Claim CE425:
The red shift from distant galaxies has been interpreted as a Doppler
effect from the universe expanding. However, it may instead be due to
"tired light." Photons age and shift to the red after a very very long
time.
Response:
- The tired light model does not account for time dilation observed in
supernova light curves. A supernova that takes 20 days to decay will
take 40 days to decay at a redshift of z=1.
- The tired light model does not produce the blackbody spectrum of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB). The tired light model says that the
CMB is highly shifted light from stars, but stars do not produce the
perfect blackbody spectrum that we see in the CMB.
- The tired light model fails the Tolman surface brightness test [Lubin
and Sandage 2001].
- There is no mechanism which can account for tired light. No known
interaction can degrade a photon's energy without also changing its
momentum.
- The Big Bang model explains other observations in addition to
expansion red-shift and the cosmic microwave background.
- the abundance of light elements, predicted from reactions that would
occur during the first three minutes of the Big Bang.
- the darkness of the night sky (Olber's paradox)
- isotropy and homogeneity -- the universe looks pretty much the same
in all directions, and our location isn't special.
- radio source and quasar counts vary with age, showing the universe
has evolved.
Links:
Wright, Edward L., 1996. Errors in tired light cosmology.
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm
References:
- Lubin, Lori M. and Allan Sandage, 2001. The Tolman surface brightness
test for the reality of the expansion. IV. A measurement of the Tolman
signal and the luminosity evolution of early-type galaxies.
Astronomical Journal (on-line preprint).
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0106566
created 2003-7-16
