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"Presently the Hubble’s law is explained by Doppler shift being larger from distant stars. This effectively supports the hypothesis of expanding universe. In th

"Presently the Hubble’s law is explained by Doppler shift being larger from distant stars. This effectively supports the hypothesis of expanding universe. In the mass polariton theory of light this hypothesis is not needed since redshift becomes automatically proportional to the distance from the star to the observer”, explains Professor Jukka Tulkki." If this proves to be true, is there a chance that our whole picture of the expanding cosmos needs a full revisiting?

ninkendo 9y ago
Such an explanation for observed redshift apparently comes up again and again, but thus far hasn't held up to experiment... it even had a name: "tired light". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light It'll be interesting to see if this sparks new debate on the subject.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  'Tired light' appears to be an umbrella term for various disparate theories that are only related in their attempt to provide an alternative explanation for red shift. If this particular hypothesis, which is not explicitly cosmological, is validated in terrestrial experiments, I think its cosmological implications would be unavoidable.
  - gus_massa 9y ago
    > is validated in terrestrial experiments They didn't run any experiments. They only have some a theoretical model and simulations in the computer. The main part of the article, that says that the momentum of the light is split in the photon and in the density wave looks good. (It almost looks obvious, but it's not my expertise area https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ .) The relation with the Hubble constant is totally unexpected. It is not in the abstract of the peer review article. (I can't read the full text.) So it's probably only a declaration for the press release. Take it with a grain of salt.
    - sethrin 9y ago
      The article like nearly every physical article has its preprint available on the arxiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07224 https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07224 note: "on the arxiv" and not "on arxiv". The name puns on x => greek letter chi.
- nothis 9y ago
  If it's proven true, though, would that mean the "expanding universe" theory would be disproved as well?
  - GolDDranks 9y ago
    Not necessarily. It might be that this effect is real (this was a computational simulation so an experimental verification is needed.) and needs to be accounted when doing cosmology. But it might very well account just a part of the redshift, and the remainder then needs to be accounted by something else, the default explanation being the expanding universe. Edit: A clarification: I'm not an expert.
  - deleted 9y ago
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- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Without an expanding universe, one problem is "How does everything form, given that gravity exists?" No expansion = everything falls together.
  - lanna 9y ago
    not if the universe is flat and simply connected (i.e, infinite): https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109063/how-come-that-an-infinite-universe-will-collapse-under-gravity https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109063/how-come-...
sandworm101 9y ago
But only if interstellar mass is evenly distributed... which it isnt. If this is to replace hubble we should see differences in redshift where the light passes through more matter. There should be differences between redshift distance measurements and other non-redshift distances. That shouldnt be too hard to detect (or not).
- guscost 9y ago
  Isn't the CMBR remarkably uniform in all directions? Does that matter?
- simonh 9y ago
  It could be extremely hard. We don't have many good ways to measure how far away objects are in space. In fact the main way we have been estimating distance so far is by measuring red shift. We also have very limited means for measuring the density of the intergalactic medium. I just don't think we have any good ways to distinguish whether a high redshift is due to the object being very distant or the intergalactic medium in that direction being particularly dense, for most objects.
  - strainer 9y ago
    I guess the geometry of galactic filaments may be examined for distortions/textures relating to non-standard red shifting. We may see the filaments are bent from our viewpoint in accordance with the presence of voids or other filaments along the way.
  - empath75 9y ago
    There are type Ia supernovas that can give precise distances, no?
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      They give very precise distances by red-shift calculations. There's no direct way to measure the distance of very far objects. There's only red-shift and Hubble's Law.
65827 9y ago
Yeah this seems to be happening more and more often. I guess this is it.
mirimir 9y ago
I believe that emission and absorption lines are also shifted. Wavelength-dependent absorption by intervening gas wouldn't do that.
- qubex 9y ago
  Indeed, I recall that redshift measurement is performed by comparing the shift on emission spectra (which is absolute), not some bizarre ”degree of red dimming” which would be hard to quantify.
henearkr 9y ago
I don't see how it is pertinent, as space is not "a transparent medium", it is void. Pretty much all the photons emitted by a star that we can detect cross only the star's gas surrounding, then the emptiness of space, then our atmosphere. So, it does not vary with the distance of the star, thus the author's argument does not hold (anyway, he was being super-speculative here).
- zamalek 9y ago
  > it is void Space is not a complete vacuum.
  - henearkr 9y ago
    Yeah, but sufficiently so that most photons are not encountering any other things on their way.
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      Not clear - have you taken virtual particles into account?
  - henearkr 9y ago
    Well, actually it seems you are true. There are absorption rays for the inter-galactic medium, as shown in: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau2.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau2.html So, please ignore my previous reply ↓
- fpoling 9y ago
  The space is not void as there is non-zero density of matter that we see in absorbtion lines of quasars [1]. This implies that the space has to be treated as transparent medium with non-trivial optical properties. [1] - https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau_contents.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau_contents.ht...
  - henearkr 9y ago
chairmanwow 9y ago
The reckless child in me wants to jump for joy at the absurdity of having a long-held tenent of my understanding of the universe shattered. The quiet pragmatist is begging for the reserved "Well let's wait and see". I didn't expect an article on recent developments in computational physics to render such an emotional reaction. Either way, a very thought provoking article!
aroberge 9y ago
No, there are too many observations that are consistent with an expanding universe. For example, primordial nucleosynthesis [1] would either not have occurred in a non-expanding universe, or would not have stopped so soon. In fact, it can be used to show that it is consistent with having only 3 families of light neutrino species. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis Some relatively small effects of so-called "tired-light" scenario could likely be accommodated, but it would not change the main picture.
- EGreg 9y ago
  However, what observations (besides assumptions about the source of background microwave radiation) are consistent with the pejoratively-named BigBang theory? We don't even know how big the universe is. It mat be far larger than the observable universe. And all the pocket universes are technically part of the same multiverse -- what makes us think there was for sure a big bang?
  - aroberge 9y ago
    All that the "Big Bang" refer to is 1) the fact that the (visible) universe was once much hotter and denser than it is now and 2) if we extrapolate back in time, using the theories that we have, there was a point where the density was infinite. Of course, we know that our theoretical model break down before that (since we don't have an experimetally verified theory of gravity compatible with quantum mechanics). Physicist that work in the field (and I used to be one of them) are well aware that we cannot extrapolate past the regions of validity of our theories and no one claim that there was indeed a singular point ("Big Bang") as mentioned in descriptions aimed at a non-expert audience.
    - EGreg 9y ago
      I am pretty sure it's not true that "no one" claims there was not a singularity at the beginning. http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html I even saw that recently Stephen Hawking started theorizing that the "Big Bang" was like a black hole. And other physicists weigh in: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/universe.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/... Look at this wikipedia article. Someone must be writing it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity In fact there are some contradictions between Quantum Mechanics and an actual big bang: https://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html https://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-univers...

ninkendo 9y ago

Such an explanation for observed redshift apparently comes up again and again, but thus far hasn't held up to experiment... it even had a name: "tired light". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light It'll be interesting to see if this sparks new debate on the subject.

mannykannot 9y ago
'Tired light' appears to be an umbrella term for various disparate theories that are only related in their attempt to provide an alternative explanation for red shift. If this particular hypothesis, which is not explicitly cosmological, is validated in terrestrial experiments, I think its cosmological implications would be unavoidable.
- gus_massa 9y ago
  > is validated in terrestrial experiments They didn't run any experiments. They only have some a theoretical model and simulations in the computer. The main part of the article, that says that the momentum of the light is split in the photon and in the density wave looks good. (It almost looks obvious, but it's not my expertise area https://xkcd.com/793/ https://xkcd.com/793/ .) The relation with the Hubble constant is totally unexpected. It is not in the abstract of the peer review article. (I can't read the full text.) So it's probably only a declaration for the press release. Take it with a grain of salt.
  - sethrin 9y ago
    The article like nearly every physical article has its preprint available on the arxiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07224 https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.07224 note: "on the arxiv" and not "on arxiv". The name puns on x => greek letter chi.
nothis 9y ago
If it's proven true, though, would that mean the "expanding universe" theory would be disproved as well?
- GolDDranks 9y ago
  Not necessarily. It might be that this effect is real (this was a computational simulation so an experimental verification is needed.) and needs to be accounted when doing cosmology. But it might very well account just a part of the redshift, and the remainder then needs to be accounted by something else, the default explanation being the expanding universe. Edit: A clarification: I'm not an expert.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Without an expanding universe, one problem is "How does everything form, given that gravity exists?" No expansion = everything falls together.
- lanna 9y ago
  not if the universe is flat and simply connected (i.e, infinite): https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109063/how-come-that-an-infinite-universe-will-collapse-under-gravity https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/109063/how-come-...

sandworm101 9y ago

But only if interstellar mass is evenly distributed... which it isnt. If this is to replace hubble we should see differences in redshift where the light passes through more matter. There should be differences between redshift distance measurements and other non-redshift distances. That shouldnt be too hard to detect (or not).

guscost 9y ago
Isn't the CMBR remarkably uniform in all directions? Does that matter?
simonh 9y ago
It could be extremely hard. We don't have many good ways to measure how far away objects are in space. In fact the main way we have been estimating distance so far is by measuring red shift. We also have very limited means for measuring the density of the intergalactic medium. I just don't think we have any good ways to distinguish whether a high redshift is due to the object being very distant or the intergalactic medium in that direction being particularly dense, for most objects.
- strainer 9y ago
  I guess the geometry of galactic filaments may be examined for distortions/textures relating to non-standard red shifting. We may see the filaments are bent from our viewpoint in accordance with the presence of voids or other filaments along the way.
- empath75 9y ago
  There are type Ia supernovas that can give precise distances, no?
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    They give very precise distances by red-shift calculations. There's no direct way to measure the distance of very far objects. There's only red-shift and Hubble's Law.

65827 9y ago

Yeah this seems to be happening more and more often. I guess this is it.

mirimir 9y ago

I believe that emission and absorption lines are also shifted. Wavelength-dependent absorption by intervening gas wouldn't do that.

qubex 9y ago
Indeed, I recall that redshift measurement is performed by comparing the shift on emission spectra (which is absolute), not some bizarre ”degree of red dimming” which would be hard to quantify.

henearkr 9y ago

I don't see how it is pertinent, as space is not "a transparent medium", it is void. Pretty much all the photons emitted by a star that we can detect cross only the star's gas surrounding, then the emptiness of space, then our atmosphere. So, it does not vary with the distance of the star, thus the author's argument does not hold (anyway, he was being super-speculative here).

zamalek 9y ago
> it is void Space is not a complete vacuum.
- henearkr 9y ago
  Yeah, but sufficiently so that most photons are not encountering any other things on their way.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    Not clear - have you taken virtual particles into account?
- henearkr 9y ago
  Well, actually it seems you are true. There are absorption rays for the inter-galactic medium, as shown in: https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau2.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau2.html So, please ignore my previous reply ↓
fpoling 9y ago
The space is not void as there is non-zero density of matter that we see in absorbtion lines of quasars [1]. This implies that the space has to be treated as transparent medium with non-trivial optical properties. [1] - https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau_contents.html https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Madau6/Madau_contents.ht...
- henearkr 9y ago

chairmanwow 9y ago

The reckless child in me wants to jump for joy at the absurdity of having a long-held tenent of my understanding of the universe shattered. The quiet pragmatist is begging for the reserved "Well let's wait and see". I didn't expect an article on recent developments in computational physics to render such an emotional reaction. Either way, a very thought provoking article!

aroberge 9y ago

No, there are too many observations that are consistent with an expanding universe. For example, primordial nucleosynthesis [1] would either not have occurred in a non-expanding universe, or would not have stopped so soon. In fact, it can be used to show that it is consistent with having only 3 families of light neutrino species. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis Some relatively small effects of so-called "tired-light" scenario could likely be accommodated, but it would not change the main picture.

EGreg 9y ago
However, what observations (besides assumptions about the source of background microwave radiation) are consistent with the pejoratively-named BigBang theory? We don't even know how big the universe is. It mat be far larger than the observable universe. And all the pocket universes are technically part of the same multiverse -- what makes us think there was for sure a big bang?
- aroberge 9y ago
  All that the "Big Bang" refer to is 1) the fact that the (visible) universe was once much hotter and denser than it is now and 2) if we extrapolate back in time, using the theories that we have, there was a point where the density was infinite. Of course, we know that our theoretical model break down before that (since we don't have an experimetally verified theory of gravity compatible with quantum mechanics). Physicist that work in the field (and I used to be one of them) are well aware that we cannot extrapolate past the regions of validity of our theories and no one claim that there was indeed a singular point ("Big Bang") as mentioned in descriptions aimed at a non-expert audience.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    I am pretty sure it's not true that "no one" claims there was not a singularity at the beginning. http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html I even saw that recently Stephen Hawking started theorizing that the "Big Bang" was like a black hole. And other physicists weigh in: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/universe.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/... Look at this wikipedia article. Someone must be writing it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity In fact there are some contradictions between Quantum Mechanics and an actual big bang: https://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html https://m.phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-univers...