Is there more to the Red Shift than we think?

[jeffinbath]

TL;DR Summary

Could "dark energy" pushing galaxies apart be a huge illusion?

How can we be certain that it is not the case that a minor proportion of the red shift from distant galaxies is not caused by the doppler effect or by gravitational fields or by dispersion from cosmic dust but is caused by a light aging factor? There is a small general red shift from stars held together across the other side of our own galaxy around one hundred thousand light years away. But light coming from a galaxy one billion light years away has been vibrating electromagnetically for ten thousand times longer than that. So can we be certain that there is not a light aging factor causing the energy per photon to drop over such an immense amount of time . Would it not then follow that the concept of a mysterious “dark energy” universally pushing distant galaxies apart is a huge illusion?

 

[Nugatory]

So can we be certain that there is not a light aging factor causing the energy per photon to drop over such an immense amount of time .

Yes. Start with the Wikipedia article for ”tired light”, and follow its references.

 

[mathman]

The expansion of the universe (as seen by red shift) is the after effect of the big bang - this was discovered by Hubble in 1929.. Dark energy was first suggested around 1996 to account for the observation that the expansion is speeding up, not slowing down as expected.

 

[castrogiovanni]

Tired light models are long since debunked. They are the claims of those who want to cling on to the pre-Big Bang, 'steady state' cosmology. Most of its remaining proponents are slowly dying off.
The 'theory' falls over in various ways. Not least due to the fact that galaxies would be expected to be blurred under the TL scenario. If not a crackpot theory, it is not far from being so nowadays. See Ned Wright's page on it;

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm

 

[jeffinbath]

A problem with the arguments (like Ned Wright's) that disprove “tired light” as the cause of red shift is that they do it in a binary all-or-nothing fashion and don’t seem to deal with disproving that a small proportion of red shift is always caused by a light aging factor. So for example if there are 3 distant galaxies 1,2 and 3 billion light years away from us as judged by the brightness of type 1A supernovae explosions, then it appears from their increasing red shifts that they are accelerating away in accordance with their distance and we have to invoke the mysterious “dark energy” to explain the acceleration. Why can it not be alternatively explained by a light aging factor adding to the red shifts caused by the doppler effect?

 

[castrogiovanni]

A problem with the arguments (like Ned Wright's) that disprove “tired light” as the cause of red shift is that they do it in a binary all-or-nothing fashion and don’t seem to deal with disproving that a small proportion of red shift is always caused by a light aging factor. So for example if there are 3 distant galaxies 1,2 and 3 billion light years away from us as judged by the brightness of type 1A supernovae explosions, then it appears from their increasing red shifts that they are accelerating away in accordance with their distance and we have to invoke the mysterious “dark energy” to explain the acceleration. Why can it not be alternatively explained by a light aging factor adding to the red shifts caused by the doppler effect?

Because of the reasons already given. If light tires by distance, then the further galaxies should be more blurred. This is not the case. And it is a prediction that the time dilation factor expected for the supernovae should follow an expected rate for expansion. It does. This also rules out TL.

https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.3595#
It really is dead, and is now close to crackpottery, as I previously mentioned. I doubt you will find one serious scientist still supporting it.

 

[Vanadium 50]

A problem with the arguments (like Ned Wright's) that disprove “tired light” as the cause of red shift is that they do it in a binary all-or-nothing fashion and don’t seem to deal with disproving that a small proportion of red shift is always caused by a light aging factor.

Model A: 100% of the red shift is caused by conventional processes.
Model B: 99.999+% of the red shift is caused by conventional processes, and something less than 0.001% by tired light.

Both models are permitted by the data. There is no theoretical or experimental support for Model B over Model A. Model B explains nothing Model A does not. Model B is theoretically problematic, and leads to no new predictions. The cosmology in Model B is identical to that in Model A.

Given all that, why would anyone say "Yup. Model B is right and Model A is wrong."?

 

[jeffinbath]

[0804.3595] Time Dilation in Type Ia Supernova Spectra at High Redshift

Thank you for this ref. I am studying it.

 

[OmCheeto]

If light tires by distance, then the further galaxies should be more blurred.

I don't understand this bit of logic.

 

[castrogiovanni]

I don't understand this bit of logic.

As Ned Wright says;

There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon's energy without also changing its momentum, which leads to a blurring of distant objects which is not observed. The Compton shift in particular does not work.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm

 

[Drakkith]

As Ned Wright says;
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm

My favorite part of that page:

Assume that the CMB starts out as a T = (1+z)*To = 2.998 K blackbody, which is the blue curve. Because the photons only lose energy but do not decrease their density, the resulting red curve is not a blackbody at To = 2.725, but is instead (1+z)3 = 1.331 times a blackbody. The FIRAS data limit this prefactor to 1.00001+/-0.00005, which requires that the CMB come from redshifts less than 0.00005, or distances less than 0.25 Mpc. This is less than the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy M31, and we know the Universe is transparent well beyond this distance. In fact, since millimeter wave emission is observed to come from galaxies at redshifts of 4.7 or higher, the tired light model fails this test by 100,000 standard deviations. Note that the CMB cannot be redshifted starlight. Some diehards refuse to face these facts, and continue to push tired light models of the CMB, but these models do not agree with the observations.

That's quite a few standard deviations...

 

[Steelwolf]

Something overlooked in this 'supposed debunking of tired light theory (which is not at all dead when you look into loop quantum gravity theory) is the person trying to do the debunking. Ned Wright last published in 2008, and there has been a LOT of information coming out about the fact that the universe is NOT 'transparent' out to distances he states, and we have found a whole lot more matter, as well as the detection of gravity waves. There is a LOT more information and hard science on the subject since he did his paper and pencil work of 2 decades ago. Also, light is not traveling to us straight from these far off sites, most often they have incurred dust or gas along the way and interacted with electrons, even if not being taken into an electron and re-released, there is still the near field effect of non physical collission and that certainly can remove energy from the photon every non-physical interaction it has, it is magnetic/electic packet, and there is recent evidence that photons do interact with each other to a small degree of scattering.

Along with the fact that we now know gravitational waves are out there in plenty, those individual photons all have to cross the threshholds of each of those gravity waves and it will remove energy from the photon for every wave passed through, just like a boat on the ocean. On top of that, if the Universe is expanding at that rate, then that is even more stretching of the photon field, and more dissipation o it's energy. thus the whole idea of Tired Light is nowhere near dead as Castrovagliano states.

[Moderator's note: Off topic content deleted.]

Anyways, tired light is not at all dead, and a look into quantum loop gravity theory can show you that there did not have to be a big bang, and that all of our cosmology needs to be looked at in a new light, that our present view was set in stone (the Big Bang) by a Vatican Astronomer who used the Bible as source material rather than any actual, provable facts or observations, so that whole Big Bang Theory is based on "God Said Let There Be Light" (Umm, where did this 'god' come from, how did he know what light was, where did he get the energy to 'create' this place?) answer those before trying to prove big bang or that light does not tire even though it can only travel a short distance before being affected by something that pulls energy from it, as do the gravity waves or hooks up with an electron and changes frequency down when re-emitted.

It is like they are wondering why they are not seeing a bunch of X-rays where their was the star destoyed by a black hole tidal disruption recently, caught in perfect timing, and it showed a lot more UV than X-Ray than expected...what if those x-rays had to all go through the solar mass being disrupted, it would downstep those x-rays several times in the dense medium and so high UV should be expected. It is the X-rays they were looking for, just downstepped greatly by having to pass thru the stellar material feeding said black hole.

 

[Drakkith]

Anyways, tired light is not at all dead, and a look into quantum loop gravity theory can show you that there did not have to be a big bang, and that all of our cosmology needs to be looked at in a new light, that our present view was set in stone (the Big Bang) by a Vatican Astronomer who used the Bible as source material rather than any actual, provable facts or observations, so that whole Big Bang Theory is based on "God Said Let There Be Light" (Umm, where did this 'god' come from, how did he know what light was, where did he get the energy to 'create' this place?) answer those before trying to prove big bang or that light does not tire even though it can only travel a short distance before being affected by something that pulls energy from it, as do the gravity waves or hooks up with an electron and changes frequency down when re-emitted.

I'm not even sure where to begin to point out how utterly wrong this is. This simply isn't even close to an accurate description of the modern cosmological model or the history of how it was developed. The Big Bang, as a singular event, isn't even seriously believed to be a 'something-from-nothing' creation event. Instead it is the point where our universe becomes capable of being accurately described by observable physical laws. What came before this is unknown, and possible unknowable.

As for "prove that light does not tire", the burden of proof lies on those proposing the idea, not those rebuking it. Tired light models have, so far, failed to accurately explain our observations. It's that simple.

 

[PeterDonis]

Something overlooked in this 'supposed debunking of tired light theory (which is not at all dead when you look into loop quantum gravity theory)

Please give a reference. I am not aware of anything in loop quantum gravity theory that makes tired light viable.

Ned Wright last published in 2008, and there has been a LOT of information coming out about the fact that the universe is NOT 'transparent' out to distances he states, and we have found a whole lot more matter

References, please? And how does any of this make tired light viable?

light is not traveling to us straight from these far off sites, most often they have incurred dust or gas along the way and interacted with electrons, even if not being taken into an electron and re-released, there is still the near field effect of non physical collission and that certainly can remove energy from the photon every non-physical interaction it has, it is magnetic/electic packet, and there is recent evidence that photons do interact with each other to a small degree of scattering

These are all known effects that astronomers allow for when interpreting observations. None of them are tired light and none of them make tired light a viable hypothesis.

Along with the fact that we now know gravitational waves are out there in plenty, those individual photons all have to cross the threshholds of each of those gravity waves and it will remove energy from the photon for every wave passed through, just like a boat on the ocean.

I don't know where you're getting this from. Gravitational waves do not remove energy from anything they pass through. They pass through almost anything without interacting at all; but if there is any interaction, it will be to transfer energy from the gravitational wave to whatever it is interacting with, not vice versa.

Your post looks to me more like an uninformed rant than a valid criticism.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Ned Wright last published in 2008

False.

• arXiv:1908.08902
• The Astronomical Journal 158 (3), 97
• The Astrophysical Journal Letters 881 (1), L6
• arXiv:1908.00731
• arXiv:1906.08913
• Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 51 (3)
• arXiv:1903.08777

And many more. All from 2019.

 

[PeterDonis]

@Steelwolf: As as separate note, I have edited your post to delete a portion that is off topic and (as you suspected) in violation of PF rules. If you think a post or a user might be violating PF rules, the proper action is to use the "Report" button to bring it to the attention of the moderators, not to make a public post about it.

 

[Drakkith]

On top of that, if the Universe is expanding at that rate, then that is even more stretching of the photon field, and more dissipation o it's energy. thus the whole idea of Tired Light is nowhere near dead as Castrovagliano states.

The loss of energy from photons due to expansion is exactly what modern cosmology predicts and is exactly what we observe. The challenge for all tired light models is to replicate why this photon energy loss, which is observed to be entirely consistent with relativity, is due to some other mechanism and not expansion. Seriously, what interaction between light and matter causes a shift of spectra that is also exactly what relativity predicts?

 

[phinds]

That's quite a few standard deviations...

Good to see that massive understatement for effect is alive and well

 

[PeterDonis]

The OP question has been addressed. Thread closed.