Galaxy-Quasar associations as a test for alternative cosmologies

rtomes · #1 (**permalink**) 10-March-2008, 11:24 PM

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:

...
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.
...
What do big bang believers say about this? I would like to know.
...

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?

Jim · #2 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 12:53 AM

We already have an extremely lengthy thread discussing Arp's concepts including bridged pairs. More from Arp et al.

There is even an index to that thread. Index to the Arp Thread

Please state explicitly what is new in this thread that has not already been covered in that one. Please do this before continuing with this new thread.

dgruss23 · #3 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

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?

I'm not sure that it would be that simple. The deeper surveys have dramatically expanded the number of quasars at fainter redshifts. Even in some of Arp's more recent papers you find he has to apply magnitude cuts to identify the quasars he argues are associated with local galaxies. You also have to deal with the fact that in Arp's model, quasar luminosity increases as redshift decreases, so quasars at the same distance of a local galaxy would still have a range of magnitudes - perhaps too much scatter for deciding between the models as you've proposed.

But it wouldn't hurt to investigate it and see what you find. You also should look at a paper published in ApJ Letter last year by Morley Bell which contrasts the quasars - which don't seem to show much of a magnitude redshift relation, with radio galaxies - which do show a fairly tight magnitude redshift relation.

Quote:

Would they agree that if the alternative outcome above is found then it does disprove the big bang?

Quote:

You should also keep in mind that if quasars were shown to be local, that could be interpreted such that the universe expands and there is an underlying Hubble law upon which the quasar intrinsic redshifts would be superposed. So, I'd argue that the answer is "no" - even if there was compelling proof that quasars are local, the Big Bang theory could still be valid.

rtomes · #4 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim

We already have an extremely lengthy thread discussing Arp's concepts including bridged pairs. More from Arp et al.

There is even an index to that thread. Index to the Arp Thread

Please state explicitly what is new in this thread that has not already been covered in that one. Please do this before continuing with this new thread.

Hi Jim. What is new is just looking at one theme, galaxy-quasar associations, and a new proposal to make a test that should have an extremely clear result either in favour of the big bang or the alternative proposal of Arp. I don't think that anyone has ever thought of this proposal before. Specifically, to test galaxy redshift against a nearby quasar's brightness to see if it correlates. Regards, Ray

rtomes · #5 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgruss23

I'm not sure that it would be that simple. The deeper surveys have dramatically expanded the number of quasars at fainter redshifts. Even in some of Arp's more recent papers you find he has to apply magnitude cuts to identify the quasars he argues are associated with local galaxies. You also have to deal with the fact that in Arp's model, quasar luminosity increases as redshift decreases, so quasars at the same distance of a local galaxy would still have a range of magnitudes - perhaps too much scatter for deciding between the models as you've proposed.

Yes, it is true that even in the Arp model there will be genuine line of sight apparent associations just as in the big bang model. There need to be measures taken in advance to address this sensibly. In particular, it seems that true associated quasars are at a spacing of the order of 50 kPc from galaxies in the alternative case. This is a reasonable basis for selection to see if it makes the scatter less of redshift versus brightness.

If a suitable survey is used, then the probable number of line of sight pairs can be computed from statistics. If the number found is much greater than that then it already favours Arp. Furthermore, in the alternative analysis, the scatter diagram should show two logical groups, the true associations and the line of sight ones. The true associations should be on a relatively tight line compared to the random line of sight ones.

By reducing the angular separation that is considered a pair, the result should move gradually from a mixture with more random associations to more real associations, thus making the scatter diagram tighter. These are all additional components of the test that make the result clearer.

Quote:

But it wouldn't hurt to investigate it and see what you find. You also should look at a paper published in ApJ Letter last year by Morley Bell which contrasts the quasars - which don't seem to show much of a magnitude redshift relation, with radio galaxies - which do show a fairly tight magnitude redshift relation.

If there can be found a way to make quasars have a tighter relationship then it must be that it is getting to something more fundamental. Logically, various other attributes can then be developed from quasar measurements to work out accurate indicators of true internal brightness.

Quote:

You should also keep in mind that if quasars were shown to be local, that could be interpreted such that the universe expands and there is an underlying Hubble law upon which the quasar intrinsic redshifts would be superposed. So, I'd argue that the answer is "no" - even if there was compelling proof that quasars are local, the Big Bang theory could still be valid.

Well, if you can show that huge redshifts can result without any velocity of expansion involved for one class of objects, then it makes sense to abandon it as an idea altogether. Many other problems are then solved.

rtomes · #6 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dgruss23

...You also should look at a paper published in ApJ Letter last year by Morley Bell which contrasts the quasars - which don't seem to show much of a magnitude redshift relation, with radio galaxies - which do show a fairly tight magnitude redshift relation. ...

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.1631v1
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/522337
I assume that the above paper is the one that you refer to.

rtomes · #7 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim

We already have an extremely lengthy thread discussing Arp's concepts including bridged pairs. ...

Just one more thought Jim. The papers I quote are not by Arp. One is by a team including Burbidge and Narlikar. Don't know if that is relevant. It is about making a sensible new test that should have particular outcomes for different cosmologies and seeing what results. Ray

snowflakeuniverse · #8 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 04:22 AM

Moderator Jim

Thank you for the link to the background discussions about the quasar/galaxy/red shift issue.

I looked at the links you suggested and found that the graphical information as presented by rtomes to be a valuable addition to the discussion.
Redundant? Perhaps. Clearly stated? Indubitably.

I also believe that the intent of rtomes is to provide background information for his theoretical model.

Again, thank you for the links. The background information in the lengthy “Arp” discussion will also provide some of the necessary caveats to any alternative model and is a valuable resource.

Thank you,

Snowflake

Jim · #9 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

Hi Jim. What is new is just looking at one theme, galaxy-quasar associations, and a new proposal to make a test that should have an extremely clear result either in favour of the big bang or the alternative proposal of Arp. I don't think that anyone has ever thought of this proposal before. Specifically, to test galaxy redshift against a nearby quasar's brightness to see if it correlates. Regards, Ray

Sounds fair enough. Let's (everyone) try to stay on this topic, quasar-galaxy correlations and this specific proposed test.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

Just one more thought Jim. The papers I quote are not by Arp. One is by a team including Burbidge and Narlikar. Don't know if that is relevant. It is about making a sensible new test that should have particular outcomes for different cosmologies and seeing what results. Ray

It's the concept, not the originator or author, so it's not directly relevant.

parejkoj · #10 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 10:37 PM

*sigh* Here we go again. I can't put together a full reply as I need to walk the dog and eat dinner, but I'll just make a few comments (of course, that usually means I'll spend much way too much time on this... oh-well).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

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.

As I've mentioned to you several times before, this is your first problem. "What a quasar is observationally" is absolutely relevant to the discussion: different selection techniques can overlap by less than 20%.

And here's something that should make you think a little bit: the difference between a "quasar" and an "active galaxy" in many catalogs is based on an absolute magnitude cut. Do you know what that means?

I really should try to finish that Quasar thread... If it'll be read...

As to the plot that you showed from "Associations between Quasi-stellar Objects and Galaxies", do you know how much more we understand about AGN since 1990, and how many more objects there are? Selection and identification of quasars prior to ~2000 was generally very haphazard, so I would put very little trust in such plots from before that time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

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.

How will you select quasasrs that are "unlikely to be chance associations by statistical arguments?" The (optically selected, broad-line) quasar density on the sky is ~10 per square degree to i=19.1. That's quite a lot. It means one would expect >100 (optically selected, broad-line) quasars in the vicinity of, say, Andromeda (though M31 isn't part of the main SDSS survey, I hope you get my point).

Also notice the very important: optically selected, broad-line. Radio, X-ray and IR selection find different objects, and give somewhat different densities.

So, how you gonna pick 'em?

parejkoj · #11 (**permalink**) 11-March-2008, 11:34 PM

Also, to just make a couple of quick comments about Bell 2007:

Dear FSM, how lazy was the reviewer? Seriously, how the heck (when mentioning this paper to a colleague, I used rather stronger language) did this make it into ApJ? It's terrible.

I've said elsewhere that Bell doesn't understand selection, and this absolutely proves it. He doesn't even understand what samples went into the catalog he used!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bell 2007

... but whether the current VCVcat contains many AGN galaxies found in the SDSS galaxy survey is unclear.

Hmm... If I go to SIMBAD and look at the names of the objects included in Véron-Cetty & Véron, 2006, I see several at the top of the list with "SDSS" in the name. Seems pretty clear to me. And I didn't even have to read their paper to determine that!

Strike one! Though, in truth, that's enough to completely chuck it, I'd say.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bell 2007

However, since AGN galaxies are easily distinguishable from other types of galaxies, the normally strict selection criteria are not required in this case to obtain a source sample that is made up almost entirely of AGN galaxies.

Huh... Really? This is news to me. Guess there were a whole slew of posters at the latest AAS meeting that were completely irrelevant...

That statement is true for certain classes of AGN, given certain types of observations. And it is certainly true for luminous (optically selected, broad line) quasars. But for AGN in general? Not for any commonly used definitions of the term. I'm not familiar enough with VC-V to know whether this is a safe assumption for their catalog, but considering Bell didn't even know whether the catalog included SDSS quasars (and it took me literally 2 minutes to check, most of which was waiting for SIMBAD to load), I'm definitely not trusting his word on it.

Strike two!

Really, those two should be enough to toss this one out on the curb. But, since I started counting strikes, here's a good choice for number 3: his use of Stickel et al. 1994 to define the "radio galaxy" sample. Certainly FIRST is a better choice for looking at radio sources: it is uniform (as opposed to a literature search) it goes down to 1 mJy (compared to 1 Jy), has 5" resolution and includes about a million sources (compared to ~600). And it overlaps completely with SDSS, so there are optical identifications with spectra for many of the sources (a very trivial and stupid check gives ~40,000 SDSS spectra of FIRST sources). I have no idea why someone would use a much older survey to define a sample cut.

Unless Bell isn't aware of FIRST.

Which is odd, because it's one of the best large area radio surveys in currently existence.

I sense a trend here...

That makes three. Can we burn it now?

Nereid · #12 (**permalink**) 12-March-2008, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

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)

While this preamble contains many assertions that I would question, if only because they are such poor summaries as to be quite misleading, it is essentially irrelevant to the ATM idea(s) at the heart of this OP*, which is:

Quote:

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.

As has already been noted, it is all too easy to show this assertion is non-science.

For now, I shall simply add that, as it stands, this proposal scrambles the general and the particular ("galaxies and quasars" - all galaxies? and all quasars? all galaxies and some quasars? ...), misuses the word 'prove' (astronomy, as a branch of science, is not mathematics), and that its conclusion ("totally undermines all the interpretations of the big bang", emphasis added) does not follow, even if its premises were to be established.

Quote:

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.

[snip]

As a first, qualitative, draft, this seems ... sloppy, but perhaps workable.

Clearly, it needs a lot more work before it can be actionable.

(to be continued)

* Except for the 'definition of a quasar' ... this is, of course, central to the ATM idea, and will (no doubt) be visited many, many times in the life of this thread.

Nereid · #13 (**permalink**) 12-March-2008, 04:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rtomes

[snip]

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 you please state whether you are prepared to answer questions on this, and address challenges to it?

For avoidance of doubt, if the answer is in the affirmative, I have many questions that I think are direct and pertinent.

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Would astronomers agree that this proposal is a valid test and a very clear result should be obtainable?

Assuming this is not a rhetorical question, then you already have answers from two BAUT members who have papers published in relevant, peer-reviewed journals ... and both answers are in the negative (it is not a valid test (though it may be interesting), clear results are unlikely to obtainable (at least as the proposal is currently formulated)).

Personally, I think a random sample of astronomers would give answers that were similar ... though I suspect many would be couched in rather colourful (shall we say) language.

Let me ask a question though: if even questions on the consistency (etc) of definition of key terms ("quasar", "galaxy", for example) are off the table - much less consensus on those definitions - what grounds do you have for thinking that the proposal could be "a valid test and a very clear result should be obtainable"?

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Would they agree that if the alternative outcome above is found then it does disprove the big bang?

If no questions, or discussion, on core terms in the proposal are to be permitted, I should think they'd agree any outcomes could have no more than the most tentative of a status ...

Again, if no questions on, or discussions of, the definitions of the key terms are to be permitted, what grounds do you have for thinking that "if the alternative outcome above is found then it does disprove the big bang"?