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Dude sounds like a crank. For example: this article raises a number of red flags for me. One, he references his own work as the sole basis for a conclusion, and two, he whines like a 5 year old:

Since, as usual, none of the above authors reference the voluminous evidence that quasars are intrinsically redshifted objects ejected from lower redshifted galaxies, there is very little chance of conventional astronomy correcting a huge error in their fundamental assumptions.

Waah! The mean nasty mainstream astronomers won't completely change the field because I said so! Waaah!

I don't know who this guy is

but when reading this on his page (...) it is quite obvious that this guy didn't understand even the basics of the General Theory of Relativity.

Someone with his bio has studied GR, and no doubt he did apply GR as part of his research. I think you make the basic error of equating theory (GR in this case) with truth. And hence any criticism of GR as being somehow suspect. Any theory, including GR, must withstand experimental tests You may be surprised to learn that there is actually quite a bit of experimental evidence that is in conflict with relativity, even down to basic light-speed invariance measurements. For an example, take a look at what Michelson and Moreley actually reported. You'll find that they found a small but experimentally very significant anisotropy.

Anyhow, cosmological observations also run into conflict with relativity. That's why the whole field of cosmology is so controversial: cosmology as such is not that relevant, but physics certainly is.

This is simply not true. There is plenty of observational evidence that does not fit current (Big Bang) cosmological theories. They should have been rejected a long time ago.

Every theory has to fight with data which don't seem to fit. Theories are rejected, when the problems become overwhelming or if somebody comes up with an alternative, which has the at least the same power and can explain some of the difficultiers. Seems this didn't happen up to now.

For some of the observational evidence, see http://www.haltonarp.com/articles.

I don't know who this guy is, but when reading this on his page (as criticism about the current explanation for gravity):

Even if there could be a dimple nothing would roll into it unless there was a previously existing pull of gravity.

it is quite obvious that this guy didn't understand even the basics of the General Theory of Relativity. I made a similar logical error - when I was fifteen, after reading some popular science books without understanding what exactly they were talking about. There are other parts in his text, where he clearly - and with no doubt left, shows that he has no clue about what Relativity is about. Although I am not an expert on it, I studied physics and had a course in General Theory of Relativitiy - and it is obvious that he made errors like somebody who never had a formal introduction into Relativity. And frankly, I don't care the least about people who criticize a theory when they have only a vague, layman's understanding of it - which in this case is even severely flawed.

A theory has to explain observations. This is what current cosmological theories do.

If you want to get away from blackboard theory and consider what people actually see through telescopes, there is a strong case to be made, with many photographs of the objects in question, that many high-energy, high-redshift quasars appear to be located in close proximity to, and interacting with, low-redshift, low-energy galaxies. If indeed these observations are accurate (statistically they have a very low probability of being errors) then it's impossible to use red-shift as a metric for the "age" of the universe. And the rest of conventional cosmology also falls away. What do you get? No Big Bang, faster than light travel for rocket-ship sized objects, and other neat results.

Dr. Halton C. Arp used to be one of the premiere U.S. astrophysicists (assistant to Hubble, winner of many awards in his own right, including "best young American astronomer", plenty of publications, etc.), but after 28 years as a staff astronomer at Mount Palomar was kicked off the telescope for his heretical views about red-shift. Now he's in a self-imposed sort of exile at the Max Planck Institut fur Astrophysik in Germany, but continues to believe that his many observations are valid.

For a recent podcast interview (posted June 1) with Dr. Arp at Electric Politics, see here:

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/06/a_ stellar_heresy.html

And for Dr. Arp's personal website which has quite a bit of his research online, see here:

http://www.haltonarp.com/

I had only known about the Hoyle's Russel Lecture, thanks.

I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. We see galaxies whose redshift suggests (according to the standard interpretation) that they're 12 billion light years away, and thus formed in the first billion years after presumed recombination, made of stars that had to be 4 billion years old at the time. I.e., 12+4 > 13.7.

As an astrophysicist, I'd like to be an apologetic for the standard cosmological model ...

That's to your credit. Most astrophysicists would prefer to pretend that, e.g., quantized redshift as referenced to the CMB rest-frame in low-redshift galaxies, or to angularly-nearby low-redshift galaxies in the case of high-redshift galaxies and quasars, don't exist. Most would prefer to pretend that high-redshift quasars (e.g. z=2.11) physically in front of low-redshift opaque galaxies (e.g. NGC 7319, z=0.0225) don't exist.

Most seem to prefer to pretend that MHD conditions apply to the dynamics of interplanetary and interstellar plasmas, so they can pretend it's all just "hot gas". I have a private e-mail from a well-known astrophysicist asserting, without apparent embarrassment, "Plasmas behave as ideal gases on scales much larger than the Larmor radius of motion around the magnetic field." He admits most graduate students in astrophysics, still, never attend a laboratory class on plasma dynamics, and just work artificial problem sets using the MHD approximation.

Try this: The Observational Impetus for Le Sage Gravity

Halton Arp seems to have some interesting ideas as to what my be causing the redshift.

See this abstract: The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

[ I'm aware that I linked to these in a previous reply under this story; but you may have missed them amidts that long list of links. ]

Is it total nonsense? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

By the way, I agree with you about the Electric Universe proponents being too eager to engage in polemics -- it doesn't help their "cause" at all.

I find the stuff on Peratt's website to be more balanced than much of what is found on thunderbolts.info, holoscience.com, and some of the others.

Halton Arp seems to have some interesting ideas as to what my be causing the redshift.

See this abstract: The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

[ I'm aware that I linked to these in a previous reply under this story; but you may have missed them amidts that long list of links. ]

Is it total nonsense? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

By the way, I agree with you about the Electric Universe proponents being too eager to engage in polemics -- it doesn't help their "cause" at all.

I find the stuff on Peratt's website to be more balanced than much of what is found on thunderbolts.info, holoscience.com, and some of the others.

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

They saw displacement over time. The plasma was measured in relation to the galaxy/blazer that it was ejeculated from. This is why we know that it's not just us moving -99.9% the speed of light. It's relative to something else.

Furthermore, if the ONLY thing considered was the dopplar effect/redshift evidence, as you propose, I would persue further the GP's questions. Because red shift, while i find fascinating (see SIG), is not conclusive in my opinion. This is based upon the findings of american empiricist Halton Arp who has compiled signifigant evidence that redshift is NOT what we thought it was. He has extremely well documented some issues for the "Doppler Theory." Makes you think about some of the other accepted theories of cosmology......

Essentially, whatever your supposed need to have the "product" of an "expert reviewed" free encyclopaedia, you are essentially proposing what can be thought of as immoral slacking in your reply to my reply -- by proposing the primacy of your desire to be a "user" with rights to free stuff and not the need to also be a "citizen" with obligations to help with quality and quantity of free stuff. So, you appear to claim rights without responsibilities. That is just not a defensible moral position (obviously it might be defensible, say, militarily for a time, if you can use the threat of force to get people to work for you for free as slaves). The net needs more "citizens" (or netizens) and less "users", IMHO. Look at, say, James P. Hogan's sci-fi novel _Voyage From Yesteryear_ to see the difference in attitude and what it means for humanity. Or, look at the culture of some of the Native People of the Americas who believed in universal abundance and a gift economy (before Western militarism and bioterorrism and corporatism took its toll).

To soften this criticism, I'll say I am guilty of it too sometimes -- I haven't added anything to Wikipedia though I use it sometimes (although I have occasionally been thinking about how to make it peer to peer). You or the original poster may well make wonderful contributions to other projects like FreeBSD and have a fair argument to expect high quality in others free work in exchange for yours.

Another deeper point is that the notion of an "encyclopedia" is to an extent a farce anyway -- it is just a sampling of all human knowledge and experience based on what the editors given their own biases could pay for and fit into a few dozen printed volumes. Wikipedia is one example of something so much greater. Beyond some basics, and even there sometimes, "accurate information" is a very subjective and problematical concept, at the very least because all information is subject to interpretation and context and selection (e.g. will an article on "red shift" discuss Halton Arp?), whereas collaboration is almost universally a good thing. A lot of experts have econmic reasons to give out poor answers and not challenge the academic status-quo and related dogmas. See for example Kicking the Sacred Cow: Questioning the Unquestionable and Thinking the Impermissible. He makes the point that engineering (like a bridge) ultimately works to fill a need or doesn't -- but science itself (or expert opinion) can end up becoming self-perpetuating dogma.

We may just have to agree to disagree here. Also, a better overall net system (or Google) woudl make it easy to find the original poster's criticism of the Puerto Rico article, making this argument moot as the new information might in the future be integrated by the original act of posting the ciriticism on a web site like Slashdot.

Halton Arp, an award winning astronomer who used to be Edwin Hubble's assistant, has spent years documenting physically connected astronomical bodies with vastly different redshifts. That's simply impossible under the current theories. But they exist.

He's published several books on the subject including Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science which presents considerable information that's been surpressed by astronomers whose theories have been threatened.

In Seeing Red, he also lays out an alternate, simplified theory, which is a _slight_ modification of the general theory of relativity that ends up predicting the real world observations without resorting to magic constants, curved space, "dark matter", and other kludges that the currently accepted theories need.

Here's some other info about it.