Errors in “Errors in Tired Light Cosmology”

The oft-cited and highly-ranked “Errors in Tired Light Cosmology” blog post (2008) by Edward L. Wright is an inaccurate critique of the tired light hypothesis.

The errors in “Errors in Tired Light Cosmology” prolong the crisis in cosmology and must be dispelled.

“Tired light models invoke a gradual energy loss by photons as they travel through the cosmos to produce the redshift-distance law.”

Tired light models do not “invoke”, they hypothesize a gradual energy loss by photons as they travel intergalactic space to produce the redshift-distance trend.

“This has three main problems: There is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy without also changing its momentum, which leads to a blurring of distant objects which is not observed. The Compton shift in particular does not work.”

The argument that tired light has a problem because “there is no known interaction that can degrade a photon’s energy and avoid blurring” is false. There are interactions that avoid blurring including gravitational redshift, magnetic redshift, and the redshift of a photon reflecting off a mirror.

Where is the author’s proof that redshift without blurring is an impossibility?

Big bang cosmologists repeatedly level the “lack of blurriness” criticism, and aside from their criticism being falsified by elementary counterexamples, it must be noted what a lack of feeling for exploration they have, for them to think that no known interaction for a new phenomenon would mean that there couldn’t be a new one.

An idea like tired light is precious and should have been nurtured.

Also, there exists the phenomenon of dispersion (dispersion measure, dispersion slope), where photons arrive delayed depending on the intergalactic medium (column of electrons, ions, and magnetic field), and evidently, galaxies are not blurred. It is known that photons can pass through a column of electrons without blurring.

“The tired light model does not predict the observed time dilation of high redshift supernova light curves.”

The studies that claimed time dilation of high redshift supernova light curves might have subtle errors due to calibration of the light curves (see SALT2 calibration).

The study might also have subtle errors because its claim requires the ‘dubious’ and ‘disturbing’ (choice words of Edwin Hubble) assumption that the red-shifts are velocity-shifts. Do not forget or inure to how absurd the theories of superluminal galactic recession and space expansion are. Opinions like “the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” are dogma when the history of science shows many an absurd theory to be false and many a true theory to be not absurd but grand.

“The tired light model can not produce a blackbody spectrum for the Cosmic Microwave Background without some incredible coincidences.”

This falsely assumes that tired light has to explain the CMB spectrum. Meanwhile, the alternative galactic-recession-expanding-space hypothesis is incapable of explaining the CMB parsimoniously (see “cosmic inflation”).

First, a single-digit Kelvin background was predicted before the proposal of the Big Bang Theory and long before the measurements of Penzias and Wilson. Big bang cosmologists were not the first to predict the CMB, and neither the most accurate.

Second, the source of the cosmic microwave background has not been proven to be some multi-billion-light-year distance away from the Milky Way. There remains a possibility the CMB-emitter is nearer the Milky Way, as in within a 100 Mly radius.

“Thus in the tired light model the energy of the CMB photons will go down but the density will not go down to match the density of a cooler blackbody.”

There is

a false assumption that the CMB photons were emitted many billions of light years away, and thus
a false premise that tired light has to explain CMB photons traveling gigalightyear distances, and thus
a farcical accusation that tired light is unable to explain them.

“The local Universe is transparent and has a wide range of temperatures, so it does not produce a blackbody, which requires an isothermal absorbing situation.”

It is a faulty argument that a large volume of space (the local universe) has a wide range of temperatures but cannot be isothermal in a portion of it. The local universe can be transparent and can have a region at 2.7 K.

Where is the author’s proof that the local universe cannot have a 2.7K-microwave-emitter that does not block other frequency photons?

“So the CMB must have come from a far away part of the Universe”

This is not true. There remains a possibility the CMB is a supercluster-sized phenomenon, and the CMB-emitter occupies the local 100-Mly-radius volume.

“The tired light model fails the Tolman surface brightness test”

The tired light model does not. The studies arguing otherwise suffer from biases including Malmquist bias (instrument-sensitivity-floor leading to biased detection of brighter objects) and expanding-space-hypothesis-calibrated-time-dilation-factor-inserted distance data.

In summary, tired light without blurring is not impossible, tired light does not conflict with the CMB, big bang cosmology’s claims of the CMB source and CMB distance are flawed, and the surface brightness of galaxies does not conflict with the hypothesis of photons redshifting while traversing non-expanding (an adjective which shouldn’t need saying), 3D space.

2024-09-13