Tired Light

I guess what we want to know is; how can an electron tied to an atom absorb only a part of the photons energy. Basic theories of quantum mechanics taught in universities claims that the electron must absorb all of it and that is why atoms can only absorb specific wavelenghts of light.

There are two problems with this:

1. We all have great respect for Feynman, but "Feynman says so" is insufficient justification. Could you provide something more concrete to go on?
   ​
2. If the light goes in straight lines after interacting with electrons, why does Feynman call it 'scatter', which is the opposite of straight lines? Is it possible you misunderstood what Feynman was saying?

--Percy

I think what is happening is that the electron absorbs it's set quanta of energy but some of the photon's energy (momentum) is transfered to the atom as a whole -- it recoils. When this allows the photon's energy to "match" the electron's needed quantum jump energy. Now if that electron "drops" and a photon is emitted it will be at a lower energy.I think, though, that it must be scattered in this case. I also think that there will be specific differences in light passing through this and light that is red shifted by expansion. There have been a number of questions asked for which no answers have been forth coming.

Neither link answers the question. By the way, you can include images in a post using the [img] or [thumb] dBCodes. They're documented at Adding Images and Adding Thumbnails.What you need is a measure of the width of the spectral lines produced from a stationary sample here on earth, then you need to show how the spectral lines blur with increasing distance according to your equations. They do not go straight, they scatter. For example, see Plasma Radiation and Scattering, page 206.You left two issues unaddressed:

1. I'm actually focusing on something simpler than the debate between two groups of scientists about the value of the Hubble constant. Do we observe different amounts of red shift as a function of the total amount of intervening intergalactic matter?
   ​
2. While I suppose you could argue that one could only detect quantum energy changes in simple gases, all energy changes are in units of quanta. It seems your red shift should be by quantized amounts and that it should be detectable through statistical analysis of many measurements.

--Percy

I think this is something in general that puzzles me, and not exactly something lyndon said, but I still find it rather odd if atoms can absorb a range of frequencies instead of just set ones.I can understand that, due to scatter, the emitted photon can have a different energy because the atom has a different kinetic energy, but I can't see how it can work from the other end.What is the actual mechanism that allows the atomic nucleus to pick up and convert photons into kinetic energy?

I'm not sure about the lectures, but in QED Feynman does not call it scatter.I believe that the correct term for "theorem of least time" is "principle of least action".And, of course, Feynman was pointing out that light does not go in a straight line; in a very real way it goes in all sorts of wacko directions, but almost all of the wacko directions (the ones that are not very close to a straight line) destructively interfere with each other, so the probability amplitude for straight line motion, along the path that takes the least time, is high. And, of course, photons interacting with atoms result in photons being emitted in all different directions (the sky is blue) but under many circumstances there's interference between them and other re-emitted photons, the sum effect of which is another high straight-line probability amplitude.QED is a great book. When I read that (and I have, many times) I almost think I understand it ... for a while.This message has been edited by JonF, 03-17-2005 08:51 PM

Some day I hope to understand these photons
in terms of F's n and j in Bethe's memory.least action would have to be somaticized. Ihavent been able to do that yet. Regardless, I agree about the accessibility of QED. You almost get it, and then one thinks...

Hi Percy,
Thanks for the advice re inserting images - The soft ware on this site is good. However, what about copyright?
Thanks for the plasma ref, but it isn't really applicable here. A better one is "Quantum Electrodynamics" by Landau and Lifshitz. They look at transmission of light by photons being absorbed and reemitted by a "system of electrons" Whilst they simplify the whole thing by ignoring any time delay and recoil, they do put a footnote at the bottom to state that they have ignored any recoil. I don't ignore it and get the redshift.

quote:

---

I'm actually focusing on something simpler than the debate between two groups of scientists about the value of the Hubble constant. Do we observe different amounts of red shift as a function of the total amount of intervening intergalactic matter?

---

Well, yes that is the whole point of my theory. Galaxies twice as far away have twice the intervening galactic matter between them and us. This results in photons travelling from that galaxy twice as far away undergoing twice the redshift. hence the Hubble law

quote:

---

While I suppose you could argue that one could only detect quantum energy changes in simple gases, all energy changes are in units of quanta. It seems your red shift should be by quantized amounts and that it should be detectable through statistical analysis of many measurements.

---

Tift, Guthrie and many more have argued that redshifts are quantised. I believe that this quantisation is due to plasma not being evenly distributed but appearing in clouds. One cloud, two clouds ... giving us this quantisation.
As for atomic quantisation, this is only for monatomic gases alow densities.
Cheers
Lyndon

---

Lyndon Ashmore - bringing cosmology back down to Earth!

Hi Percy,

quote:

---

We all have great respect for Feynman, but "Feynman says so" is insufficient justification. Could you provide something more concrete to go on?

---

Yes, when I work out the predicted expression for H I get H = 2nhr/m. Experimental values of n predict a value for H that agrees with measured values.
When I work out an expression for redshift, z I get z = exp(2nhr/m) - 1 which has now been shown to agree with experiment. This theory then goes on to predict a CMB and when we put the numbers in we get microwave radiation. Plus lots more. Isn't this concrete enough?

quote:

---

If the light goes in straight lines after interacting with electrons, why does Feynman call it 'scatter', which is the opposite of straight lines? Is it possible you misunderstood what Feynman was saying?

---

Why does he call it scatter? You will have to ask him that and yes, I have understood what he and others are saying.
Remember, we are looking at photons that have made the trip and arrived here. We are not sitting on a distant galaxy and asking "will this photon make it to earth?".
Cheers Lyndon

---

Lyndon Ashmore - bringing cosmology back down to Earth!

For electrons in an atom in say, glass, the photon comes along and sets the electrons oscillating. If the frequency of the incoming photon is well away from the resonant frequency of that system of electrons then the elctrons cannot accept it and the oscillating electrons re-emit it as a new photon in the same direction as before. We know this happens because a) light travels in straight lines in glass.
b) it is slowed down so the pphotons must have been absorbed and re-emitted.
In IG space I say the electron recoils. so Photon comes in, some of the energy goes to setting electrons into oscillation but some of hte energy goes to KE of recoiling electron. You cannot get this back here. Your new photon only gets the energy stored as oscillations. It has less energy, lower frequency and a longer wavelength. _Redshifted.
Tired Light.
The Universe is not expanding.
Cheers
Lyndon

---

Lyndon Ashmore - bringing cosmology back down to Earth!

I'll have to read QED someday, but I'm just going by the Compton Effect. Ashmore has said his theory is not the Compton Effect, that it is more a "Mossbauer type of thing", but the Mossbauer effect applies only to tightly held crystalline structures, not to gases. Ashmore is in effect claiming that the plasma nature of gas in space gives it the same qualities as solid matter, something for which I've not yet seen any evidence.To me it looks like Ashmore's tired light theory really is only the Compton Effect, and therefore Compton Scattering applies. But no scattering is observed in the spectral lines from distant galaxies.--Percy

I wouldn't worry about it, for two reasons. If you commit copyright infringement here, it's me that'll get in trouble, not you. And second, you're not creating a copy, only a link.I guess I'll add a third point. I don't have a lot of respect for copyright laws because they're so much at whim of industry. Disney a few years ago pushed a modification to copyright law through Congress that extended copyright protection another 20 years, because the copyright on several Disney characters was about to expire. This also affects copyright on written material, and it was devastating to my former co-worker Eric Eldred who runs Eldritch Press which makes public domain literary works available for free on the web. Were you hoping to see Robert Frost on the web? Well, now you'll have to wait another 20 years. See Supreme Court Upholds Copyright Extension for a simple account, or Eldred v. Ashcroft for the details of the arguments on both sides.The record industry is just as bad. Here in the US it's illegal to copy your own CDs onto your own computer. There are some weasel words in the law that disallow enforcement officials from taking action against those only involved in personal use, but it's still illegal. The record industry will only tell you it's illegal, but iTunes and Napster and RealPlayer and Windows Media Player can all copy your CDs to your computer, so obviously it's okay. It's illegal but it's okay - gee, that makes me feel good!Getting back to the original point, I believe giving attribution so important that it's included in the Forum Guidelines. But a link to an image at the owning site sure seems like attribution to me, so I have no problem with it on that basis. If EvC Forum becomes so successful that activities here start coming to the attention of law enforcement authorities, then as they haul me off to jail I'll still be a happy man! Sure it is. The reference was to page 206 of Plasma Radiation and Scattering, and at one point it says: Has this scattering been observed? But the Hubble Law is a mere function of distance, while the Ashmore Law is a function of intervening intergalactic material. The amount of intergalactic material is not the same everywhere. Just by chance, there is more in some directions than others. If the Ashmore Law holds, then red shift should be a function of the amount of intervening intergalactic material, which is only approximately a function of distance but can vary widely according to circumstance.Is this observed? Wrong type of quantization. I was referring to quanta. As I said before, while I suppose you could argue that one could only detect quantum energy changes in simple gases, all energy changes are in units of quanta. It seems your red shift should be by quantized amounts and that it should be detectable through statistical analysis of many measurements. Certainly the gas of the intergalactic medium is simple and under low pressure.But after thinking about this some more, I think perhaps the number of potential interactions might be too great to make individual quantum changes detectable, even statistically. I'm okay with dropping this point.--Percy

This site gives you some idea of the ‘powerful tools’ needed for detection of this from our nearby ionosphere - and most of it comes from electron density fluctuations — also the reason why metals are ‘shiny’.

quote:

---

Typical Incoherent Scatter radars radiate effective powers measured in gigawatts, but the returned signals normally represent only picowatts.
Powerful multi-mega-watt transmitters, large high-gain antennas (typically at least 1000 m2 in area), sensitive receivers and sophisticated radar control and data acquisition systems are all necessary for the sucful detection and evaluation of the weak incoherent scatter echoes received from the ionosphere

---

quote:

---

But the Hubble Law is a mere function of distance, while the Ashmore Law is a function of intervening intergalactic material. The amount of intergalactic material is not the same everywhere. Just by chance, there is more in some directions than others. If the Ashmore Law holds, then red shift should be a function of the amount of intervening intergalactic material, which is only approximately a function of distance but can vary widely according to circumstance.

---

Ashmore law as you kindly call it is a function of intervening material which is a function of the distance between galaxy and Earth. Same thing.

quote:

---

Just by chance, there is more in some directions than others

---

But over long distances these average out. Remember to be in the Hubble flow where the Hubble relation works galaxies have to be a long way away (more than 5 million ly?). I believe that one of the reasons for this is that you need at least this distance to have sufficiennt collisions to get reproducable statistical effects.
Cheers,
have to go now, there is a Chinese lady at the door selling the latest DVD's at 3 dollars each (I must ask if she has any Disney films).
Lyndon
PS we don't talk about Compton effect in the transmission of light through glass and this is the same effect that I am applying here.

---

Lyndon Ashmore - bringing cosmology back down to Earth!

Okay, let's review my original list of objections.Because the direction of the outgoing photon is not governed by the direction of the original photon, there should be scattering of light. Is this observed? Also, the degree to which light becomes tired in your theory must be a function of how much of the intergalactic medium it interacts with. Do we observe differences in red shift according to density of intergalactic medium? Statistically, some photons will encounter more of the matter in the intergalactic medium than others, so some arriving photons will be more "tired" than others. Is this observed? But we're talking about photons traveling through the intergalactic medium, which is not glass.Summing up, you haven't yet identified any phenomena that distinguish between expansion of space and tired light. These are the remaining open points (and since Sylas didn't respond to your last response to him in Message 22 a couple days ago, I'll pick up his points):

1. You claim that the intergalactic medium would affect photons like glass rather than like the gas that it is. This claim needs to be supported.
   ​
2. Sylas's point 1 from Message 9, supernova light curves. You called this "gobbledy gook", but offered no specific rebuttal. His description:
   ​
   The light from a type Ia supernova has a characteristic light curve. It peaks in about 20 days and then fades at a fixed rate. However, there is a linear relationship between redshift and the fade time. The more redshifted the supernova, the more slowly the light fades. The data is a good match with expectations arising from modeling redshift as recessions. After 20 days, the supernova is that much further from earth as it recedes with the Hubble flow, and the light takes correspondingly longer to reach us. Tired light models predict no change in light curves; and are falsified by the data.
   ​
3. Blurring of spectral lines, Sylas also made the same point, #2 from Message 9. Sylas's description:
   ​
   Lyndon's model involves a loss of photon energy from repeated interactions with the intergalactic medium. But when a photon loses energy it also loses momentum; and momentum is a vector. A change in momentum also means a change in direction; and this is (contra claims in Lyndon's papers) an observed fact of life where there really are significant interactions with gas; and it is a prediction of theory. This change in momemtum should lead to blurring of high redshift objects. The effect does not exist; hence the particle interations model for redshift is falsified.
   ​
4. Black body radiation, Sylas's point 3 from Message 9. I was going to raise this point myself after we completed discussion of scattering. Sylas's description:
   ​
   Energy lost to the intergalactic medium will inevitably heat the medium, and result in more radiation. Such radiation would not have a blackbody spectrum, which is a distinctive feature of the cosmic background. In much the same vein, such interactions should distort the spectrum of stars. Such distortions are seen as a result of interactions with known gas clouds; but not with the uniformity or magnitude required if the large cosmological redshifts we see were due to loss of energy to the medium.

--Percy

Its late here so I'm off to bed. I will respond to all points but in the meantime, can you find us a link to this 'perfect CMB cueve' for us all to see.
Secondly look up Hawkins and Quasar time dilation.
If you still feel Sylas's points are worth discussing then discuss them we will.
Cheers
Lyndon

---

Lyndon Ashmore - bringing cosmology back down to Earth!