Hey, who doesn't spend part of every passing day pondering what appears in the non-specialist media about the most pressing issues, like the fundamental nature of the universe and the scientific foundations of reality? Never mind, I probably don't want that answered. But until yesterday, I thought that the Big Bang theory, which postulates a universe that is finite or bounded in space and in time was all alone in first place--like 13 games ahead of whatever's in second place with only 14 more games in the regular season (so to speak.) I didn't even know what to call whatever's in second place in the Central Cosmology Division pennant race. But now I do. As of yesterday.

It's the Tired Light theory, or in its more recent incarnations, the New Tired Light theory.

This is "your" theory, if you would prefer to believe that the universe is both infinite and eternal--not bounded by any measure of time or space. A universe that has always been and always will be. A universe that is not expanding in every direction with the alacrity of a "bat out of hell." A Steady State universe, to invoke a phrase that I thought had all but disappeared from the conversations of scientists.

I might not even be posting this, except that I've seen previous messages from people here that were animated in their skepticism about the Big Bang theory--one member in particular that I'm thinking of, hasn't posted very often, lately--so I might catch that person's eye with this.

This is a reader's comment from one Roy Lofquist, dated only yesterday, which I reproduce in its entirety:

quote There are two assumptions that underpin moden cosmology that are in question due to recent observations: the expansion of the universe and that gravity is the dominant force. That the Universe is expanding is based on the premise that the Hubble Red Shift is due to a Doppler effect recessional velocity. When Hubble published his observations of red shifted light from distant objects there were two possible explanations that came to the fore. One, originated by Georges Lemaitre, was that the Universe was expanding. The other, from Fritz Zwicky, was that light lost energy as it traveled, termed "tired light". At that time, ca. 1930, interstellar and intergalactic space were assumed to be perfect vacuums, and thus there was no mechanism to redden the light. Now, 90 years later, we have actual observational evidence that Zwicky was right. In the radio astronomy of Pulsars we find that the shorter wavelengths of the leading edge of the pulse arrive before longer wavelengths. The velocity of light, c, is NOT constant but varies by wavelength. The implication is that the interstellar medium is not a vacuum but rather affects light waves in a way best described as having an Index of Refraction greater then 1, unity. We find the same phenomenon in the observation of Fast Radio Bursts from other galaxies, thus indicating that the intergalactic media is not an electromagnetic vacuum. The distance to these pulsars can be computed from the time dispersion by a formula that is algebraically identical to the one used to compute the distance to distant objects by red shift. This implies that the Hubble red shift is the result of the light traversing a distance through a medium denser than Eintein's "in vaccuo" rather than a recessional velocity. The second questionable assumption is that gravity is the dominant force in the universe, this despite the fact that electromagnetism is 36 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. Electromagnetism was thought to be a strictly local phenomenon, effective only near stars and planetary bodies. Since that time we have discovered the Solar Wind (Russian Luna 7, 1959); interstellar magnetic fields (Voyager 1, 2012, and Voyager 2); galactic magnetic fields; and magnetic fields BETWEEN galaxies. Magnetic fields manifest only in conjunction with electrical currents. That we have detected magnetic fields between galaxies means that vast electrical currents permeate the universe and the potential differences (voltages) are--can we say it?--astronomical.

Roy Lofquist's commentary was in response to this:

"Escaping cosmology’s failing paradigm"

quote Why we may be radically wrong about the universe’s size and expansion

Bjørn Ekeberg and Louis Marmet for IAI (Institute of Art and Ideas) News; November 4, 2021.
https://iai.tv/articles/esc...auid-1964?_auid=2020


It's an article that posits that confirmation bias may have created a Big Bang orthodoxy among cosmologists that suffers from the fallacy of circular reasoning.

There's plenty of "stuff" like this online, which I just discovered by using "Tired Light" as a search engine target.

Here's one that's "Straight Outta Compton." Compton scattering, that is.

quote Because it is consistent with many astronomical phenomena and successfully predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) and cosmic abundance, the theory of universe expansion has been widely recognized by the scientific community. Hubble's law is the foundation of universe expansion theory, but 100 years of observations have shown that Hubble parameters are not constants, and with the improvement of Hubble parameter measurement accuracy, the problem of inconsistent Hubble parameters obtained by different star types and different methods has become more and more difficult to solve. So the cosmological redshift may not only be related to distance but also to other factors, and the universe may not be really expanding. The Compton effect of free electrons and low energy photons has been observed in the laboratory. Photons interact with a large number of free electrons on their way to us from a distant source (free electron Compton scattering FEC). FEC causes photons (plane electromagnetic waves) to redshift, and the photon beam to expand along the propagation direction, these produce the illusion of cosmic expansion . . .

"The illusion of cosmic expansion . . ." Right there, at the end of that paragraph.

"Free electron Compton scattering produces the illusion of the universe expansion"
GuanFeng Cheng for Research Square (online);
https://assets.researchsqua...ped.pdf?c=1614185109

"This is a preprint, a preliminary version of a manuscript that has not completed peer review at a journal."

Looks to be of very recent provenance, so not enough time has passed for this research to grow "tired."

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PUZZLE THIS OUT, WHY DON'CHA ..?




The article is more readable. I'm not going to Read-o-Meter it, but it's in the several minutes range. But not a "monster."

"What Is Spacetime Really Made Of?"

quote Spacetime may emerge from a more fundamental reality. Figuring out how could unlock the most urgent goal in physics—a quantum theory of gravity

Adam Becker for Scientific American; February 1, 2022.
https://www.scientificameri...time-really-made-of/


Free America is free to ponder it. Smart America likes it, but with only a very few exceptions, doesn't pretend to understand it.Just(ice) America says it doesn't change anything. And Real America shrugs its collective shoulders and says "Really?"

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