http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/0401.1420

The paper at the above URL purports to have shown a new phenomenon, a red shift due to light passing through a plasma. It reaches some other startling and questionable conclusions.

Question: Has anyone with sufficient expertise in plasma physics read this paper and come to a conclusion as to whether or not the red shift mechanism itself is real physics, or related to real physics ?

I am certain that there will be comments on the conclusions that the author has reached based on this mechanism, and feel free to make them. But, I am more interested in whether or not the red shift itself has any basis in reality.

AFAIK, Brynjolfsson has been trying to get this published for a long time.

Last time I looked at this, I found a good many errors in his understanding or application of the physics he says he bases his work on (and that's mostly QM, not plasma physics). If any physics journal has entertained the idea of publishing it seriously enough to send it to reviewers, and if any reviewer has taken the trouble to review conscientiously, I imagine the comments and suggestions would run to dozens of pages ...

From pg. 49 in Ari Brynjolfsson's paper: Redshift of photons penetrating a hot plasma:

If this can be tested in a lab with predicteable results, then it would be formidable evidence against the "big bang comsmology", though it may not disprove gravitational redshift, as shown by the Pound-Rebka experiment, nor prove why distant light redshifts at about the Hubble constant for purely plasma redshift causes. Gravitational lensing and gravitational redshift are both well documented and understood observable events, while plasma temps in deep space may be only a guess. Would 'plasma redshift' really give a new interpretation to Hubble constant redshift? Or is this another attempt at the old 'tired light' theory for cosmological redshift?

I haven't read the full (95 pp) paper yet, but will be looking for answers to these questions. Where is Lyndonashmore when we need him?

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Credibility is simply incredible... sometimes even to me.
disclaimer

It's discussed in this BAUT ATM thread, and (I think) in at least one, older, one.

Start at ~p15, or ~p24.

Oh, and as far as I can tell, the claimed effect is a photon-scattering one, involving hot electrons, and relies (entirely?) on QM (no classical, plasma, physics involved at all).

Thanks, I think. I read through the portions of the old thread that seem to be pertinent. This is what I gathered:

1. No one in the forum has as yet fought through the long Brynjolfsson paper in detail.
2. No one in the forum is aware of any experimental or theoretical findings outside of the Brynjolfsson paper that would support a redshift mechanism of the nature described in the paper.
3. The paper has not been published in a refereed journal, nor is there evidence of review of the paper. (But if the paper were rejected I would not expect that fact to be public knowledge).
4. The paper is long and it is difficult to read.

My own opinion is that if any of the more significant of the claims of the paper were found to be of merit by a referee, then the 95 page length of the paper would not be an obstacle to publication. Even if the only valid idea were a new redshift mechanism I think publication of at least a revised paper would be a given.

One obvious problem is that Brynjolfsson claims much more than a redshift mechanism. He contradicts a large portion of mainstream physics. I have not the patience to try to figure out in detail where his mistakes lie, but I am quite confident that he is in error. I am less sure as to whether or not there is a bit of truth in the redshift mechanism itself. I suspect not, but it is only a suspicion.

Unfortunately, in trying to ferret out information related to the Brynjolfsson paper I read quite a few posts in the other thread that were farther out in the EU/PC world of dogma. I now feel a desperate need for some of the New Zealand wine that was briefly mentioned by Nereid, or at least a couple of aspirin.

I would still be interested in the comments of anyone who found the inclination to read the paper, or the salient sections of it, in detail.

Well, I may not have gone through it in detail, but I certainly did read it, especially the key parts; I had also read an earlier version, in at least as much detail ... after all, if I am to ask direct, pertinent questions of an ATM idea that some BAUT member puts on the table, I'd better be familiar with it, don't you think?

Very likely true.

You can also, likely, go much further: at least one BAUT member is of the opinion that there are some "experimental or theoretical findings outside of the Brynjolfsson paper" that would highlight certain, 'shortcomings' (shall we say).
This is, likely, much trickier to work on that it appears ... there are many electron-photon scattering mechanisms, and a particularly insightful or creative person may be able to show that Brynjolfsson's proposed mechanism is a grotesque 'variant' (shall we say) of a well-known and well-established one (for example).


I have since come across a couple of particularly good Argentinian SBs - would you like an update?

AB gets good marks for creativity, but fails on his understanding of the relevant parts of QM.

Oh, and his astronomy sucks too (shouldn't be too hard to develop a potentially testable hypothesis or three, and proceed to do the testing, using freely available astronomical databases of observations) ...

• I certainly was not trying to accuse you or anyone of not being sufficiently acquainted with the paper to ask intelligent questions. I was merely of the opinion that no one had fought through all of the references and mathematics in gory detail. I think that might take a long time, since diagnosing mistakes can take quite a bit of effort, and I think there are many opportunites to do engage in this exercise. As a simple example I saw some Fourier transforms defined with integrals that do not appear to converge. One might patch that up, but not without some effort (and perhaps some of that Argentinian SB).
  
• In order to get a pure red shift that shifts but otherwise preserves spectral lines, wouldn't you need a rather special and selective photon-electron scattering mechanism ?
  
• My encounter with that level of EU rhetoric requires something a good deal stronger than a [u]report[u] on an Argentinian wine. I presume that SB means savignon blanc.
  
• If there really were a red-shift mechanisn associated with passage of light through a plasma, would that not be testable in an earthbound laboratory ? That would even address those who think you need to do experiments under a roof with air conditioning for the result to be valid -- and perhaps avoid a long futile attempt to gain acceptance of the truth by the illogical through the use of logic.
  

I surmise from what you have said that we are safe in ignoring the paper. Any nuggets are small and well disguised.

This is not conventional physics, as the author claims.

The transition of an atom from an excited state to a lower state is not an exponential decay, but a (quantum) leap with occurs with a certain probability.
If there is a statistically large set of excited atoms, then the number of excited atoms decays exponentially with a characteristic time inversely proportional to the probability of the transition. A typical example is NMR: an EM pulse excites a bunch of atoms, and the time for these to get back to the ground state is measured.


The Poynting vector is a quantity defined for macroscopic EM fields, not for a single photon.
If you keep reading, you'll realize that the author does not understand that in conventional physics the macroscopic EM waves are the result of statistically large numbers of photons, and that the macroscopic dielectric constant in a material (including plasma) comes from the interaction of these photons with matter and is not something external to a single photon.

The author does not understand conventional physics, and his claim that his "plasma-redshift" is based on it is utterly unfounded.

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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)

Then you do more than most ATM Proponents that we get in here.

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Nor did I take that you had ... vanilla words are not very good at conveying intention unambiguously.

So a bit more background ...

This ATM section of BAUT runs according to a fairly clearly defined approach - a BAUT member has an ATM idea they wish to present, they do so, and other BAUT members question and attack it ("with glee and fervour"). The onus is thus on the presenter of the ATM idea; the peanut gallery throws peanuts.

Of course, any BAUT member may debunk an ATM idea if they wish ... just as they may take the idea and run with it themselves (by developing it, writing a paper or two, and getting a Nobel) ...

Quite.

My own preference is to spot some glaring hole and forget the rest, or work out what some of the observational implications might be (take a stab at the phenomenology) and forget the rest.

Why fight your way through masses of heavy stuff if, on page 2, the author clearly has no clue about the Klein-Nishina formula and thinks electron scattering can be completely described by the Thompson cross-section (this is, of course, an entirely made-up example)?
yep, sauvignon blanc
YMMV (your mileage may vary), but I've yet to see anyone try to seriously defend the AB ideas ... and the preprint has surfaced in enough fora which sufficiently many 'physics fluent' readers that if the idea had legs someone would have got it into print well before now ...

So it would seem.

I follow what you are saying clearly. Thank you. I guess my problem is that I was giving AB too much "benefit of the doubt". The concepts relative to which I thought I had an idea of what he was saying looked confused, but there were not many such places. Mostly what he was saying looked SO foreign that I figured I was missing something fundamental -- quite often when someone seems completely irrational I find it is because I have not quite seen his point of view. So, for instance, with the Poynting vector I thought perhaps there was some perspective in which his statement might make sense, clearly a perspective that I was missing. My hope was that by trying to understand him that I might learn something, even though I was certain that his grandiose claims were false. But I think what you are telling me is that this paper is complete gibberish, and I ought to start to worry about myself if it even begins to make sense to me.

I have not read the whole paper, so I cannot really tell if it is indeed complete gibberish. My point is that his starting point is incorrect.

If you have doubts, nobody will bite you for asking questions.

__________________
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)

Big bang theory is a wrong theory.

Yes. All energy of the visible macrocosm is the source of energy from concentrating on from the colossal black aperature/black hole, which explode all the time, openning energy waves which have galaxies personality. Energy of this colossal black aperature/energyconcentration so changes all the time less for the dense energy in the space which does not expand or arches. It is located really a long distance outside the visible macrocosm . It does not possess attractive power. Attractive power there doesn't exist. All visible macrocosm moves together in the moment away about that from the space in which visible macrocosm for example Now is. Because of this space does not need expand. Energyconcentrations expansive. Seriously so said. Initial explosion is still operating. Also energy which is in the atoms' cores changes all the time less for the dense energy. At same time three-dimensionally expansive atomic cores radiate energy waves which have personality of the electrons and photons. Also energy of the electrons and photons changes all the time less for the dense energy. For that reason old light is commonly ed red move. You can't compare atoms nuclears different to the aged to the atoms' cores. Old light can compare to the younger light and about that can observe how old photons are with the time, exploded. From old photons have become moulted much energy away. That energy has absorbed from Sun according to the coming photons .

Reads more matter www.onesimpleprinciple.com from the sides. Thanks and good summer!

What does this post have to do with Brynjolfsson's paper (and ideas)?