Talk:Tired light: Difference between revisions

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The misinterpretation of redshift

It is stated in the main article that "mechanism of tired light is not known" and the tired light is interpreted as photons losing energy on their way or photons lowering their frequency on their way, popularly known as "redshift". The problem is that photons don't really lower their frequency on their way and so the mechanism is an empty idea. If it does not exist it can't be known. It is similar to knowing the reason for God if there is no God.

Photons start their journey from the source with lower frequency for the reason of the Einsteinian time dilation at the source. Such thing happens in gravitational "redshift", not really a redshift but only an ordinary (gravitational) time dilation. The lower time rate at the source of light.

It turns out that the Hubble redshift is a similar thing, however not "ordinary" but "general" (graviatational) time dilation. It is not described in the scientific litarature because editors of scientific journals prefer to keep the big bang theory alive and it couldn't stand the competition with the Einsteinian "general time dilation" (conclusion of Einsteinian gravitation that I noticed already in 1985 but which proved unpablishable) and so the general time dilation is better kept not officially known as it might put a monkey wrench into big bang theory. That's why we can't put it into the official article.

The idea of this type of time dilation that has no Newtonian counterpart and so it is purely relativistic effect (originating in general relativity as a consequence of the principle of consrvation of energy) is explained (possibly adequately, if not then please ask for clarifications) in my article The general time dilation (relativistic redshift in stationary clouds of dust). This consequence of Einstein's theory, overlooked by Einstein himself, predicts many observations that puzzle big bang cosmologists as e.g. "accelerating expansion" of space, "anomalous" acceleration of space probes, and it may even predict the high "redshift" of quasars that would be identical with what Halton Arp proposed as an explanation for it however without that much faith in Einsteinian gravitation as shown by this author:-). Most importantly, unlike the big bang theory, it does not contradict any already known physics. However the lack of freedom of discussing those things officially forces us to discuss them on "discussion" pages if someone has some objections against existence of the phenomenon of general time dilation. If you have any objections please provode them after this section in the section titled "Objections against general time dilation". Jim 21:17, 9 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

misleading sentence

Yes that tired light has no basis is stated but it's erroneous: it follows from standard mechanics that light that Compton forward scatters must redshift, assuming that the accepted laws of mechanics are valid. Thus "No physical mechanism for tired light has ever been demonstrated" is misleading and must be changed. Harald88 23:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Harald88 23:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Objections against general time dilation

None so far?

The pages on the subject were deleted as original research sometime back. This link is therefore removed. --ScienceApologist 23:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I saw a similar reasoning in the paper by Zwicky; can you substantiate that that article by Jastrzebski doesn't simply explain it more? I have not yet read it. Harald88 23:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jastrzebski's main contention is that an non-symmetric metric can account for the expansion of space. He digs out a comment by Einstein to this effect that was further expanded upon by Zwicky, but misses the comparison to Zwicky's tired light. Since general time dilation was deleted in accordance with policy, there is no reason to keep it as a link (it is original research as it currently stands). --ScienceApologist 00:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

mechanism for Tired Light - Lyndon Ashmore

The most recent edit to this page ("A mechanism for Tired Light has now [1] been put forward...") looks very much as though it was posted by the author of the reference in question, specifically attempting to advertise his own theory. This would seem to be counter to the intention and guidelines of Wikipedia. I would recommend that the addition be removed, or modified to be a more neutral assessment of the link in question. Grey

Indeed, it can be neutralised as there has been a peer reviewed paper on Compton scattered tired light. I'll try to find it back. Harald88 23:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I now found it back; will include with recycling Ashmore's text. Harald88 21:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, according to whom does gas reflect photons, rather than preserving their trajectory? I don't know of a peer reviewed paper claiming such, and I dare say that I can see fairly well through air... Harald88 23:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a very precise statement. You can see through air because most photons pass through largely unaffected. In Compton scattering, however, the shift in wavelength in the scattered photon is related to the angle by which it is deflected. The shift is largest when the photon is reflected straight back, decreases as the angle of deflection gets smaller, and goes to zero when there is no deflection at all. So the problem with a tired light model using Compton scattering is that, if the wavelength is shifted, the light should be scattered by some amount (which would then blur the image), while if the photon's direction remains the same, there is no wavelength shift at all. Grey, 13:37, 23 December, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! But if I understand well, in pure Compton scattering, light cannot go straight at all, for there can be no scattering while going straight... However, on average, we *know* that light interacts with the air molecules, and that it goes straight without much blurring, while by the laws of mechanics it *should* give off energy to those molecules... Anyway, now that the argument is clear, please correct that sentence, or maybe I'll do it later (just have to think how to say it correctly). Harald88 22:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, Compton scattering technically works fine all the way to a scattering angle of zero (with no energy lost), and actually, by the laws of mechanics, there should be no energy lost if it's not scattered, just as we see. In the case of interacting with air (for example) without scattering, what's happening on a microscopic scale is essentially a photon being absorbed and re-emitted (it's really more of a resonance process), resulting in a transmission delay but no change in the photon itself. If you don't get to it, I'll go over all of this after the holidays and see if I can clean it up a bit.

My textbook confuses "scattering" and "absorption-reemission". IMO, true bouncing at zero angle is no interaction at all, and can't explain refractive index. How can scattering at any other angles happen without energy exchange from the photons to the electrons? And if instead of the keyword scattering one flees to the keyword absorption, bremsstrahlung is to be taken into account. If there is a peer reviewed article that defends the idea that bremsstrahlung can be avoided in a collision, then indeed it might be argued that absorption and reemission can be envisioned to take place without loss of primary photon energy. If anyone here knows of a good review paper that would be great! Harald88 20:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like there is an entire chapter on this subject in Rybicki and Lightman, but alas the book is eluding me at the moment. --ScienceApologist 23:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't push POV but come with sound arguments

Recently two people decided to replace facts by apparent misinformation, without any explanation on this page. A clarification as well as some comments on earlier discussions on this page would be useful to avoid an edit war. Harald88 10:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a more detailed version of my objections:

For the tired light hypothesis to fully explain Hubble's law, it must involve physical processes that are currently unaccounted for. - Tired light does not even partially explain Hubble's law.

Mechanisms for Tired Light have been put forward in several papers (Marmet, Carezani) in which photons lose energy by interacting with electrons and other particles in intergalactic space. - That's scattering, not tired light, and scattering causes blurring, among other things.

One alternative scatter model is claimed to predict Compton scattering with a higher accuracy than the original Compton model. - We don't have to report every claim that someone makes. If there is a significant problem with the accuracy of standard Compton calculations, that should be reported in the Compton scattering article.

According to standard theory, bremsstrahlung is radiated away at any collision with a charged particle such as an electron due to the acceleration, from which one may conclude that a very small energy loss should occur at each interaction. - So what? This statement is useless without any quantification and without any reference to the blurring that would be associated with significant scattering.

Some adherents even claim that such a model is able to explain the magnitude of the Hubble constant as well as the existence of the CMB [1]. - Some significant group of adherents? Or one guy with a web site?

Deleting again. --Art Carlson 11:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My objections were, in more detail:

- The article of Marmet is about absorption and reemission; if I remember well, the one of Carezani is also not really about scattering (please read first before criticizing!)

Absorption and reemission is scattering. This is the way it is handled in detailed radiative transfer. --ScienceApologist 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with ScienceApologist. --Art Carlson 19:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And what does that imply for your rejection of their articles? Show peer reviewed articles that disprove them or even refer to them and disagree, and we have a basis to omit them. Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- confusion between the concept of a redshift mechanism and a proposed explanation of cosmological redshift; your remark that the correctness of Compton theory doesn't matter for this article is obviously wrong, as it was part of the argumentation against tired light models in this article! Nevertheless, your suggestion to add Carezani's article to the Compton article may be a good idea.

Carezani's article has real issues with the scientific content. --ScienceApologist 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I long to see the article on which you base your claim (no original research allowed). Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say it didn't matter (although it doesn't). I said such theories should be dealt with appropriately in the primary article. Once that is done, a link there may be sufficient. --Art Carlson 19:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And sorry to say, but your remark about blurring due to bremsstrahlung sounds like utter nonsense to me.

If you don't believe in bremsstrahlung, that's your problem. Don't impose your beliefs on Wikipedia. --ScienceApologist 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You hereby demonstrated that you did not even look at Marmet's article that you deleted. Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bremsstrahlung, like any sort of scattered light, is emitted in a different direction from the incident radiation. That always causes blurring. --Art Carlson 19:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I did not know that, nor that it would be notably blurred. And so far I don't believe it; please provide a reference. Note however, that that is not directly relevant for the issue if the mechanism exists, or that no such mechanism is known as you claim... despite that we now discuss this mechanism that you make Wikipedia claim that it is not known. So how can we discuss it? Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- my further objection was the resulting scientific fraud by removing any trace of such mechanisms and next stating that no such mechanisms are known. "If the tired light hypothesis were to be true, it must involve currently unkown physical processes" is a downright lie. That goes beyond Wikipedia's NPOV policy. I suppose that you didn't know because you have not read the references.

That isn't a lie. The physical processees outlined by these to cranks are "unknown". --ScienceApologist 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is written by scientists in peer reviewed journals and based on sound physics, can in Wikipedia only be called ünknown" or "cranky" if you can refer to another peer reviewed article that debunks it. IMO. you are currently violating the most basic of Wikipedia requirements. Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now, now, watch your language! (And remember to assume good faith.) We seem to disagree about the plausibility that some known physics can act in some unknown way. I still hold that to be implausible, or at least worthy of the designation "new physics". --Art Carlson 19:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Physics that has been published in a peer reviewd journals a number of years ago, and that has never been rebuked can't be called "new physics" and certainly not be called "unknown", except insofar as people like you try to suppress it from being known! Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thus I will now revert; you may label it "POV".

Please help to clarify the matters in a fair and neutral way.

I trust I have helped clarify matters. I will now make a fair and neutral revert. --Art Carlson 19:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I trust that the result will be a great article that might even surpass the quality of other such articles in journals and textbooks.

I left a referral to a counter opinion about Hubble constant as well as CMB for the simple reason that, as far as I saw, there was no support at all for the claim of the article that "They do not account for the [..] the black body spectrum or anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background". That claim is apparently unsustained and erroneous, but I regard that as "work in progress". If you like, we can remove both that claim and the reference to all non-peer reviewed papers.

Well? What will it be? Harald88 00:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Harald88 13:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Harald, your advocacy of non-standard alternatives isn't based in scientific rationale but rather is based on rather far-flung explanations not currently accepted by any cosmologist. The policy on undue weight in the NPOV section demands that we do not give a platform for such nonsense. Thanks, --ScienceApologist 15:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ScienceApologist, I do not advocate "tired light" as a realistic alternative to Hubble shift -- although I could change my mind one day. Moreover, your continued sabotage on redshift to provide for interested persons an easy to find historical link to a known historical alternative as well as your claim that peer reviewed standard science mechanisms would be "nonsense" can't be considered as anything else but POV pushing. Thus: no thanks! -- reverse and POV dispute marking.

I never said you advocated "tired light", but inclusion of the two papers is not tired light. --ScienceApologist 20:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your new stand is a new argument -- based on what? And I noticed that you "forgot" the POV banner... here an easy link for others to what this dispute is about:[[2]] Harald88 22:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does "tired light" have to involve photons?

The opening sentence at present restricts the notion of tired light to photon theories. Presumably this is what Zwicky discussed, but couldn't one equally consider it for pure wave theories of light? The kind of thing I have in mind is Roberto Monti's hypothesis that the wavelength simply increases gradually in time as the amplitude decreases. No assumption of Compton scattering (or not necessarily) -- just slight dampling -- the kind of thing that happens to a water wave. A possible objection, though, is that with water waves the increase is, I gather, accompanied by an increase in velocity. This does not seem to be observed -- or is it? Caroline Thompson 10:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The velocity of water waves remains the same as it is determined by the medium. "Pure wave theories" of light don't exist anymore for a variety of reasons. Photons can be said to have wavelengths just like any other waveparticle. --ScienceApologist 14:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As waves roll into a beach the velocity changes with depth, so the wavelength changes, too. What cannot change, except with an additional interaction like scattering, is the frequency. This, coupled with the constancy of the speed of light, is the real trouble explaining vacuum redshifts except by Doppler, expansion of space, or time dilation. I tried to point this out in the article, but it may not be clear enough. --Art Carlson 22:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the depth of the water in some sense effectively changes the medium conditions for the water wave. I was under the impression that User:Caroline Thompson was referring to damping surface waves as in a pond of uniform depth where the wavelengths of waves increase as the wave gets further from the source. But now that I think of it, I seem to remember that this is effectively a diffusion effect due to viscosity, so maybe it's not velocity-independent either. Nutz. --ScienceApologist 23:18, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tired light this is not

Removed:

In recent years, new tired light mechanisms have been put forward (Marmet 1988, Carezani 1993), in which photons lose energy by interacting with electrons and other particles in intergalactic space. According to standard theory, bremsstrahlung is radiated away at any collision with a charged particle such as an electron so that a very small energy loss occurs at each interaction, which necessarily results in a redshift.

This isn't tired light, though the advocates have tried to make theoretical comparisons. This is a kind of "scattering" effect that is criticized mostly for other reasons. Tired light is independent of absorption/emission (that is, technically, scattering) processes. It was proposed by Zwicky as a new feature of photons -- truly new physics. These proposals are not of the same variety. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that is right then the article is wrong, see further; but if you are right, the contents of that paragraph belongs in either the Redshift article or in the Redshift mechanisms article. Please back up your claim that "tired light" is not what the "tired light" article defines as such; and next correct its definition to make it only cover what it is, and not what it is not. The article would be largely wrong if you are right, as it now states:

"Tired light is the hypothesis that photons of light slowly lose energy as they travel through space. [...] Various mechanisms to produce such a drop in energy have been proposed. Scattering by known mechanisms from gas or dust does not reproduce the observations. For example, scattering by any mechanism would be expected to blur the images of distant objects, which is not observed."

BTW, that last sentence is unwarranted for the "scattering" process that you removed: it refers to another mechanism.

The initial paper by Zwicky is useful here. The idea proposed is that photons "get tired" not from a stochastic process but rather from an intrinsic property of the light. Nevertheless, people have claimed that scattering processes could do this, and this is discounted in the above paragraph correctly. --ScienceApologist 15:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apologist, you have been nagging to censor this information from this article just as you attempted to hide the whole tired light subject from the redshift article -- unmistakenly in order to make a strong as possible apology for a single POV about Cosmological redshift. This is part of a pattern, contrary to my attempts to help making Wikipedia the most informative and unbiased encyclopedia ever. You are now simultaneously trying to delete an exhaustive list of redshift mechanisms which should be linked to from the Redshift article. If your strategy to censor out a number of known redshift mechanisms from Wikipedia will be successfull, it can only lead to a POV notice on the Redshift article as well. Harald88 07:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not trying to censor any information at all. I just want things covered appropriately in the correct articles. Marmet's ideas could be put on the non-standard cosmology page, for example. They don't belong here. You may need to reread the WP:NPOV guidelines in particular the information regarding pseudoscience and undue weight. Bogging down articles on subjects such as redshift with "alternative" ideas from discredited individuals such as Marmet is not inline with Wikipedia policy. We can cover his ideas well on the appropriate pages devoted either to him or to nonstandard cosmology. --ScienceApologist 15:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 144: / Line 144: @@
 ::''"Tired light is the hypothesis that photons of light slowly lose energy as they travel through space. [...] Various mechanisms to produce such a drop in energy have been proposed. Scattering by known mechanisms from gas or dust does not reproduce the observations. For example, scattering by any mechanism would be expected to blur the images of distant objects, which is not observed."''
 ::BTW, that last sentence is unwarranted for the "scattering" process that you removed: it refers to another mechanism.
+:::The initial paper by Zwicky is useful here. The idea proposed is that photons "get tired" not from a stochastic process but rather from an intrinsic property of the light. Nevertheless, people have claimed that scattering processes could do this, and this is discounted in the above paragraph correctly. --[[User:ScienceApologist|ScienceApologist]] 15:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 ::Apologist, you have been nagging to censor this information from this article just as you attempted to hide the whole tired light subject from the redshift article -- unmistakenly in order to make a strong as possible apology for a single POV about Cosmological redshift. This is part of a pattern, contrary to my attempts to help making Wikipedia the most informative and unbiased encyclopedia ever. You are now simultaneously trying to delete an exhaustive list of redshift mechanisms which should be linked to from the Redshift article. If your strategy to censor out a number of known redshift mechanisms from Wikipedia will be successfull, it can only lead to a POV notice on the Redshift article as well. [[User:Harald88|Harald88]] 07:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
+:::I'm not trying to censor any information at all. I just want things covered appropriately in the correct articles. Marmet's ideas could be put on the [[non-standard cosmology]] page, for example. They don't belong here. You may need to reread the [[WP:NPOV]] guidelines in particular the information regarding pseudoscience and undue weight. Bogging down articles on subjects such as redshift with "alternative" ideas from discredited individuals such as Marmet is not inline with Wikipedia policy. We can cover his ideas well on the appropriate pages devoted either to him or to nonstandard cosmology. --[[User:ScienceApologist|ScienceApologist]] 15:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)