Although a majority of astronomers / cosmologists seem to favour a Big Bang model, there is a significant minority that does not accept that redshift is mainly related to cosmological distance and due to expansion of the Universe. This minority includes Arp, Narlikar, the Burbidges and others. And me. ;-)
So it would be sensible to consider a definition of redshift in terms of various components that include both sides and then argue about which components actually exist. We actually observe wavelengths or frequencies of light rather than redshifts, so that the terms generally have the form (1+z) which is the relative wavelength and the various components are multiplicative. By this I mean that if there is a gravitational redshift and a velocity redshift and a cosmological redshift then the three (1+z) components must be multiplied together to get the final (1+z) that is observed. So here is a list of various proposed redshifts and a notation for them:
z_g Gravitational redshift. This is well understood and not disputed at smaller scales although there might be factors that can be debated at large scales in connection with say missing mass and galaxy rotation curves. However this is not in dispute in the current proposal.
z_v Velocity redshift. By this I will mean only local peculiar velocity of motion, not expansion of the Universe. The Doppler equations are known and not disputed by either side.
z_c Cosmological redshift. By this is meant a redshift that is proportional to distance and results from expansion of the universe, or in the alternative model from changes of particle mass over time (Narlikar Variable Mass Hypothesis).
z_i Internal redshift. This has been proposed by Arp as an additional component which is not accepted by big bang cosmology. If z_i can be shown to exist then it undermines standard cosmology because redshift then has an origin that is not due to expansion but some other causes. To be sure that z_i is not zero requires proving the real association in 3D space of objects with very different redshifts that cannot be explained by gravitation or velocity. I suggest that z_i > .01 gets suspicious and z_i > .1 is indisputable proof.
z_o Observed redshift. It is then expressed as:
(1+z_o) = (1+z_g) * (1+z_v) * (1+z_c) * (1+z_i)
To summarize, the above formula would be accepted by both big bang and alternative cosmologies, except that z_c has a different interpretation as to cause and z_i is always 0 in big bang cosmology.
This is a rare case where the big bang has less parameters than alternatives. It is worth mentioning that having more parameters confers an advantage on a theory which has nothing to do with its merits (it can be called "curve fitting"). Therefore it is reasonable that a high standard of proof be required to accept the additional parameter. In particular it would be useful also if the alternative theory had other measured parameters that correlated with z_i so that a reasonable and coherent explanation for its existence is offered.
According to Arp, most galaxies only have small values for z_i and this is certainly required so that scatter diagrams of redshift versus various measures such brightness are found to be decently correlated. For galaxies we might agree that in general, z_g, z_v and z_i are all very small, say <.001 typically and certainly <.01 in the vast majority of cases.
However for quasars the alternative model proposes that z_i may be very large, often of the order of 1 or even more. Quite clearly such differences cannot possibly be accommodated within z_g or z_v and so demonstration of quasars with such deviant internal redshifts would disprove so-called standard cosmology. It is worth mentioning that there are classes of active galaxies that fall between these extremes and might have z_i of >.01 and so be difficult to reconcile with big bang, but this proposal will deal only with the more extreme class referred to as quasars or QSO.
I do not intend to get into what the definition of a quasar is, leaving that entirely to the astronomers. It is not relevant to the arguments offered here. Now to those arguments, and a new proposal that I shall put forward.
On my web site I have
a page which mentions this and I quote from there to give some references: (I will edit out some material)
Quote:
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In his 1978 article in the Astrophysical Journal 223:747-757, "The Nature of QSO Redshifts", Alan Stockton demonstrated that some quasars are at the same distance as galaxies with the same redshift. This is a very important result and the method will be described below. He then argued, not very convincingly, that there was no reason to believe in two types of quasars and so all quasars were at cosmological distances.
The method is based on expected statistics concerning objects that share a common line of sight. If two objects are close in the sky, we have no definite way of knowing whether they are near to each other or just in the same direction. If they have the same redshift as well as the same direction, then by far the most reasonable conclusion is that they are at very near the same distance. But for different redshifts it is an act of faith that redshift measures distance accurately.
For galaxies, we know that redshift does measure distance reasonably accurately most of the time, and so it is a good working basis. We know this because for galaxies we have other ways of measuring their distance, and many different ways give similar results. It is not my intention to survey these methods. However, although galaxy redshift is closely related to brightness of galaxies the same is not true for quasars. The graph of brightness versus redshift for quasars has many times as much scatter as it does for galaxies. This is another argument for redshifts for quasars being unreliable as a distance indicator, but instead it is taken as evidence that quasars have enormous range of brightness. Well, it is possible, but if some method could get a less scattered diagram for quasars it would be a big advance.
So what Stockton did, was to look at quasars and galaxies which were very close in the sky. He found that in such pairs there were quite a few which had very nearly the same redshift. If quasar redshifts were not cosmological this should not happen. Therefore any logical person must accept that some quasars are at the cosmological distance of their redshift. For the other close pairs he did not look further but accepted them as coincidental line of sight pairs, actually quite unrelated in distance.
In 1990, the Astrophysical Journal supplement series published "Associations between Quasi-stellar Objects and Galaxies" by G Burbidge, A Hewitt, J V Narlikar and P Das Gupta. They did the same sort of thing as Stockton, but in the intervening 12 years the sky had been considerably better surveyed for quasars and galaxies. They found many more such close pairs. They also looked at another aspect of the data that had not been examined by Stockton. That was because they believed that the big bang was wrong.
In close line of sight pairs which had very different redshifts, they looked for a way to detect that the two objects really were at the same distance. If quasars are actually ejected by galaxies as Halton Arp has argued, then there might be a typical distance apart that they tend to lie. That distance might be about the same as the distance of the Magellanic clouds from the Milky Way because Arp had identified many such arrangements in the sky. However, if the two objects are really together and not just sharing a line of sight, then if they are at a roughly constant distance, they will appear closer if the are far away and further apart if they are closer. This is simply a matter of perspective.
So they looked at the non-matching redshifts, both for Stockton's sample and also for the much bigger sample that they collected from various sources. Here are the results:
The results are quite clear. Both samples, Stockton's in 3a {above} and their own data in 3b {below} show that the further away the galaxy is, the less is the line of sight separation. Close galaxies have greater apparent distance of quasars, far away galaxies have nearer apparent distance of quasars. This is in perfect agreement with the results expected if these galaxies and these quasars are really physically associated and the quasar redshifts are therefore a very unreliable measure of distance. There is no other reasonable explanation. If the objects at different redshifts really are at vastly different distances, then there is absolutely no reason why there separations should vary over four orders of magnitude in step with the distance of only one of the objects, the galaxy.
These two diagrams have been added 28-May-2005, because it was clear that people really didn't get the point. Above the situation where quasar redshifts are unreliable, and they really are near to the galaxies that they are seen to be in the same direction as. In that case there is a good explanation for the variation of angle with the distance of the galaxy. In this case we can also deduce that quasars form at a typical distance of 50,000 parsecs from galaxies. This situation fits the observations very well. It also fits the descriptions given by Halton Arp over the last several decades.
Below is the situation that must exist if the redshift is a reliable measure of distance for quasars as well as galaxies. All the apparent pairs are produced by line of sight coincidences. In that case there is no reason why the angle of separation should depend in any way on the galaxy or the quasar. It is just a chance event depending on the exact direction that we look from. This is the situation that must exist if the big bang theory is correct and redshift is related to distance. It does not agree with the observations. Therefore we can safely say that the theory should be abandoned. Redshift is unrelated to distance for many quasars. The big bang is bung.
I have noticed one more thing in the diagram of separation versus redshift which was not mentioned in the article. Another thing that would be expected if the quasars are physically associated with these galaxies is that at low redshifts the random velocity component (as distinct from any Hubble expansion) of the galaxy relative to us makes up a large percentage of the redshift, whereas at high redshift for the galaxy, the random motion is negligible. Therefore, the scatter of the redshift should be greater for pairs that are near to us. This is easily seen in the diagrams, but to make it even clearer I have marked a point at redshift 0.01 and angular separation 200" where a sudden change occurs - the redshifts at higher separations (meaning they are closer) has much more scatter than at the larger distances. These values correspond to a distance of around 40 megaparsecs and a separation of about 40,000 parsecs. The actual average separation would be more like 50,000 parsecs because sometimes we see the pair at an angle. That is just about the same distance as the LMC (large magellanic cloud) from our galaxy. Also, the 0.01 redshift is 3000 km/s, which is not unreasonable for the typical real velocity of a galaxy. It means that at a Hubble redshift of 0.005, the random component will cause the much wider spread seen in the diagram.
These results prove conclusively that although some quasars are at the distance implied by their redshifts, others are at very much smaller distances. The scale of quasar distances used by big bang believers is totally destroyed. The other peculiar results are now made easy to explain. Some quasars appear to move very fast because they are very near to us. The wide variation in quasar brightness relative to distance is purely the result of erroneous distance assumption. The apparent physical associations observed by Arp are no longer in need of dismissal as weird. The redshift is not a thoroughly reliable measure. Even for galaxies there is evidence of redshift not being reliable. Once the rule is broken, everything is up for questioning again.
If some redshifts are not just related to Hubble flow, then we need a new theory that explains what these redshifts mean. The only theory that fits the known facts is a variable particle mass theory.
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What do big bang believers say about this? I would like to know.
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This proposal is that there exists demonstrable real associations between galaxies and quasars that are at very different redshifts. That alone disproves the cosmological nature of quasar redshifts and totally undermines all the interpretations of the big bang.
In addition I propose a new test that will make this even clearer. The new test is to look at samples of quasars and galaxies that have very different redshifts (say > .01) and are very nearby in the sky (specifically that they are unlikely to be chance associations by statistical arguments) and to test the two models by the following procedure.
Make a scatter diagram of galaxy redshift versus quasar brightness.
Just to make it perfectly clear, the things being plotted are taken one from the quasar and one from the galaxy.
Consider the expected outcomes if each of the rival theories is correct.
Big Bang: If the galaxy and quasar are really at very different distances and not really associated with each other in space, then there is absolutely no real relationship between the galaxy redshift and the quasar brightness. The result should be that objects will be scattered over a rectangle with zero correlation coefficient.
Alternative: If the quasars really are associated with much closer by galaxies then the galaxy redshift is a better measure of the quasar true distance than the quasar redshift is. This means that the scatter diagram should be tighter than the scatter diagram of quasar brightness versus quasar redshift.
If either of these results happens then it is a very clear proof of that theory as regards the redshifts of quasars. There are other possible outcomes (intermediate correlations) which would indicate that both theories are wrong.
Would astronomers agree that this proposal is a valid test and a very clear result should be obtainable?
Would they agree that if the alternative outcome above is found then it does disprove the big bang?