The purpose of this thread is to discuss BAUT member lyndonashmore's ATM idea concerning H (the Hubble constant).

This idea, and related ones, were the topic of several threads* in BAUT's predecessor, the Bad Astronomy forum; readers of this post may wish to read some of those threads. There are also two threads in BAUT which may be of some interest, here and here.

Given the long history of this ATM idea, in BAUT and its predecessor, the rules for this thread will be a little tighter than those covering BAUT in general and this ATM section specifically.

First, unless lyndonashmore expands the scope, explicitly or implicitly, in what he posts, this thread will stay focussed on lyndonashmore's ATM idea concerning H. Other BAUT members are welcome to ask questions about, and challenge, this idea, as presented by lyndonashmore, in this thread.

Second, if lyndonashmore does expand the scope of this thread, discussion will remain focussed within that expanded scope, and will not revert to the status quo ante.

Third, discussion will begin after lyndonashmore has made an initial post to this thread. He may choose to present a case for his idea, or introduce material on another website (or both).

*list of threads: one, two, three.

Thanks Nereid,

poster 'nutant gene 71' brought the following link to our attention:

Big bang pushed back two billion years

In this link, the latest estimate of the age of the universe is 15.8 billion years – which is 4.98x10^17 seconds.

Now, pick up your calculator, and call up three constants. The mass, m and classical radius, r of the electron as well as the Planck constant, h. Calculate m/hr and one gets 4.88x10^17 – the same magnitude as the age of the universe! (We will sort the units out later). Ashmore's paradox

Now if any schoolchild can pick up their calculator, call up three constants and find the age of the universe – a feat that has taken teams of scientists tens of years to perfect, then I propose that there is something drastically wrong with the expanding universe idea. Especially as the electron and the Planck constant are closely related to the way light interacts with matter.

In my theory, redshift is caused by light interacting with electons as they travel along. That is photons of light, as they travel along, are absorbed and reemitted by the electrons in space.

On absorpton and reemission the electrons recoil.

Some of the energy of the photon is transferred to the recoiling electron.

If the energy of the photon is less its frequency is less.

If the frequency is less, the wavelength is longer.

The photon has been redshifted.

I show that this leads to a relationship for the Hubble constant of H = 2nhr/m where ‘n’ is the number of electrons per cubic metre of space.

This paper is one of many that give values of ‘n’ for intergalactic space as approxmately 1 electron per cubic metre (They firstly say 1 to 10 but then go on to use n = 1 in all their calculations).

When n = 1, my predicted value of H is 4x10^-18 s^-1 or 120 km/s per Mpc. This compares well with observed values of around 70 km/s per Mpc.

Furthermore, in the BB, the age of the universe is 1/H. Using my expression for H gives the age of the universe as (1/2n)x(m/hr) and so one can see very clearly why we have the coincidence of the age of the universe and our schoolchild calculation of (m/hr) illustrated above - it just means that n has a value of 0.5.

Who needs expansion?

Any questions?

Cheers,
Lyndon

What's there to discuss?

Lyndon simply rehashed the same old arguments that have been long debunked.
There is absolutely nothing new. Just follow the links given by Nereid.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

lyndonashmore,

I've been meaning to discuss this idea with you, but I wanted to read up on your posts first. It seems you have quite a few. I agree with most all of the ideas you present, but I am having a problem with your determination of H.

It seems that you feel that since a close approximation to the value of H can be found using values related to the electron, that electrons are the culprits for tired light. I disagree. Many values are related to electrons in one way or another. The value of h, for instance, which is used as the constant to relate the frequency of light to its energy can be found as h=2pim_ev_er_H, where we are using the mass of the electron and average velocity in a hydrogen atom of ca, where a is the alpha constant. r_H is the radius of a hydrogen atom. It can also be found as 2pim_ecr_e/a, where r_e is the classical electron radius. Since the electric constant (k_eq²) is also related to the electron (k_eq²=m_ev_e²r_H=m_ec²r_e), h can also be expressed as h=2pi(k_eq²)/ac.

It seems to me that electrons would be too large to simply absorb the frequencies of light little by little. I believe they would instead absorb entire photons, which may reduce the overall intensity, but not the individual frequencies over a distance. This would require something much smaller than the wavelengths of the light. On my website, I consider it to be neutrinos, and come up with a value for H of (3/5a)G(m_ec)³/(k_eq²)²=2.099354*10^-18 sec^-1 accordingly. It is not near as graceful or simple as yours, I know, but it follows from the initial determinations of the paper.

I actually thought I might be the first to come up with the realization that light loses energy according to its total energy at any given time, so it would decrease as 1-1/[e^(Hd/c)]. Apparently, you found this too. It was the first thing that caught my attention about your posts. But you seem to be missing a very important part of the meaning behind that formula (according to what I have read of your posts so far). The redshift to distance relationship for very distant galaxies has been found to be greater than it should be for an expanding universe. In other words, the expansion is accelerating. So far, no good reason has been found why this should be occurring, although I'm sure in time many theories will arise such as with reconsidering the cosmological constant. But don't you see? This is precisely what the tired light theory predicts, which gives it an edge over Big Bang cosmology. Since the redshift to distance formula is not linear after all, but is instead z=1-1/[e^(Hd/c)], it would cause the apparent redshift of very far away galaxies to seem to be moving away faster than they should be, hence the appearance of an accelerating expansion.

__________________
Let's put together the pieces of The Grand Puzzle . (website - now revised)

"Let's define another operator, Sz, which we won't pay any attention to."
"This transformation will automatically make zero equal zero."
"It may be true that zero equals zero -- and that is certainly an equality -- but I don't want to go into the details at this time."

Hi grav,
Coincidences in science are always interesting and should always be looked at seriously to ensure that they really are concidences and that there really is no relatonship between them.
Remember, Weber and Kirchoff? They both independently measured the speed of electrical signals down a wire and got the speed of light. They both thought it was a coincidence and left it to Maxwell to make the connection!


The reason I believe it is electrons is that this is how photons of light travel through transparent materials - by being constantly absorbed and reemitted by the electrons in the material. I simply applied the Physics of transparent materials to space and the whole thing dropped out (it was only then that I noticed the coincidence between H and hr/m for the electron). In any case, the electrons do absorb the whole photon and then they reemit a new photon similar to the first but, in space, with a little less energy due to the recoiling electron.

Sounds interesting. Why not post it as a separate thread for us all to discuss it in depth?
Thanks for the compliment. When a theory is "smple and graceful it is usually correct!"


Sorry to be the one to disappoint you but the whole idea of light losing energy as it travels along was first proposed by Fritz Zwicky in 1929! He also got the exponential form of the formula too. In Hubble's Biography, it is said the he first proposed the idea at a weekly meeting in Hubble's front room - and from that point on Hubble refused to call redshifts velocities anymore. "Redshift is what we measure and redshifts is what I will call them!"
Sorry, I never have missed this point. It is very important that my theory matches experimental results better than the BB.
Cheers,
Lyndon

There's nothing to sort out. This little parlor-trick of yours with the calculator ONLY WORKS WHEN YOU USE SI UNITS!
Any schoolchild should also be able to pick up a calculator, convert the values of the three constants to some other system of units, say pounds, furlongs and fortnights, and show that the resulting numbers ARE NOT THE SAME.

Only the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster knows why you continue to trumpet this so-called "Ashmore's Paradox" as some sort of great discovery despite the fact that it is based on a bit of carelessness with units that would make a first-year physics student fail a test.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Hi Celestial Mechanic,
Which part of:
age of Universe = (1/2n)(m/hr) is careless in units?

That is not how you wrote it in your earlier quote. Let me refresh your memory.
There is no mention of (1/2n) anywhere. Nor was there in your original statements of your "paradox" when you first started posting here. Only after we pounded you repeatedly for your sloppy treatment of units did you finally bring in 2n. Your work is sloppy and amateurish.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Hi Celestial Mechanic,
Here is an exerpt from my earlier post
The (1/2n) is there plain for all to see.

Not true, is it?

What CM said.

You haven't bothered to discuss units yet, which is a big no-no, IMO. You need units of volume to get the age seconds. Does electron density work for this? Maybe. Only if one value out of a big range is correct. And why the magical factor of 2? What physical evidence gives you that value for that constant? None that I've seen (it fits isn't physical evidence, it's shoehorning).

No, it doesn't. In the last paragraph of Sect. 3.1, they quote n_e = 10^-6cm^-3 - 10^-5cm^-3 = 1m^-3 - 0.1m^-3 in intergalactic space. However, in intragalactic space, densities can get up to 10^-3cm^-3 - 1cm^-3. That's 1000m^-3 as a lower limit to the maximum. The fact that they use n_e = 10^-6cm^-3 as their value for intergalactic space is likely because it is the lower limit.

However, the real point I want to make here is that your "theory" gets killed by the interstellar densities, which are orders of magnitudes above unity in SI. That ruins your m/hr "paradox." There is also the fact that there should be significant anisotropies in our measured redshifts if depending on where we look at them through the galaxy. I'm strongly under the impression that we do not see this happen. What is your rebuttal to these statements?

Let's not dismiss this out of hand. Lyndon, what electron density is required to validate your model?

What you believe is wrong.

Let me repeat for the benefit of the people that have not read the other threads.

In (transparent) materials the electrons are bound to positive charges (the nuclei of the atoms), which means that an electron has some potential energy in the field produced by the positive charge. When an EM wave comes along, it is possible that the electron gets energy from it to go to a higher potential. This is what it really means when we say that an electron has absorbed a photon (a quantum of energy of the EM wave). The energy of the absorbed photon is "stored" in the increased potential energy of the electron in the EM filed of the positive charge.

If an electron is alone, with no positive charges nearby - as in interstellar/-galactic plasma -, and an EM wave comes along, there is no potential energy where the energy of an absorbed photon can be stored. The only energy an electron can change is its kinetic energy. This is known as Compton scattering, and if you work out the formulas, you can see that it does not yield the red-shift needed in Lyndon's "theory" (for example, if the scattered photon moves in the same direction of the original photon, it has the same energy).

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Please read the threads linked in Nereid's OP. You will see that there have been plenty of discussions about Lyndon's ideas.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Yes, H = 2nhr/m is correct in units and is true in any system of units you care to use. they both have dimensions of 1/(time).
However, the theory is consistent with published values of 'n'.
Again this comes from published results of the phtoabsorpton cross section for an electron absorbing a photon (f = 1 for a reemitted photon)


how do you know this? (Bolding is mine)

When the densities of the plasma gets too high, the electrons don't recoil (as they don't in dense solids such as glass) so there is little to no redshift here.
Lastly, plasma densities may vary from place to place but we only get galaxes in the Hubble flow when they are a long way off. Any variations in densities are random and cancel out to give even redshfts (remember, n is an average density).
So, sorry, the theory still lives.
cheers,
lyndon

P.S. I think you are using plasma between galaxies in a cluster (ICM?) rather rather than that in the vast voids between them(IGM?) - the ones we want. Some of the high values you quote look like those in the Virgo cluster.
cheers,
Lyndon

Thanks Thanatos
It's not a case of what density is 'required', I am just saying that using published values, the result H = 2nhr/m is consistent with observation.
Cheers,
Lyndon

Now Papageno,
We all know that electrons in a plasma are not free. Long range forces act.
It's late here and I am still working so I will return to this again. However, as a taster,
Cheers,
Lyndon
P.S. Like the photo.

That's true. But do you have an explanation for why this should work out? That is, by what process does the formula itself arise?

It may very well be that the frequency of light is intimately related to electrons. That can be seen in the determination of Planck's constant itself. However, that would probably simply be because electrons are the ones that emit them. The energy would match that of the electron itself (or the difference between energy levels). It may be polarized because the electron might travel in regular orbits along a plane with the nucleus, whereby the transmission of energy from the nucleus is "absorbed" by the electron at regular intervals, creating a spiral of energy that moves away from atoms with regular pulses that match that of the electron itself, or something of that nature.

I am an avid believer in the tired light theory. It seems to relate many things together all at once. But I am having trouble understanding how you relate the redshift of light to that of transparent materials. For one thing, this would require a refractive index. Light slows down in materials with a high refractive index, but I don't see what this has to do with redshift. True, either the frequency or wavelength or both must decrease, whereby wf=c/n, but it would do so upon impact, not across the distance travelled, as with tired light. As far as I know, the frequency before light enters a refractive medium is the same after, so even if the frequency lessened with distance within the medium, it must somehow immediately regain it upon leaving.

Also, if the electrons (including free ones in space) were to absorb light and then re-emit it, then the electron must be absolutely stationary in order to emit the light in exactly the same place at exactly the same angle. In other words, if the electron were to move at all, the angle of the light will change. This is not what happens in air, water, glass, or free space (as far as I know). Since free electrons are constantly moving in every which direction, it would seem they should simply scatter the light, not refract it. I suppose a counter argument to this might be that electrons immediately re-emit the light in its same original direction, with instant absorption/emission time in between, but if this is the case, it would not explain, then, why light travels slower through a refractive medium, which is what the idea of redshift by electrons seems to be based on to begin with.


That is my philosophy as well. But my value is originally based on a simple theory for gravity, and the rest just fell into place. Sometimes even the most complex formulas are derived by the simplest means.



Actually, I wasn't referring to your theory so much as I was the relationship, z=1-1/[e^(Hd/c)], which should be true for any value of H. This function deviates from the standard linear velocity/distance relationship, and would make the expansion of the universe appear to accelerate if one were to apply the meaning of the redshift to a pure velocity of galaxies away from each other.

__________________
Let's put together the pieces of The Grand Puzzle . (website - now revised)

"Let's define another operator, Sz, which we won't pay any attention to."
"This transformation will automatically make zero equal zero."
"It may be true that zero equals zero -- and that is certainly an equality -- but I don't want to go into the details at this time."

What makes you think that visible light can excite long-range oscillations in a plasma where the particles are one meter apart on the average?

But let's look at the numbers.

Compton effect in atoms: the electon and the proton are at an average distance of ~0.05 nm; wavelength of X-rays is ~0.05 nm. The energy of the X-ray is ~25 keV, while the potential energy of the electron bound to the nucleus is ~10 eV.

In an interstellar plasma, an electron and a proton are at an average distance of ~0.5 m. Light has a wavelength of ~5 x 10^-7 m. The photon energy is ~2.5 eV, the potential energy ~10^-19 eV. EDIT: typo! The last figure should be ~10^-10 eV.

X-rays have a wavelength of the order of the size of an atom, and are able to resolve the electrons and the nucleus. The result is that Compton scattering (free electron-photon scattering) is not negligible.

Light has a wavelength six orders of magnitude smaller than the average separation between electrons and protons in the interstellar plasma.
What makes you think that the electron-photon scattering in this case will be something else than Compton?

So can any other EM wave if its frequency is high enough. And visible light has a frequency far higher than the plasma frequency of interstellar plasma. It can go through as if the plasma was not even there.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

I'm using what you're using. I read that paper you cited for your value of n, and what I said came from that.

Hi grav
When light travels through a transparent material, it does so by being absorbed and reemitted by the electrons in that material (with a little help from the rest of the atom). Since the atoms etc are fixed in a solid they cannot recoil on absorption or reemission. Hence there is no redshift. The average speed is reduced due to the delays suffered between absorption and reemission (the speed between aoms is still 'c').
In IG plasma, the elctrons are still surrounded by positive charges and the whole is often treated as containing 'average atoms'. The electrons can still oscillate and so can stll absorb and reemit photons. However, they are not held firmly in place by a solid, they can recoil. Since some of the photon energy has gone to the recoilng electron, the new photon emitted has less energy than the old one. Less energy means a lower frequency and longer wavelength (redshifted). Every time a photon interacts with an electron in this way it undergoes an increase in wavelength of hm/c.
The Hubble relatonship just means that photons from a galaxy twice as far away, travel twice as far through IG space, make twice as many collsions and thus undergo twice the redshift. Simple!


Isn't the relatonship z = exp(Hd/c) - 1?
Cheers,
Lyndon

Hi Tobn Dax,
Thats OK then.

The higher values you quote are for Interstellar regons (just above eqn 6, bottom page 9).
On page one it tells us that the largescale structure of the universe consists of 1) thin sheets containing the galaxies and clusters 2) large voids between them.

It is in these large voids that n = 1 electron per metre cubed and it is here that we get the redshift distance relation.
Try the intergalactic medium has a density of only 10–6 particles per cubic centimeter—each atom inhabits a private box a meter on each side remembering that the atoms in IGM are all ionized.

As stated earlier, the denser the plasma the less the electrons recoil and since these areas are relatively thin we won't get much redshift. However, I believe that there will be some redshift and it is this that leads to the intrinsic redshifts (K Trumpler effect etc). Any contribution to redshift from plasma in a galaxy cluster would just add to the "fingers of God effect".
Cheers,
Lyndon

Hi Papageno,
Thank you for sharing with us your private and personal thoughts on this matter.
I use referenced material and the cross-section for an electron absorbing a photon is 2rλ where r is the radius of the electron and λ the wavelength of the photon. to get the cross-section for the whole atom one adds up the cross sections for the electrons in the atom.
If you say it is impossible for an electron in a plasma to absorb a photon then please back up your statements with referenced material and share those with us.
Cheers,
Lyndon

The electrons in an atom are bound to a positive charge many orders of magnitude stronger than the electrons in interstellar plasma.
You cannot compare the potential produced by the nucleus at ~0.5 nm distance, with the potential produced by a proton at ~0.5 m distance.


Strawman and appeal to authority.
I did not make general statements about electron-photon interaction, but examined the specific situation that occurs in your theory.

I explained, giving actual numbers, why electrons in interstellar space are too weakly bound to the protons of the plasma. I provided a real-life example of Compton scattering of X-rays in atoms (actually, solid state physics, if you look into Compton's Nobel lecture). And I showed that the photon energy/electron potential energy ratio for Compton scattering of X-rays in condensed matter is orders of magnitude lower that the same ratio for light in interstellar plasma.

The material used is the known properties of atoms (Bohr radius for OOM estimates, inverse-square law of Coulomb interaction, experimental Compton scattering, wavelength of light and X-ray) and the densities figures you use.

So, how about explaining specifically what I did wrong?

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

That's what I said.

Hi Papageno,
You didn't do anything wrong, you just didn't do anything!

I gave you referenced material as to what the interacton cross section should be.
You ignored it.

Nowhere in your soliloquy did you come to any conclusion as to why myself and the referenced material is wrong.
When it comes to references or proof,
I have shown you mine, now you show me yours.

Either bring your numbers to a firm conclusion as to why electrons in plasma cannot absorb and reemit photons or come up with referenced material.

Not too much to ask is it?
Cheers,
Lyndon

Good, so you agree with the theory?
Cheers,
lyndon

Read again.
I explained my point by providing OOM estimates and pointing to real-life examples.


I read it, and I explained that your reference is misapplied (photoabsorption of atoms cannot be applied to interstellar plasma).
It is up to you to prove that your reference can be applied.
So, show us the numbers and the reasoning that lead you to the conclusion that light in interstellar plasma interacts mainly by atomic photoabsorption.


You are wrong because you are misapplying the reference.


You have no textbooks whatsoever about quantum mechanics?
You cannot type "Compton scattering" into Google?


Strawman, again:
Stop misrepresenting my position.

And my conclusions were pretty firm already:
If photon energy/electron potential energy ~ 10³ is enough to yield Compton scattering in condensed matter, photon energy/electron potential energy ~ 10¹⁰ is enough to yield Compton scattering in interstellar plasma (provided that the light actually hits the electron).


Where did you show that your reference about photoabsorption in atoms can be applied to interstellar plasma?
Where did you show that ordinary refraction mechanisms can be applied to interstellar plasma?

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Where did I imply that? Are you paying attention to what I'm responding to?

Oh, and being as I haven't replied to the following yet, I will.
(my snip)
How do I know it's likely they did that? It's an educated guess. Given a range of values, often in literature a lower limit, upper limit, or convenient value is chosen to be used for calculations. Their value could fit two of those options at once. Please note that just because a value is used in calculations, that is not necessarily an endorsement for that value.

(sigh) Here we go again.

Lyndon, you have arm waved about units in this and previous threads. I will ask you again, please do a dimensional anlaysis.

__________________
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov