In "Remembering V.M. Slipher’s work at Lowell" (April 2020 - https://www.astronomy.com/science/remembering-v-m-sliphers-work-at-lowell/), Astronomy magazine's editor David J. Eicher writes that redshift indicates the velocity of recession, and also says USA astronomers Vesto Melvin (known as V. M.) Slipher and Edwin Hubble * discovered the expanding universe. My opinion is that the Editor is right to give V. M. Slipher credit for a major cosmic accomplishment but mistaken about the nature of that accomplishment. I also think Slipher and Hubble didn't discover the expanding universe because redshifted spectral lines don't indicate recession of astronomical bodies. Rather, Slipher found the first proof of Albert Einstein's General Relativity Theory - beating Arthur Eddington's 1919 eclipse measurements, and even beating the full General Relativity theory's 1915 publication by at least a year.
* Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), the astronomer credited with discovering cosmic expansion, remained doubtful about the expansion interpretation for his entire life. He believed “expanding models are a forced interpretation of the observational results.” (E. Hubble, “Effects of Red Shifts on the Distribution of Nebulae”, Ap. J., 84, 517 [1936]) According to astronomer Allan Sandage, "Hubble believed that his count data gave a more reasonable result concerning spatial curvature if the redshift correction was made assuming no recession. To the very end of his writings he maintained this position, favouring (or at the very least keeping open) the model where no true expansion exists, and therefore that the redshift "represents a hitherto unrecognized principle of nature." (Sandage, Allan, "Edwin Hubble 1889–1953", The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 83, No.6 [1989])
V. M. found evidence of Relativity's gravitational redshift, which was found by Einstein 8 years before his full theory. The term "gravitational redshift" refers to the shift of wavelength of a photon to longer wavelength (the red side in an optical spectrum) when electromagnetic waves radiate within a gravity field. Relativity says gravity results from the curvature of space-time. Therefore gravity is spacetime - and the more spacetime there is between Earth and a star or galaxy, the greater is the gravitational redshift. The redshift has nothing to do with velocity but increases with distance. We should not be surprised that light waves do not follow exactly the same Doppler effect as sound waves, since they have a different form. Light and other electromagnetic waves are transverse while sound waves are called compressional or longitudinal. Andromeda galaxy's apparent approach is related to Slipher's finding that "spiral nebulae" (as galaxies were called 110 years ago) are rotating. A large, close galaxy like M31 (Andromeda) would appear to be approaching us because it isn't far enough away to send us light that's significantly redshifted; but a huge number of its stars are currently approaching us as they orbit Andromeda's centre, and therefore sending us blueshifted light.
Rodney Bartlett,
The statement you make, and I quote, "Relativity says gravity results from the curvature of space-time. Therefore gravity is spacetime," appears to me to be overgeneralized because it does not refer to the mathematical proofs for the gravitational laws of inertial motion at all. Nor does it refer to the difference between measuring gravitational force and measuring energy production relative to the velocity of light squared.
Isaac Newton wrote that Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration. Albert Einstein showed that there is a different way to express the same idea so that it is mathematically more precise and accurate. Newton maintains a God-like overview perspective, a telescopic point of view, if you wish, while Einstein takes into account, as you mention, the curvature of space, as a result of his discovery of the photoelectric effect law.
Newton's mathematical calculations only provide a general approximation, while Einstein's mathematical equations achieve factual accuracy and precision, not only because they take into account the curvature of space, but also because they are based on points of observation inside of the spacetime continuum, that is, they adopt a submicroscopic perspective.
Best regards,
Nancy Ann Watanabe
Nancy Ann Watanabe
Einstein's statement that space (more precisely, space-time) is curved is an overgeneralization. He set this conclusion in motion himself in 1919 when he published his article "Do gravitational fields play an essential role in the structure of elementary particles?" My work has developed a theory I call Vector-Tensor-Scalar Geometry - this was inspired by Einstein's publication.
VTS geometry means (a) gravity and electromagnetism can undergo a particular interaction to form particles with mass, and (b) space, while filled with gravitons and photons, is nothing but the absence of the mass-generating interaction. There can be no curvature of something that has no existence itself. The phrase "curvature of space" would technically mean "gravitons and photons filling space follow curved paths". However, it’s very convenient to simply speak of curved space – just as we say the Sun rises and sets while neglecting to mention Earth’s rotation … or speak of waves travelling without referring to excitation of pre-existing gravitons or photons by a space-time disturbance (a gravitational wave) travelling at the speed of light.
How can the gravitons and photons filling space follow curved paths? This requires the universe to be intelligently designed. In purely linear time, the designer would be God. In Einstein's nonlinear time (developed from Riemannian geometry's framework for modelling nonlinear data) suggests the possibility of the designer being future scientists who use this curvilinear time to interact with what we call the past and present.
To return to the question "How can the gravitons and photons filling space follow curved paths?" Waves can not only be described by mathematics but, according to this post, they can literally be the result of maths. Then, Fourier analysis or v=f.(lambda) would not merely be descriptions of waves created by interacting particles. In conjunction with base 2 maths aka binary digits and topology, they’d be part of the “blueprint” for forming waves which, via VTS geometry, produce particles. Interacting particles can produce waves just as masses can curve spacetime to create gravitation and gravitational waves. VTS plausibly explains the inverse – it doesn’t regard mass as the producer of gravity but regards gravity, partnering with electromagnetism, as producer of mass. Inverting quantum mechanics, the inverse law states that waves produce particles.
A one-dimensional line is a set of points obeying a linear relationship. A point’s an exact position or location. It’s important to understand that a point is not a thing, but a place. It possesses zero size and no matter how far we zoomed in, it’d remain dimensionless with no width. Instead of programming a set of points to follow a straight line, suppose they’re represented curvilinearly as a waveform described by Fourier analysis or v = f . lambda
Regards, Rodney
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