passed this test with flying colours.

"quantized",
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantized

Quantization is the procedure of constraining something from a continuous set of values (such as the real numbers) to a discrete set (such as the integers).

If redshifts are observed to occur at preferred discrete intervals, they are said to be "quantized".

As for the "BAO" accounting for quantized redshifts, I'd love to "see a published paper in a qualified peer review journal" on the subject.


oh, my google books link isn't working for the original post

You can buy Arp's work here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0941325008/?tag=pfamazon01-20

You can preview most of it here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=_J...Quasars,+Redshifts,+and+Controversies#PPP1,M1

Arp and Hoyle have put out several works that I think are definitely worth reading if you are just getting into physics and haven't yet devoted 9/10ths of your life to the study of theoretical physics. After a lifetime investment in a course of study, it becomes...problematic to look at data with a fresh perspective.

For you old hands, I don't recommend reading it without taking your blood pressure meds first.

 

[Chronos]

Suede, where are all the grad student papers jumping on the bandwagon of this 'exciting' redshift quantization discovery? Did you miss my 'silence is deafening' sidebar? Do you have a logical explanation in mind as to why mainstream science has ignored it?

 

[Suede]

Suede, where are all the grad student papers jumping on the bandwagon of this 'exciting' redshift quantization discovery? Did you miss my 'silence is deafening' sidebar? Do you have a logical explanation in mind as to why mainstream science has ignored it?

How exactly do you expect a grad student to get such a paper approved when Arp, Hoyle, and Alfven could barely get their papers pushed through?

Between them, the three were awarded:

A Helen B. Warner Prize
Newcomb Cleveland Prize
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bruce Medal
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
Royal Medal
Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with Edwin Salpeter
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gold Medal of the Franklin Institute
Lomonosov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences

and of course, the Nobel prize in physics.



A grad student sure as hell better not touch this hot potato if he wants to have any future at all in establishment physics right now. I think they would be better served to pursue the data where ever it may lead but not say a word of it or their beliefs to anyone at the present moment.

When Arp came forward with his findings, he had his telescope time yanked, had his funding cut, and was shoved out the door. Right behind him was Hoyle. Alfven had his work corrupted to the point where it is unrecognizable. Radical ideas are often met with blind hostility because they challenge belief systems. A change in physics away from our current path isn't going to happen until the old hands retire, which is probably going to be pretty soon since the baby boomers are just coming of retirement age.

Fresh thinking favors the young.

 

[Nereid]

"quantized",
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantized

Quantization is the procedure of constraining something from a continuous set of values (such as the real numbers) to a discrete set (such as the integers).

If redshifts are observed to occur at preferred discrete intervals, they are said to be "quantized".

Thanks for the clarification.

As for the "BAO" accounting for quantized redshifts, I'd love to "see a published paper in a qualified peer review journal" on the subject.

[...]

You'll have to do a bit of work yourself, if only because "quantized redshifts" has a particular meaning found in only a very few published papers (of relevance to the BAO regimes), but this 2007 paper might be a good place to start: http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612400".

You'll find plenty more by going through the papers it references, and the ones that cite it, including http://fr.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9603021" which tackles some general issues concerning analysis of large datasets.

As there seem to be no published papers on "quantised redshifts" in quasars - other than #2 in the OP, whose reported statistically significant signal was shown, in a later paper, to be due to shortcomings in the handling of completeness etc - I think further discussion in this thread should focus on the ideas presented in papers #3 through #9 in the OP. Note that the size of the "quantisation" reported in the two classes of papers is more than an order of magnitude different (~72 km/s vs z ~= 0.062).

 

[Suede]

"Note that the size of the "quantisation" reported in the two classes of papers is more than an order of magnitude different (~72 km/s vs z ~= 0.062). "


That's not what they are saying.

They are saying:
"All are harmonically related to the constant 0.062±0.001"

Big difference.

There is a harmoic relation, not that they all occur at steps of 72 km/s.

As for your paper, I don't see where they are pointing out that BAO accounts for quantized redshift.

 

[Nereid]

"Note that the size of the "quantisation" reported in the two classes of papers is more than an order of magnitude different (~72 km/s vs z ~= 0.062). "


That's not what they are saying.

They are saying:
"All are harmonically related to the constant 0.062±0.001"

Big difference.

There is a harmoic relation, not that they all occur at steps of 72 km/s.

There's only one paper in the OP that draws a connection between the ~72 km/s quantisation (shorthand) and "quasar redshifts", and that's #9, which is a single author paper (M. B. Bell). AFAICS no one has, subsequently, developed this idea ... not even Bell himself.

It's not difficult to see why, plausibly, this idea was dropped: not only have "the discrete velocities found by Tifft in galaxies" failed to be independently verified, but the existence of "discrete intrinsic redshifts found in quasars" has also not been established.

In a later post I'll go over some of the internal inconsistencies in the ~72 km/s quantisation papers.

As for your paper, I don't see where they are pointing out that BAO accounts for quantized redshift.

They don't; nor did I say they did.

Let's review how we got here, shall we?

In https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2024672&postcount=28" I wrote: "do you appreciate that its [BAO] signature in N-z diagrams may be similar to the sort of "quantization effect" of your first two sources?".

In https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2025357&postcount=34" I wrote: ""quantized redshifts" has a particular meaning found in only a very few published papers (of relevance to the BAO regimes)".

 

[Nereid]

How exactly do you expect a grad student to get such a paper approved when Arp, Hoyle, and Alfven could barely get their papers pushed through?

Between them, the three were awarded:

A Helen B. Warner Prize
Newcomb Cleveland Prize
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bruce Medal
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
Royal Medal
Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with Edwin Salpeter
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gold Medal of the Franklin Institute
Lomonosov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences

and of course, the Nobel prize in physics.



A grad student sure as hell better not touch this hot potato if he wants to have any future at all in establishment physics right now. I think they would be better served to pursue the data where ever it may lead but not say a word of it or their beliefs to anyone at the present moment.

When Arp came forward with his findings, he had his telescope time yanked, had his funding cut, and was shoved out the door. Right behind him was Hoyle. Alfven had his work corrupted to the point where it is unrecognizable. Radical ideas are often met with blind hostility because they challenge belief systems. A change in physics away from our current path isn't going to happen until the old hands retire, which is probably going to be pretty soon since the baby boomers are just coming of retirement age.

Fresh thinking favors the young.

I did not know that Hoyle and Alfvén had published papers on redshift quantisation.

Can you please provide references?

 

[Suede]

I did not know that Hoyle and Alfvén had published papers on redshift quantisation.

Can you please provide references?

Hoyle and Alfvén published papers refuting expanding space theory, the nature of those papers inherently rejects redshift as an indicator of cosmic expansion by default.

Finding quantized redshift would further support the already large body of evidence in their favor.

 

[Suede]

There's only one paper in the OP that draws a connection between the ~72 km/s quantisation (shorthand) and "quasar redshifts", and that's #9, which is a single author paper (M. B. Bell). AFAICS no one has, subsequently, developed this idea ... not even Bell himself.

It's not difficult to see why, plausibly, this idea was dropped: not only have "the discrete velocities found by Tifft in galaxies" failed to be independently verified, but the existence of "discrete intrinsic redshifts found in quasars" has also not been established.

In a later post I'll go over some of the internal inconsistencies in the ~72 km/s quantisation papers.


They don't; nor did I say they did.

Let's review how we got here, shall we?

In https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2024672&postcount=28" I wrote: "do you appreciate that its [BAO] signature in N-z diagrams may be similar to the sort of "quantization effect" of your first two sources?".

In https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2025357&postcount=34" I wrote: ""quantized redshifts" has a particular meaning found in only a very few published papers (of relevance to the BAO regimes)".

71.1 km/s for bright spirals - The heliocentric redshifts are corrected for solar motion, first by adopting an estimate of the sun's motion with respect to the centroid of the Local Group, and then by allowing the solar velocity vector to vary in direction over the whole sky.

37.2 km/s is found 89 nearby spirals - corresponding to the sun's probable motion around the Galactic Center

0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1 for quasar peridocity, Within their standard errors these intervals are integer multiples 4, 5, 7, 10 and 20 of 0.062.

The final paper says:
All are harmonically related to the constant 0.062±0.001, and this is the fourth independent analysis in which the redshift increment 0.062 has been shown to be significant.



There is no "inconsistency"

 

[Nereid]

Hoyle and Alfvén published papers refuting expanding space theory, the nature of those papers inherently rejects redshift as an indicator of cosmic expansion by default.

Thank you for the clarification.

So they did not publish any papers of direct relevance to this thread?

Also, by "expanding space theory" do you mean applications of General Relativity (GR), such as the FLRW metric (or something which includes these)?

 

[Suede]

Thank you for the clarification.

So they did not publish any papers of direct relevance to this thread?

Also, by "expanding space theory" do you mean applications of General Relativity (GR), such as the FLRW metric (or something which includes these)?

I believe its not of "direct relevance" to you.

Others might find it odd that two of the greatest astrophysicists to ever walk the face of the Earth have serious problems with big bang cosmology. Which would inherently reject redshift as a measure of expanding space.

 

[Suede]

hmmmmm


http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007MNRAS.376.1838R

galaxies: high-redshift , quasars: absorption lines
Ryabinkov, A. I.; Kaminker, A. D.; Varshalovich, D. A.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 376, Issue 4, pp. 1838-1848. 04/2007

statistical analysis of the space-time distribution of absorption-line systems (ALSs) observed in QSO spectra within the cosmological redshift interval z = 0.0-3.7 is carried out on the base of our catalogue of absorption systems (Ryabinkov et al. 2003). We confirm our previous conclusion that the z-distribution of absorbing matter contains non-uniform component displaying a pattern of statistically significant alternating maxima (peaks) and minima (dips). Using the wavelet transformation, we determine the positions of the maxima and minima and estimate their statistical significance. The positions of the maxima and minima of the z-distributions obtained for different celestial hemispheres turn out to be weakly sensitive to orientations of the hemispheres. The data reveal a regularity (quasi-periodicity) of the sequence of the peaks and dips with respect to some rescaling functions of z. The same periodicity was found for the one-dimensional correlation function calculated for the sample of the ALSs under investigation. We assume the existence of a regular structure in the distribution of absorption matter, which is not only spatial but also temporal in nature with characteristic time varying within the interval 150-650 Myr for the cosmological model applied.

 

[Nereid]

71.1 km/s for bright spirals - The heliocentric redshifts are corrected for solar motion, first by adopting an estimate of the sun's motion with respect to the centroid of the Local Group, and then by allowing the solar velocity vector to vary in direction over the whole sky.

37.2 km/s is found 89 nearby spirals - corresponding to the sun's probable motion around the Galactic Center

Can you show that these are mutually consistent?

Not just these extracts, but that the data on which they are each based can be analysed to derive two statistically significant results (i.e. the 37.2 km/s result from the data used to derive the 71.1 km/s result, and the 71.1 km/s result from the data used to derive the 37.2 km/s result).

For example, of the "bright spirals" in the "89 nearby spirals", is there a 71.1 km/s period (quantum?) when the (89 nearby spirals) data are transformed to "the centroid of the Local Group"?

And, another example: is there a 37.2 km/s period (quantum?) in the bright spirals in the 89 nearby spirals, when the (bright spirals) data are transformed to "the sun's probable motion around the Galactic Center"?

0.258, 0.312, 0.44, 0.63, and 1.1 for quasar peridocity, Within their standard errors these intervals are integer multiples 4, 5, 7, 10 and 20 of 0.062.

[...]

But none of these "quasar peridocit[ies]"* has been independently verified, have they? Using contemporary catalogues, such as SDSS, and reported in papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals, that is.

Further, these quasar redshifts are all heliocentric ones, aren't they? What papers have been published purporting to show these same patterns exist when the quasar redshifts are transformed to a galactocentric rest frame? One based on "the centroid of the Local Group"?


* what's the relationship between "quasar quantisation" and "quasar peridocity"?

 

[Nereid]

I believe its not of "direct relevance" to you.

Others might find it odd that two of the greatest astrophysicists to ever walk the face of the Earth have serious problems with big bang cosmology. Which would inherently reject redshift as a measure of expanding space.

Again, thanks for the clarification.

Can we stay focussed on the topic of this thread please?

Whatever Hoyle and/or Alfvén might, or might not, have written about cosmology may be very interesting, especially from a historical point of view.

Surely more pertinent to this part of PF (but not this thread) is the extent to which their published ideas are consistent with relevant observations and experimental results, as found in published papers? If you're interested in having a discussion on that topic, why not start a new thread?

 

[Suede]

Can you show that these are mutually consistent?

 

[Nereid]

hmmmmm


http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007MNRAS.376.1838R

galaxies: high-redshift , quasars: absorption lines
Ryabinkov, A. I.; Kaminker, A. D.; Varshalovich, D. A.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 376, Issue 4, pp. 1838-1848. 04/2007

statistical analysis of the space-time distribution of absorption-line systems (ALSs) observed in QSO spectra within the cosmological redshift interval z = 0.0-3.7 is carried out on the base of our catalogue of absorption systems (Ryabinkov et al. 2003). We confirm our previous conclusion that the z-distribution of absorbing matter contains non-uniform component displaying a pattern of statistically significant alternating maxima (peaks) and minima (dips). Using the wavelet transformation, we determine the positions of the maxima and minima and estimate their statistical significance. The positions of the maxima and minima of the z-distributions obtained for different celestial hemispheres turn out to be weakly sensitive to orientations of the hemispheres. The data reveal a regularity (quasi-periodicity) of the sequence of the peaks and dips with respect to some rescaling functions of z. The same periodicity was found for the one-dimensional correlation function calculated for the sample of the ALSs under investigation. We assume the existence of a regular structure in the distribution of absorption matter, which is not only spatial but also temporal in nature with characteristic time varying within the interval 150-650 Myr for the cosmological model applied.

Interesting, isn't it?

A quick read suggests that they have, independently, found a BAO signature (e.g. "(3) The obtained distribution of ALSs is likely to be coupled with the appearance of alternating pronounced (peaks) and depressed (dips) epochs in the course of the cosmological evolution, i.e., with the existence of some (relatively weak) spatial-temporal wave process. According to the cosmological principle (e.g, Peebles 1993) similar wave-like process would be observed from any spatial-temporal points in the Universe.", on p24).

However, if you were looking for published papers that report failing to independently verify "quasar quantisation" and "intrinsic (quasar) redshift", then this is surely one!

Here are some quotes:

To test a possible correlation of the ALS distribution with expectations of the first model [the so called Karlsson formula] we have calculated the power spectrum of the sample of ALSs with respect to the trial function log(1+z). We have found no significant power peaks which would have a chance to be related with the period 0.089 or with a multiple value of it.

According to the second QSO ejection model, appearance of the preferable zmax and zmin in the ALS distribution could be, in principle, interpreted as effects of an additional set of discrete “intrinsic” redshifts referred to galaxies. To test this statement one can compare the values of zmax from the last but one column in Table 1 with the set of intrinsic redshift components ziG[N, m] (where N and m are some quantum numbers) defined for galaxies by Eq. (B1) of Bell & Comeau (2003). Such a comparison shows that the set of the peaks zmax given in Table 1 are not consistent with the intrinsic redshifts of galaxies.

Thus we have found no traces of consistency between our results and the hypotheses of non-cosmological “intrinsic” redshifts of QSOs.

Universe 1, Suede 0?

 

[Nereid]

First, this does not address the question of the different definitions of 'velocity' (or redshift, or ...) between the papers.

One uses a heliocentric definition (all observed redshifts transformed to a frame of reference at rest with respect to the solar system barycentre).

Another uses a galactocentric definition (all observed redshifts transformed to a frame of reference at rest with respect to SgrA*).

The last* uses a definition that seems to involve transforming observed redshifts to a frame of reference at rest with respect to the centroid of the Local Group.

Can you show that the reported data are consistent when observed redshifts are transformed to a common frame of reference?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Second, this table seems to suggest that any subset of a set of ~20 'velocities' would be consistent with the hypothesis! That would seem to be a very low hurdle ...

* actually the first listed in your post

 

[Suede]

They state openly they find peaks, then try to cover up the mess they found.

0.089 != 0.062

Of course they aren't going to find periodicity that corellates to intrinsic redshift.

They are also using a log function.

 

[Nereid]

They state openly they find peaks,

Indeed ... such as those expected from standard cosmological models (at least qualitatively).

then try to cover up the mess they found.

I missed that part - where is it?

0.089 != 0.062

The former is that predicted by 'the so called Karlsson formula' ("the first model").

The latter is that predicted by M. B. Bell, among others ("the second model").

Ryabinkov et al. find that neither is consistent with their data.

Of course they aren't going to find periodicity that corellates to intrinsic redshift.

Hmm ... are you saying that Ryabinkov et al. have misunderstood the published papers of Arp (et al.), Burbidge (et al.), Bell (et al.), Napier (et al.), and Karlsson ... all of whom the explicitly reference?

Their sources are a superset of the relevant published papers in the OP (and, presumably, the papers Arp himself cites in his book that you cite).

It would seem strange that they messed up so badly; maybe you could write a paper pointing out how their published analysis is invalid?

They are also using a log function.

Indeed; exactly the same as is found in "Karlsson 1971, 1977, 1990, Arp et al. 1990, 2005, Burbidge & Napier 2001, Napier & Burbidge 2003".

 

[Suede]

Indeed ... such as those expected from standard cosmological models (at least qualitatively).


I missed that part - where is it?


The former is that predicted by 'the so called Karlsson formula' ("the first model").

The latter is that predicted by M. B. Bell, among others ("the second model").

Ryabinkov et al. find that neither is consistent with their data.


Hmm ... are you saying that Ryabinkov et al. have misunderstood the published papers of Arp (et al.), Burbidge (et al.), Bell (et al.), Napier (et al.), and Karlsson ... all of whom the explicitly reference?

Their sources are a superset of the relevant published papers in the OP (and, presumably, the papers Arp himself cites in his book that you cite).

It would seem strange that they messed up so badly; maybe you could write a paper pointing out how their published analysis is invalid?


Indeed; exactly the same as is found in "Karlsson 1971, 1977, 1990, Arp et al. 1990, 2005, Burbidge & Napier 2001, Napier & Burbidge 2003".

Burbidge and A. Hewitt, “The redshift peak at z = 0.06,” Ap.J. 359, L33–L36, 1990
self explainitory.

An Optical Catalog of Extragalactic Emission-line Objects Similar to
Quasistellar Objects
Hewitt A., Burbidge G. Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 75, 297 (1991)

"There is a separate and distinct peak in the redshift distribution at z=0.06."

Quasar Creation and Evolution into Galaxies
Arp, J. Astrophys. Astr. (1997) 18, 393–406

"The redshifts drop in steps and near the quantized values of z = 0.6, 0.3, and 0.06"


http://adsabs.harvard.edu//abs/2006ApJ...648..140B
Bell, M. B.; McDiarmid, D.
Six Peaks Visible in the Redshift Distribution of 46,400 SDSS Quasars Agree with the Preferred Redshifts Predicted by the Decreasing Intrinsic Redshift Model
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 648, Issue 1, pp. 140-147.

"The periodicity detected is in linear z, as opposed to log(1+z). "



The stack of papers I put together in the OP shows how they are all related by the .062 harmonic, as does the harmonic table.

Linear.