Article View: sci.physics.relativity
Article #317WHY LIGHT IS SO OFTEN REDSHIFTED
From: Pentcho Valev
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:44
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:44
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6633 bytes
According to Newton's emission theory of light, light slows down in the gravitational field of the emitter and continues to move REDSHIFTED in the distant (zero-field) space with a DECREASED speed c'=c(1+phi/c^2), where phi is the gravitational potential difference between the surface of the emitter and the distant (zero-field) space. According to Einstein's relativity, light slows down even more vigorously in the gravitational field of the emitter and continues to move EVEN MORE REDSHIFTED in the distant (zero-field) space with an EVEN LOWER speed c'=c(1+2phi/c^2): http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm "In geometrical units we define c_0 = 1, so Einstein's 1911 formula can be written simply as c=1+phi. However, this formula for the speed of light (not to mention this whole approach to gravity) turned out to be incorrect, as Einstein realized during the years leading up to 1915 and the completion of the general theory. In fact, the general theory of relativity doesn't give any equation for the speed of light at a particular location, because the effect of gravity cannot be represented by a simple scalar field of c values. Instead, the "speed of light" at a each point depends on the direction of the light ray through that point, as well as on the choice of coordinate systems, so we can't generally talk about the value of c at a given point in a non- vanishing gravitational field. However, if we consider just radial light rays near a spherically symmetrical (and non- rotating) mass, and if we agree to use a specific set of coordinates, namely those in which the metric coefficients are independent of t, then we can read a formula analogous to Einstein's 1911 formula directly from the Schwarzschild metric. (...) In the Newtonian limit the classical gravitational potential at a distance r from mass m is phi=-m/r, so if we let c_r = dr/dt denote the radial speed of light in Schwarzschild coordinates, we have c_r =1+2phi, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911 equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the potential term." http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm "Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German (download from: http://www.physik.uni-augsburg.de/annalen/history/einstein-papers/1911_35_898-908.pdf ). It predated the full formal development of general relativity by about four years. You can find an English translation of this paper in the Dover book 'The Principle of Relativity' beginning on page 99; you will find in section 3 of that paper Einstein's derivation of the variable speed of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is: c'=c0(1+phi/c^2) where phi is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the speed of light co is measured......You can find a more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from the full theory of general relativity in the weak field approximation....For the 1955 results but not in coordinates see page 93, eqn (6.28): c(r)=[1+2phi(r)/c^2]c. Namely the 1955 approximation shows a variation in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in 1911." Apart from the gravitational redshift, light seems to slow down (and so gets additionally redshifted) even in the absence of a gravitational field, due to "friction" with some unknown components of "empty" space. Naturally, this (Hubble) redshift is proportional to the distance. Einsteinians have found it profitable to explain Hubble redshift not in terms of slowing down of the speed of light but, rather, in terms of an accelerating expansion of the universe. Given the perfect discipline in Einsteiniana, hints at slowing down of the speed of light in empty space never come from Einsteinians. There was one exception (now suppressed): http://www.sciscoop.com/2008/10 "Does the apparently constant speed of light change over the vast stretches of the universe? Would our understanding of black holes, ancient supernovae, dark matter, dark energy, the origins of the universe and its ultimate fate be different if the speed of light were not constant?.....Couldn't it be that the supposed vacuum of space is acting as an interstellar medium to lower the speed of light like some cosmic swimming pool? If so, wouldn't a stick plunged into the pool appear bent as the light is refracted and won't that affect all our observations about the universe. I asked theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, author of The Black Hole War, recently reviewed in Science Books to explain this apparent anomaly....."You are entirely right," he told me, "there are all sorts of effects on the propagation of light that astronomers and astrophysicists must account for. The point of course is that they (not me) do take these effects into account and correct for them." "In a way this work is very heroic but unheralded," adds Susskind, "An immense amount of extremely brilliant analysis has gone into the detailed corrections that are needed to eliminate these 'spurious' effects so that people like me can just say 'light travels with the speed of light.' So, there you have it. My concern about cosmic swimming pools and bent sticks does indeed apply, but physicists have taken the deviations into account so that other physicists, such as Susskind, who once proved Stephen Hawking wrong, can battle their way to a better understanding of the universe." Pentcho Valev pvalev@yahoo.com
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X-Google-Thread: a846ae8c3c,6443ffa102b9fee8,start X-Google-Attributes: gida846ae8c3c,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!y4g2000yqy.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Pentcho Valev <pvalev@yahoo.com> Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity,sci.physics,fr.sci.physique,fr.sci.astrophysique,sci.astro Subject: WHY LIGHT IS SO OFTEN REDSHIFTED Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:44:26 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 89 Message-ID: <66654aef-eaff-4be4-88a3-41bad18a01bc@y4g2000yqy.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 84.54.163.39 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1276839866 30559 127.0.0.1 (18 Jun 2010 05:44:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:44:26 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: y4g2000yqy.googlegroups.com; posting-host=84.54.163.39; posting-account=Lz-LbgoAAABPDavKeW-eYeobwLHD_cvQ User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; AskTB5.5),gzip(gfe)