Reply To: Iconography

[MARK LOFTS]

DOES THE REDSHIFT TELL THE TRUTH – that is, tell the truth about the distance and the recession rate of a (galactic scale) object?

The major sceptic on this point is Halton Arp who dismisses redshifts primarily on the basis that he has found material that bridges galaxies to quasars. Let us accept his claim here for the sake of argument – as he does seem to have some good evidence. Let us also reject the tired excuse of ‘tired light’ however. In such galaxy-quasar ‘pairs’ the redshifts of the galaxy and quasar are different, hence, concludes Arp, the redshift is meaningless at detecting galactic distances since the galaxy-quasar pair is at a certain fairly precise distance from us.

I have not found any explanation by Arp for the differing redshifts within the galaxy-quasar pair, but, given that his evidence for such pairings is sound, I present an explanation here which, although I worked it out rather than reading it in a book, does I think fit the normal explanation of redshifts and reinstates the reliability of redshift measurements while explaining his variant observations as peculiar to quasars.

A quasar, as Eric Lerner has suggested and others have found further evidence for, is a galaxy in formation. At the magnetic poles of this galaxy in formation (BBNH p. 251) matter is being ejected. However, at the equator of such a protogalaxy material is falling inward into the bright centre of the galaxy. As this material falls inward it blocks some of the light emerging from the core of the protogalaxy. This infalling material imprints its characteristics on the spectra. Since the material is infalling its spectral characteristics are redshifted relative to an observer stationary with respect to the protogalaxy. This infalling material is of course moving away from the external stationary observer – away towards the core of the protogalaxy. Upon this ‘falling material induced’ redshift there is then imposed the further ‘cosmic’ redshift, i.e. the redshift of the protogalaxy relative to us on earth. Hence the protogalaxy/quasar has two different causes for its redshift. This accounts for the mismatch in redshifts between galaxy quasar pairs – and also negates Halton Arp’s claims that redshift is unrelated to galactic distance if not recession rate.

Yours faithfully

Mark Lofts