The Red Shift without Expansion

You're proving his point, Farmer.

The bogus. ad hoc concepts of dark energy and dark matter arose from the desperate need to save a cherished theory, General Relativity. Nothing about stars told them to do that.

Facts don't dictate the theory. All too often, "scientists" let the theory dictate the "facts."

There is a necessary separation between philosophy and science that has existed since philosophers dragged Galileo before the inquisition for contradicting them about the place of the Earth.

Science is based on observation, mathematics and experiment. Often this has contradicted what contemporary Philosophers have found from Galileo to Newton to Darwin and now to Einstein. Science, in its main work, must ignore the philsophers when answer scientific questions. And science should ignore the "philosophical implications" of their work (I will admit that in the cases of dangerous technology such as nuclear weapons, this is a difficult stance to hold). But still, scientific findings are scientific findings whether they contradict philosophical beliefs or not.

That being said, there are questions that science can not answer. Sometimes scientists forget that. The question of morality is outside the realm of mathmatics or testable assertions. Values in general must be developed from social understanding. This is the realm of philosophy.

The question of red shift is purely a scientific question. There is a mathematical model which makes testable predictions. These predictions have been confirmed through experiment and observation. The fact that this upsets philosophical constructs is of no consequence to science.

Layman,

If you understood General Relativity then you wouldn't say this. General Relativity has quite a bit of confirmation through experiment and observation outside of dark matter. You are conflating the two issues. General Relativity, like all modern Physics, is a mathematical model. If you don't understand the mathematics, you can't understand the theory. If you can't understand the theory, you can't refute it.

You are pretending that science is philosophy. In philosophy you can take positions based on what you assert is true with out confirmation or experiment. Science doesn't work that way.

What you have done is started with an untested assertion and then worked backwards to make the "facts" match up with your beliefs. It is fine to do this in philosophy. It is not OK to do this in science (where any assertion must be testable).

The problem is you have crossed the line into science, while rejecting the very practice of modern science. Science isn't philosophy.

Alb and Lay are somehow holding a grudge against scientists.

Since Galileo faced the inquisition for suggesting the Earth moved, philosophers have always had a grudge against scientists.

Yeah, in science you "confirm" that the existence of dark matter, which, by definition, cannot ever be seen, is "true," eh? Why?

Well, why did the ptolemic astronomers invent (oops, I mean, "confirm") the existence of epicyclic motion of the planets?

To save the theory, of course.

In part, that non-philosophical scientific theory posited that all quintessential heavenly motion had to be circular--the "perfect" form of motion, ya know?

Did you read my post Layman? You seem to be hung up on dark matter.

The real issue is that you don't have any understanding of General Relativity other than what you got from Google. Yet, you think it contradicats your philosophical beliefs so you reject it even thought it is widely accepted in the scientific community.

The scientific community consists of the people who have spent years of their life learning the mathematics, doing the experiments, writing the papers and getting feedback from professors and peers. You completely reject the understanding of the vast majority of the scientific community because it doesn't square with your philosophy.

My main point is still the same; Google searches to back up your pre-existing beliefs is not a good way for you to gain any expertise in Physics. You should stop pretending.

Say what!?

Are you actually trying to deny that, in order for GR to be true, you would need about 19 times the matter that can actually be detected? Oh, yeah, and an "anti-gravity" force--the cosmological constant (now reinvented as "dark energy") that Einstein had called his biggest mistake?

I am actually saying that you have no understanding of General Relativity. This is a ridiculous argument for you to be making against the scientific community.

Just answer the damn question, Max.

Yes, or no?

My normal answer to Alb's stance is "Science is purposely silent about that"
I said that most science is intentionally or unintentionally collaborative. The Cepheid star calculations of [(c) L/T and cosmological distances L] done by Henrietta Leavitt in the late 19 teens, was further enhanced by Slipher's red shift , whereas he got his idea about (c+/-) and its optical properties from a mineralogist studying polarized light on ores. Lemaitre was the dominican brother but also an astronomer and physicist. I suppose what you are saying is that we scientists become "Philosophers" When we derive from our collaborations?

I guess I can buy that

By the way, geocentric astronomy was based upon hundreds of years worth of pain-staking data collection, and was perfectly consistent with all empirical observations. It predicted planetary motion just as well as any heliocentric theory. It could tell you now precisely when an eclipse due 400 years later would occur.

What's that tellya, eh?

I don't have expertise in this field to answer this question definitively. I studied General Relativity, so I have more expertise than you do. But, unlike you, I know that in areas that I don't have enough expertise I have to either do more study (which would involve going back to the Univesity or at least reading papers and doing math).

Almost all of the people who have done this work accept General Relativity as accepted fact. They know more than I do, and they know more than you do. I at least have the ability to understand the mathematics and read the papers.

Sorry, but there are no short cuts in science.

That being said (and now I am giving you my opinion without having specific expertise)...

My understanding is the General Relativity does not depend on dark matter. It is possible that there is some other force, that fits into the frame work of General relativity, that we haven't discovered yet.

So to answer your question... in an area I admit that I am not an expert in... I believe that dark matter is not necessary to confirm General Relativity. There is enough evidence that confirms General Relativity without the cosmological phenomina that suggest dark matter.

Hopefully I am being a good example for you. I admit when I don't have expertise in someting... rather than running to Google to support whatever I choose to make up.

If I choose to finish my PhD and specialize in cosmology, then I will have the expertise to answer your question definitively. But until this happens, I am in the same boat that you are in, and it is foolish for me to not listen to the people who have actually done the work.

Absolutely possible, sho nuff. The question was where the concepts of dark energy and dark matter originated from, though, ya know?

Appreciate your newfound humility, Max. But, know it or not, you make every pretense to being an expert in the philosophy of science--a field where you obviously have no training whatsoever.

I forgot to add that it all involves MATH, eh? Self-consistent math, at that.

What's that tellya about math?

Youre still,proving my point. SCience is self policing, philosophy is self cementing. The heliocentric theory was availble at the same time as Aritosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth. It wqs discarded because
1ALL ORBITS WERE REQUIRED TODESCRIBE "PERFECT" CIRCLES

2 A Heliocentric universe was applying huge geometric "Fudgie factor" (It mqde observations appear right but more recent observers knew it was a bit of bs)

Just because something appears right for unknown reasons, we dont hoist it up as truth, we keep testing and pounding on it (decay constants, Universal G,Hubbles constant)

Like Piltdown and Geosynclinal movement, and Phlogiston science discarded the rules of "Natural philosophy" and corrected itself by the late 1800s .

When LEavitt discovered the use of the Standard candle, that opened the way for Hubble to use Shlivers discoveries to come up with Hubbles Law. Shlivers discoveries (as well as Leavitts, predated all Einsteins work except for that initial work in optics -)(for which his actual Nobel Prize was awarded and NOT relativity)

Yeah, Farmer?

The "scientific" (philosophical) underpinnings of ptolemic astronomy presupposed an earth that was completely stationary.

The copernican theory presupposed that the earth was in fact revolving around the sun.

Einstein came along and declared, in essence, that it was impossible to know whether the earth revolved around the sun, or vice versa.

In other words, it's supposedly just a matter of philosophical preference--there is no empirical proof, one way or the other, according to the relativists.

Like I said--theoretical (philosophical) premises tend to create the "facts" (what is accepted as "fact," that is). The observable facts do not, and cannot, tell you which theoretical premises are correct. That's a matter of creative, a priori, imaginative invention.

Turns out, of course, that Einstein's own fundamental assertions are themselves a product of a positivistic philosophy of science and are unverifiable theoretical postulates. He freely admitted this. His theory was a product of imagination, he said, not the dictates of empirical observations.

You continue to pontificate that we are too ignorant to understand the basic principles. That just won't fly.

The gifted physicist R. Feynman once said that if you can't explain something in layman's terms then you don't really understand it yourself.

I'm not saying you don't know the answer but if you do, give us an answer to why red shift occurs while keeping the speed of light constant.

I'll give a scenario: Someone on a star at the 'far end' of the universe (speeding away from us) sends a 5 second burst of light of a known spectra. When the light arrives, we detect that light and note that it is red shifted.

How long does that 5 second burst of light last for us? If it is the same 5 seconds as when it was sent, why is it's frequency changed? Where did the 'missing' waves go?

If it lasts longer than 5 seconds, why does it do that? Wouldn't that imply 'slow light'?

Well, Leddy, ya know, I can drive at a speed of 100 mph all day long and it will still take me longer to go 200 miles than 100 miles.

That said, one alternate theory is that distant galaxies are not moving away from us and that the redshift is explained by the fact that light "gets tired" and loses energy over distance, because it has to plow through particle-invested "space" which slows it down.

Hubble said (redshift shows that the Universe is everywhere at its center and nowhere at its circumference) That can be said in expnsions of partial differential equations or in a simple phrase. However Hubble needed Shliver and leavitts work and he needed the math to make the bumper sticker true