I don't think space is expanding.

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Mike Helland said:
You were talking about a doppler shift due to the Earth's motion.

It moves at about 100,000 km/hr around the sun, or 0.0009c.

The motion of the Earth is already taken into consideration of redshifts, as well as even the rotation of Earth.

My demo shows that regardless of the photon speed, the frequency of arrival rate doesn't change
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But we aren't measuring the frequency of arrival rate. We're measuring the frequency of individual photons. This is such a fundamental thing that I don't think you comprehend how big an error you're making.

And that frequency gets Dopler shifted due to relative motion of the detector. So if the earth is moving towards a source, that blue shifts it, and if the earth is moving away, that red shifts it. And we can (and do) measure that difference as it changes over the course of a year. But the amount it shifts is also dependent on the velocity of the signal. And so we can detect if the signal is coming in at different velocities, because that would lead to different Doppler shifts. That's why you can hear the Doppler shift as a car passes you, even though your eyes aren't sensitive enough to see the difference in color: sound moves slower than light, so the Doppler shift is larger.

And do we see a difference in annual Doppler shift from the earth's orbit? No, we do not. We see that annual Doppler shift, but it's the same for all sources.
 
Ffirst of all, I think you're probably right. I appreciate the time you've spent talking to me about this.

I also think you've proposed a pretty good experiment here. I'm as up for disproving this hypothesis as you are, so if you propose a test and it seems to a good test, that's a good thing.

You might think the Hubble has scanned the whole sky and pointed out our obvious mistakes in our models, but getting the Hubble to do your observations is fiercely competitive, and if you're not looking for something in particular there's no reason it will be magically spotted in all the data that comes back.

So, if you're right, we should be able to disprove the hypothesis with the following data:

Measurements from space of red-shift of a high z galaxy on the horizon while Earth is moving at its maximum toward and away velocities.

The hypothesis would predict a higher ratio of velocity / Earth's velocity than photons traveling at c.

If that difference is not observed, the hypothesis would be wrong.

Agreed?

Ziggurat said:
And do we see a difference in annual Doppler shift from the earth's orbit? No, we do not. We see that annual Doppler shift, but it's the same for all sources.
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https://physics.stackexchange.com/q...-earths-rotation-affect-redshift-measurements

It says:

It does have an effect, but whether or not you have to worry about it depends on how sensitive your measurements are. The rotational period of the Earth is about 24hours. Depending on your latitude, that could contribute to your velocity as little as 0ms−1 (at the poles) or as much as 464ms−1. Worse, the effect that this has on your observation will depend on the angle between the direction to the source when the observation is made and East along the ground. So, it's a little complicated.

That said, 464ms−1 corresponds to a Doppler shift between ±1.55×10−6, so only the most sensitive measurements will be affected, and mainly if the source is near the East/West horizons.

A much more important Doppler shift to account for in most cases is the one from the orbital revolution of the Earth about the Sun. That has a speed of about 29.8kms−1 and depends on the angle between Earth's motion and the source (worked out from the source's position in Ecliptic coordinates and solar elongation). That effect is up to ±9.9×10−5, so even then the measurement will have to be pretty precise for it to matter.
 
Food for thought.

20 years ago if I was debating a Christian I would say something like:

"You think God created the Earth in 7 days, but we can see from observation that the universe has been expanding for 10 plus billions of years and galaxies evolve and planets are made over billions of years."

Now I would have to say:

"The Earth in 7 days? That's nothing. The universe inflated in a nanosecond due to dark energy.

That's an odd leap to make.
 
Mike Helland said:
Ffirst of all, I think you're probably right. I appreciate the time you've spent talking to me about this.

I also think you've proposed a pretty good experiment here. I'm as up for disproving this hypothesis as you are, so if you propose a test and it seems to a good test, that's a good thing.
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I can think of an even simpler experiment: run light from distant galaxies through a refracting medium, like a prism. Or the earth's atmosphere. If the photons are entering the medium at different speeds, they will get refracted differently. If not, then not. Snell's law.

Since earthbound observations do this every day, I suggest that we already know what the results will be, and that they show that your hypothesis is wrong.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
I can think of an even simpler experiment: run light from distant galaxies through a refracting medium, like a prism. Or the earth's atmosphere. If the photons are entering the medium at different speeds, they will get refracted differently. If not, then not. Snell's law.

Since earthbound observations do this every day, I suggest that we already know what the results will be, and that they show that your hypothesis is wrong.
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In the model in my experiment there is only distance and energy in the model of the photon.

The interaction between photons and electrons in this case is absorption and emission that is purely energy and distance dependent.

I'm not sure this tests that model, since once the slow ancient photon hit the medium, they are absorbed by the first atoms at the reduced energy level and emitted at the same energy with a D = 0 and therefore v = c.

I would expect the photons to interact with the medium the same whether they were initially redshifted by the expansion of space, simply emitted at a lower energy, or by the hypothesis being tested.

I hope you don't take this as being contrarian. I'm just trying to make sure the model is properly being tested.
 
Mike Helland said:
In the model in my experiment there is only distance and energy in the model of the photon.

The interaction between photons and electrons in this case is absorption and emission that is purely energy and distance dependent.

I'm not sure this tests that model, since once the slow ancient photon hit the medium, they are absorbed by the first atoms at the reduced energy level and emitted at the same energy with a D = 0 and therefore v = c.

I would expect the photons to interact with the medium the same whether they were initially redshifted by the expansion of space, simply emitted at a lower energy, or by the hypothesis being tested.

I hope you don't take this as being contrarian. I'm just trying to make sure the model is properly being tested.
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Interaction with the medium isn't a bug; it's a feature. If the angle of incidence, angle of refraction, and speed of light through the medium are known, the speed with which the light entered the medium can be calculated. Again, Snell's law. We're taking sin(theta)2/sin(theta)1 = v2/v1 and solving for v1 based on our measurements of the other three values.
 
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Reformed Offlian said:
Interaction with the medium isn't a bug; it's a feature. If the angle of incidence, angle of refraction, and speed of light through the medium are known, the speed with which the light entered the medium can be calculated. Again, Snell's law.
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Understood.

That's based on a constant speed of light in a vacuum, c = fw.

In my model, that doesn't hold up any more. Nor does anything based on the law that an object in motion remains in motion.

That said, I suppose that suggest that Snell's Law could be adjusted to includes Hubble's constant.

Baically, Maxwell's equations would need to reflect c - H * D, and from what I just read on wikipedia (I'm a loser, I know), Snell's Law can be derived from Maxwell'as equations, so from a modified Maxwell you'd get the modified Snell, based on the modified Hubble, c - H * D.

The more I talk about this with other people, the more the idea seems to just become "Hubble's constant may be part of inertia itself, at least the photon".
 
Mike Helland said:
Understood.

That's based on a constant speed of light in a vacuum, c = fw.
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No, it isn't. Snell's Law works on the interface between any two regions with different velocities, regardless of what those velocities are.

In fact, this is a perfect experiment because if you're right, then light from a distant enough source would actually deflect in the opposite direction as it speeds up rather than slowing down as it enters the prism glass.
 
Ziggurat said:
No, it isn't. Snell's Law works on the interface between any two regions with different velocities, regardless of what those velocities are.

In fact, this is a perfect experiment because if you're right, then light from a distant enough source would actually deflect in the opposite direction as it speeds up rather than slowing down as it enters the prism glass.
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Snells law is about one medium from another, or from c in a vacuum to a medium, or vice versa.

It doesn't say anything about a photon traveling at less than c in a vacuum.

That just places Snell's Law, like the rest of Newtonian physics, in a limited domain of applicability.

Outside that domain, where cosmological redshift lives, we'd need to include Hubble's constant.
 
Mike Helland said:
Understood.

In my model, that doesn't hold up any more. Nor does anything based on the law that an object in motion remains in motion.
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Snell's law is an empirical law that "holds up" because it matches observations; it isn't necessarily predicated on any particular theory. Any proposed revision/replacement would have to match the same observations.

Having a new model doesn't mean you get to pretend Snell's law isn't a thing; it means you need a new explanation for why it is a thing.
 
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Does anyone have a bingo card? I think we just got the "if only we had photos I would be convinced... no, not those photos" dodge.

Mike, your hypothesis makes predictions that we can test right now, today. Predictions for which we already have a plethora of test data. Those tests falsify your predictions. Proposing some other test that hasn't been carried out yet won't change the results of the tests that have been carried out. Your predictions have already been falsified.
 
Mike Helland said:
Snells law is about one medium from another, or from c in a vacuum to a medium, or vice versa.

It doesn't say anything about a photon traveling at less than c in a vacuum.
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No, Mike, you're wrong. It's about light traveling at one velocity in one region and another velocity in another region. It doesn't matter what the two velocities are, or what the two regions are. That's why it works on transitions between media where it's not c on either side (for example, between water and glass, or glass and diamond). Only the velocity on each side matters, and that velocity can be anything.
 
Reformed Offlian said:
Snell's law is an empirical law that "holds up" because it matches observations. Any proposed revision/replacement would have to match the same observations. Simply rejecting current theoretical derivations doesn't make it go away.

Having a new model doesn't mean you get to pretend Snell's law isn't a thing; it means you need a new explanation for why it is a thing.
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Ok, change v_1 to V_1 + H * D.

Where H * D = 0, nothing changes.

Where there is cosmological red-shift of a photon, entering a medium resets its v to c.
 
Mike Helland said:
Snells law is about one medium from another, or from c in a vacuum to a medium, or vice versa.

It doesn't say anything about a photon traveling at less than c in a vacuum.
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Snell's law isn't limited in the way you propose. It predates Maxwellian electrodynamics and can be applied to any pair of "before and after" speeds for light. That Maxwellian ED provides a derivation for it doesn't mean the law itself is predicated on that derivation. There can be and have been non-Maxwellian derivations for it.

Again, having a new model doesn't mean you get to pretend Snell's law isn't a thing; it means you need a new explanation for why it is a thing
 
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theprestige said:
Does anyone have a bingo card? I think we just got the "if only we had photos I would be convinced... no, not those photos" dodge.
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One of the tests proposed seems to be pretty good.

The other doesn't actually test the hypothesis, it tests a different hypothesis because it treats cosmologically redshifted photons as traveling through a medium, which is explicitly not what the hypothesis says.

I appreciate the enthusiasm though.
 
Mike Helland said:
Ok, change v_1 to V_1 + H * D.

Where H * D = 0, nothing changes.

Where there is cosmological red-shift of a photon, entering a medium resets its v to c.
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Great, now derive Snell's law from that, or the approximation of it within what you claim is the domain of applicability.
 
A further question for Mike: let's think of two situations:

In one, light is travelling through a medium at .8c and transitions into a different medium through which it travels at .7c.

In the second, light is (somehow) traveling through a vacuum at .8c and transitions to the same refracting medium.

According to you, the light would behave differently in those two cases. Why? What makes them different?
 
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