Limits of Spectroscopy

Existence is existing, and logic, inductive and deductive, is competent
to know the facts of the constitue

This whole discussion reminds me of the ancient Egyptians sitting on the banks
of the Nile and discussing its origin. They never got up and walked upstream.
Your not talking about facts your discussing opinions.

In message , Ralph Hertle
writes
I don't have the slightest idea of what you are getting at by your
comments regarding the "garden" and the "stream", for example.

I'm sorry, this was a slight moan about the nature of threads, the
'garden' is scientific method, and the smoke is the obscurity brought on
by philosophy (the snake in the garden of Eden).
The next line of 'Row your boat' ends with 'life is just a dream',
A perfectly valid philosophy, but unhelpful to science.


I am not at all opposed to the science of spectroscopy. I am strongly
supportive of it. Just because I may not agree with the conclusion that
a BB is a logical conclusion to be drawn from the data and discoveries
of the "Apparent Red Shift", that does not mean that I disagree with
any of the science involved in spectroscopy. I know only the basic
fundamentals, however, the discovery of the "Apparent Red Shift" stands
as a valid conclusion whether or not the complex light that they
analyze is the result of wave phenomena or photons - or photons that
have certain integrated energy level and frequency properties.

Is not the above a circular argument? Apparent red shift supports BB
therefore BB is more likely to be correct as it supports Apparent red
shift.

BTW, philosophy is a science. Philosophy identifies, unifies, and
integrates the broad principles of the fact of the universe into
comprehensible sums. It identifies the most basic axioms of science,
discusses the proper methods of science, i.e., is scientific knowledge
gained by wishing or by inductive logic?, for example. The methods of
the 'scientific method', experimentation, demonstration, correct
inductive and deductive logic, the broader methods for the acquisition
of knowledge, and the fundamental identity of facts, existents,
properties, characteristics, the universe, proper definitions, proof,
the validations of concepts and identifications, up and down, lengths, and more.

Here you've gone too far. Philosophy should be about logic, but the
******* form most seen on newsgroups is just art used to place the
proponents' ego at the centre of the universe.

You didn't bring forth any substantive discussion regarding what I have
said, and I surmise that you disagree with what I say regarding
existence.

You write as if you have placed yourself outside of the 'wood' in order
to see the 'trees' as a whole. You are missing the fact that in order to
create any valid hypothesis science demands the ability to test.
Speaking from a position outside the Universe makes what you say
untestable, and thus invalid. The harder task is to test from within.
BB strikes me as a perfectly reasonable model which allows for unknowns.
Unfortunately (with my poor grasp of the theory) it appears to be
tripping over the cobblestones of Quantum theory.
Prove the Universe exists if there is no mind to perceive it. Existence
is irrelevant. Perception is testable.

Still, the facts exist. Existence is existing, and everything out there
in the universe has properties that are knowable by the minds of
logical scientists. One day scientists will discover the nature,
identity and properties of individual photons. When the facts are
identified I'll strongly support them.

And so will I, but I'll bet it won't be called BB or Quantum theory.
In the meantime, let's carry on with practical astronomy.

Ralph Hertle

;-)
Denis
--
DT
Replace nospam with the antithesis of hills

(Abdul Ahad) wrote in message . com...

When is the next supernova due in our part of the galaxy, I wonder.
Tycho's star 1572 ... Kepler's star 1604 ... supernova 1987A inside
the large magellanic cloud ... should be one soon???

Absolutely. By historical averages, we seem to be overdue for a
naked-eye supernova in the Milky Way. I'm rooting for April;
I've got too much to do this March!

- Tony Flanders

In message , Ralph Hertle
writes
Martin Brown wrote:

[ text omitted ]

Hi Martin,
Do you have a reference for this? I want to be able to give a proper
reference to people who claim that red-shift is due to 'tired light'

Google "Lyman forest" ought to bring something useful up.
Combine it with "tired light" and you may get exactly what you seek.

Martin:

'Tired light' is a term that suits then advocates of the BB; it is a
derogatory term that is intended to place an emotional wet blanket upon
the issue in order to discredit any possible explanation for a physical
cause of the diminution of the energy levels of photons as they
traverse the openness of space.

And "Big Bang" was also a derogatory term used by the main advocate of
old Steady State theories, Sir Fred Hoyle, to pour scorn on the new
upstarts. Observational evidence has long since settled this debate in
favour of hot Big Bang cosmologies and the name, short and simple has
stuck.

Short names like this often stay in use. Tired light - for light that
loses energy and gets tired after long journeys seems like quite a nice
way of describing it to me.

The proper scientific question to ask is, "What happens to light
photons as they traverse the openness of outer space that causes the
diminution of their energy levels?"

Climbing out of a deep gravitational potential well will do it, but
there is no evidence that we have seen any galaxies where that
contribution was dominant or even significant.

The real killer for steady state theories was when radio astronomy came
along and we could see out much further into the universe that the
numbers of faint active radio galaxies increased far too rapidly to be
consistent with any steady state theory. The universe was seen to have
been much more active at earlier times. Deeper and deeper optical fields
from the likes of Hubble now confirm this too.

Seeing the 4K microwave background radiation was a bonus.

You can always cobble together some "just so" explanation for steady
state models that would fit with enough gratuitous tweaking of physics,
but Occam's razor favours the simpler explanation. It may surprise you
to know that Steady State theories are included in most decent cosmology
text books for historical context.

And distance measures using supernovae as standard candles avoid relying
on using redshift to determine distance. Nothing can trump the
observational evidence - nature is the final arbiter.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

Martin Brown wrote:
In message , Ralph Hertle
writes

Martin Brown wrote:

[ text omitted ]

Hi Martin,
Do you have a reference for this? I want to be able to give a proper
reference to people who claim that red-shift is due to 'tired light'

Google "Lyman forest" ought to bring something useful up.
Combine it with "tired light" and you may get exactly what you seek.

Martin:

'Tired light' is a term that suits then advocates of the BB; it is a
derogatory term that is intended to place an emotional wet blanket
upon the issue in order to discredit any possible explanation for a
physical cause of the diminution of the energy levels of photons as
they traverse the openness of space.



[ your reply: ]

And "Big Bang" was also a derogatory term used by the main advocate of
old Steady State theories, Sir Fred Hoyle, to pour scorn on the new
upstarts.


True, and is the term, "tired light", the revenge of the Post Modernists
and the social metaphysicians who are attached to expansionist
-creationist science?


Observational evidence has long since settled this debate in
favour of hot Big Bang cosmologies and the name, short and simple has
stuck.



The term, Big Bang, did stay, and the term, ironically, actually
expressed the intention of the BB scientists in the discussions current
at the time.

The evidence for the Big Bang is, well known, and except for the mystic
statements that the Post Modernists and religionists are claiming to be
physics, the evidence for the "Apparent Red Shift" also supports the the
theory that actual existents are the cause of gravity and light. The BB
advocates deny that actual physical existents, or photons, are the cause
of the "Apparent Red Shift", and they claim that elastic variations in
the 'fabric' of 'space-time', a claimed entity that has no known,
identified, or demonstrable physical existence, is the supposed cause of
light and the "Apparent Red Shift".

The case is by no means closed.

The theory that identifies the facts of existence is the true theory,
and that theory will be able to be demonstrated by means of experiment
and proof.


Short names like this often stay in use. Tired light - for light that
loses energy and gets tired after long journeys seems like quite a nice
way of describing it to me.


Actually, the Lord Rayleigh photon-hydrogen experiment used the term,
"inelastic", to describe one effect in the process in which the energy
level of the photon is reduced. Another effect, that I believe he didn't
identify, is that the energy of the photon that is lost may have been
combined into the hydrogen atom, or more specifically into the electron
of the atom (that is case A). Alternatively, the energy fraction may
have been emitted in some other sub-atomic form (and, that is case B),
and that form may be a fractional photon. Scientist will discover the
actual truth just as soon as the Biblical Creationist idea is banned
from rational and factual science.


The proper scientific question to ask is, "What happens to light
photons as they traverse the openness of outer space that causes the
diminution of their energy levels?"

Climbing out of a deep gravitational potential well will do it, but
there is no evidence that we have seen any galaxies where that
contribution was dominant or even significant.



What "well"? What is the physical evidence for that?

Why "galaxies?" What is the meaning of that?


The real killer for steady state theories was when radio astronomy came
along and we could see out much further into the universe that the
numbers of faint active radio galaxies increased far too rapidly to be
consistent with any steady state theory. The universe was seen to have
been much more active at earlier times. Deeper and deeper optical fields
from the likes of Hubble now confirm this too.

Seeing the 4K microwave background radiation was a bonus.

You can always cobble together some "just so" explanation for steady
state models that would fit with enough gratuitous tweaking of physics,
but Occam's razor favours the simpler explanation. It may surprise you
to know that Steady State theories are included in most decent cosmology
text books for historical context.



You do not understand what physics is if you deny the three concepts
that I provided in my previous post, and equally appalling, you imply
that you think that science is a matter of social agreement.



And distance measures using supernovae as standard candles avoid relying
on using redshift to determine distance. Nothing can trump the
observational evidence - nature is the final arbiter.

Regards,



I don't quite understand what you are saying due to your grammatical
errors. What in photometry is a "standard candle". I think that you
agree to what the Post Modernists and social metaphysicians are saying,
in that the numbers of statements in agreement determines the truth of
the proposition. That is an error of logic, and that fallacy of logic is
called, "ad populem".

Social metaphysics, a concept in the philosophy of science, is
everywhere a false concept, including physics.

Ralph Hertle

"Ralph Hertle" wrote in message
...

Actually, the Lord Rayleigh photon-hydrogen experiment used the term,
"inelastic", to describe one effect in the process in which the energy
level of the photon is reduced. Another effect, that I believe he didn't
identify, is that the energy of the photon that is lost may have been
combined into the hydrogen atom, or more specifically into the electron
of the atom (that is case A). Alternatively, the energy fraction may
have been emitted in some other sub-atomic form (and, that is case B),
and that form may be a fractional photon. Scientist will discover the
actual truth just as soon as the Biblical Creationist idea is banned
from rational and factual science.

Give us a reference Ralph. Any reference at all ...

John Zinni wrote:
"Ralph Hertle" wrote in message
...

Actually, the Lord Rayleigh photon-hydrogen experiment used the term,
"inelastic", to describe one effect in the process in which the energy
level of the photon is reduced. Another effect, that I believe he didn't
identify, is that the energy of the photon that is lost may have been
combined into the hydrogen atom, or more specifically into the electron
of the atom (that is case A). Alternatively, the energy fraction may
have been emitted in some other sub-atomic form (and, that is case B),
and that form may be a fractional photon. Scientist will discover the
actual truth just as soon as the Biblical Creationist idea is banned
from rational and factual science.


Give us a reference Ralph. Any reference at all ...



John:

That is a valid question.

Two or more years ago I downloaded a synopsis of that experiment, and I
cannot find it again on the internet.

I've searched Google.com, with the keywords,

"Lord Rayleigh" +photon +hydrogen +experiment,

and again I couldn't find the documentation of the experiment.


Numerous sources are listed at:

http://www.geometry.net/nobel/raylei...iam_strutt.php .


The only reference I could find was at:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The following quotation is from the presentation at the above mentioned
site:

"
Until now we have discussed the absorption or the emission of a photon,
when the photon?s energy corresponds to the energy difference of two
molecular levels. But when a photon collides with a molecule other
processes may occur ? the photon may be scattered and changes its
direction of motion. If the photon?s energy is conserved (no change of
frequency) the process is termed Rayleigh scattering (after John William
Strutt Baron Rayleigh (1842-1919)). However, the molecule during the
interaction may capture some of the photon?s energy, or some may be
transferred to the photon. Consequently, due to this inelastic
collision, the photon emerges with a different energy ?
"


The "Rayleigh scattering" experiments and documentation are the general
area to investigate. The complete documentation would be of interest.

The elastic back-scatter experiments are not as interesting as the
photon-hydrogen inelastic collision experiments referred to above
regarding photon energy levels.

Ralph Hertle

In message , Ralph Hertle
writes
Martin Brown wrote:
In message , Ralph Hertle
writes

Martin Brown wrote:

Google "Lyman forest" ought to bring something useful up.
Combine it with "tired light" and you may get exactly what you seek.

Martin:

'Tired light' is a term that suits then advocates of the BB; it is a
derogatory term that is intended to place an emotional wet blanket

[ your reply: ]

And "Big Bang" was also a derogatory term used by the main advocate
of old Steady State theories, Sir Fred Hoyle, to pour scorn on the
new upstarts.


True, and is the term, "tired light", the revenge of the Post
Modernists and the social metaphysicians who are attached to
expansionist -creationist science?

Since the universe seems to match the predictions of hot Big Bang models
rather well it would be churlish not to take those models seriously.

Tired light as a serious contender was shot down in flames a long time
ago. Only a handful of scientists from the old Steady State era still
cling on to the forlorn hope that they might have been right after all.
Most of them rely heavily on Arp's cherry picked pictures of odd galaxy
quasar "associations" showing coincidental line of sight alignments.

Observational evidence has long since settled this debate in favour
of hot Big Bang cosmologies and the name, short and simple has stuck.

The term, Big Bang, did stay, and the term, ironically, actually
expressed the intention of the BB scientists in the discussions current
at the time.

And it happens to accurately describe the universe we live in.

Short names like this often stay in use. Tired light - for light that
loses energy and gets tired after long journeys seems like quite a
nice way of describing it to me.

The proper scientific question to ask is, "What happens to light
photons as they traverse the openness of outer space that causes the
diminution of their energy levels?"
Climbing out of a deep gravitational potential well will do it, but
there is no evidence that we have seen any galaxies where that
contribution was dominant or even significant.


What "well"? What is the physical evidence for that?

It was first demonstrated on Earth using an experiment based on the
Mossbauer effect (Pound & Rebka). A photon escaping against gravity
loses energy in strict accordance with GR - it is gravitationally
redshifted. The amount of energy lost depends on the strength of local
gravity.

Why "galaxies?" What is the meaning of that?

They are collections of stars.

You do not understand what physics is if you deny the three concepts
that I provided in my previous post, and equally appalling, you imply
that you think that science is a matter of social agreement.

No. It is you who do not have the first clue what science is.

And distance measures using supernovae as standard candles avoid
relying on using redshift to determine distance. Nothing can trump
the observational evidence - nature is the final arbiter.
Regards,

I don't quite understand what you are saying due to your grammatical
errors. What in photometry is a "standard candle".

It is clear that you do not understand much about physics or astronomy.

A "standard candle" is an object that you can recognise from a large
distance and know immediately how bright it must be. Type Ia supernovae
are reckoned to be pretty good ones. Knowing how intrinsically bright it
is you can deduce it's distance from how bright it appears to us from
Earth.

Social metaphysics, a concept in the philosophy of science, is
everywhere a false concept, including physics.

You don't like the Big Bang. So you want to warp physics to match your
off the wall ideas about how things ought to be.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

"Ralph Hertle" wrote in message
...

The only reference I could find was at:


http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The following quotation is from the presentation at the above mentioned
site:

"
Until now we have discussed the absorption or the emission of a photon,
when the photon?s energy corresponds to the energy difference of two
molecular levels. But when a photon collides with a molecule other
processes may occur ? the photon may be scattered and changes its
direction of motion. If the photon?s energy is conserved (no change of
frequency) the process is termed Rayleigh scattering (after John William
Strutt Baron Rayleigh (1842-1919)). However, the molecule during the
interaction may capture some of the photon?s energy, or some may be
transferred to the photon. Consequently, due to this inelastic
collision, the photon emerges with a different energy ?
"

Oh, you sly so-n-so Ralph.
In the quote above, you stop just short of the name of the second process
(did you think I was incapable of clicking on a link and reading it myself).

The above quote should end ...

"... Consequently, due to this inelastic collision, the photon emerges with
a different energy, the Raman process (after Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman
(1888-1970), the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, in 1930)."

And yet on Jan 26 of this year, in the thread "TIRED LIGHT [ = NO BB ]" when
I asked you specifically ...

"As far as I can tell, no such experiment exists (Might you mean "Raman
scattering"???)."
- John Zinni -

Your responses was ...

"No."
- Ralph Hertle -

Any comment Ralph???


The "Rayleigh scattering" experiments and documentation are the general
area to investigate. The complete documentation would be of interest.

The elastic back-scatter experiments are not as interesting as the
photon-hydrogen inelastic collision experiments referred to above
regarding photon energy levels.

Ralph Hertle

John:

Thanks for your reply. The additional quotation that you provided is
interesting to me, and I'm simply trying to sort out fact from fiction
in science.


John Zinni wrote:

[ text omitted ]

Oh, you sly so-n-so Ralph.
In the quote above, you stop just short of the name of the second process
(did you think I was incapable of clicking on a link and reading it myself).

The above quote should end ...

"... Consequently, due to this inelastic collision, the photon emerges with
a different energy, the Raman process (after Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman
(1888-1970), the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, in 1930)."

And yet on Jan 26 of this year, in the thread "TIRED LIGHT [ = NO BB ]" when
I asked you specifically ...

"As far as I can tell, no such experiment exists (Might you mean "Raman
scattering"???)."
- John Zinni -

Your responses was ...

"No."
- Ralph Hertle -

Any comment Ralph???

[ text omitted ]


Don't get me wrong. The summary of Rayleigh's photon-hydrogen inelastic
collision experiment was what I was referring to. I wasn't referring to
Raman's work, and that is also interesting.

I believe that several scientists work will be found to be true and even
more basic that previously thought, e.g., Max Planck, and that theories
of the photon that identify energy level and integral frequency or
dynamic properties will ultimately prevail over theories of non-physical
and non-existent or etherian waves.

When the prime focus of science is in finding out what exists in the
universe, and how existents function, instead of trying to make
mathematical concepts into metaphysical existents, the path to
discovering the causes of light and gravity will be open.

Ralph Hertle