Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereid
Perhaps a simpler question might be: given a perfectly accurate redshift of a galaxy (we'll look at definitions later), which Tifft declares to be not a "monostate", how is a specific redshift period/quantum determined?
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I did an answer to a similar question before I though.
In the simplest case you need a number galaxies in nearly the same direction. Then taking the measured redshifts you perform a type of spectral analysis. The simplest method is to consider a test periodicity such as 72 km/s and to then take the remainders of the redshifts after removing multiples of 72 km/s. If you plot a histogram of the remainders from each galaxy, the null hypothesis is that they will be randomly distributed. If there is a periodicity then they should be heaped up in a smaller region of the range. By varying the test periodicity in small increments and plotting the resulting heaping up, you get a graph that has peaks at the potentially valid periods. These need to be tested for significance.
My description is trying to make clear the idea. There are simpler mathematical ways of doing it, even in a spreadsheet, that give a sensible measure. The result is very similar to a spectrum from either a spectrometer or a spectral analysis like FFT.