Star-date
2001
CHAPTER
51
INDEX
TO OTHER PAGES
What is down to earth for Astronomers may not necessarily be so up in space, where new light shed on the speed and distance measures of the stars has put them up for grabs.
Many a sleepless night and weary bones have tallied in with the many measures taken by astronomers to determine the speed at which the twinkling lights in their telescopes seem to move, and just how far they may be from us.
Much, if not all of these measures now are found incorrect because of a misconception in the accuracy of the yardstick by which these measures are taken.
Where carpenters measure for length by a metal strip, astronomers use light as their tape measure, determining speed and distance by its flexibility to compress and expand. It is this very flexibility however - to give them a blue shift under compression and a red shift under expansion - that is causing them to err.
Can you imagine a cabinet maker coming into your kitchen to take his measures with a rubber band, stretching it a little more or less here and there what then the product will be? Similarly, astronomers are defeated in their quest to measure the heavens, so much so that to this day man has not a single accurate measure of the heavens outside of his own solar system.
I now did not plan it so, nor shall I be fond of being the bearer of bad news, I have however much good news that will advance us upon our quest to comprehend the nature of the things we so carefully plot, and the inner workings of the tools we take to hand.
The foremost requirement to the use of a tool is to understand its use in the nature of its operation.
And to come to this understanding we must first determine what precisely it is that determines the factors of the speed and distance, which we seek.
Velocity then is easy to understand in the same principle by which the sound of an oncoming or receding train changes pitch (compression and expansion). Density on the other hand is not so easily understood lest the nature of light is understood.
We understand all-right how light refracts in the layer of thinner air just above a road-bed that on a summer day appears as water, but as to how "speed" is also changed on account of it - that we have yet to learn. We know that it does, for light passing through glass or water shows a reduction in velocity, - but just how and why it does so - has to this day remained a mystery.
Distance then is a measure of speed in time. And since speed is associated in finding a distance, consequently, distance is variable with the variables of speed.
But in addition to speed - which takes in density for its variables - there is what we might call a "dislocation," a factor that carries the train of light from one location to another without disturbing its happy go lucky
forward movement, or even its direction of movement. - - And this little known factor together with the other mystery has caused our astronomers to err in their findings.
Illustrating a measure of light
Light, as I showed in a previous discussion, rides dependent on the media by which we and the whole universe is constructed. Moreover, it receives its forward momentum from the very engines that make-up all of matter, namely the atoms. (assuming the legend of the stork to deliver the babies.)
As therefore a beam of light is traveling through a galaxy and that galaxy is also moving, the speed at which the light may be said to travel relevant to space
is pertinent to both its own velocity that of the galaxy.
If a train one half mile in length traveled 10 miles, and you during that time walked from the front to the rear of that train as it moved, you would have moved only 9-1/2 miles up the track, while the train in which you traveled did 10 miles.
Or by the same token, if the train went 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, and in that time you walked from the rear to the front, your actual speed relevant to the track and all the surroundings would be 60.5 miles per hour. These
things are common sense, and if we can grasp these as such, we should have no difficulty understanding how light travels in space.
Let us propose to take a journey from our earth to a star called X84 in a galaxy not too far from
us. (Figure 51-1).
How shall we presume to travel thereto? Shall we go in a straight line, or follow the beam of light as we go? We
had better take the latter, for in a straight line of sight we would arrive at a totally different star named X28, some three light-years from our destination.
How then can this be - that light does not necessarily follow a straight line in space? The answer to which is, the variables of density, velocity, and dislocation that play upon the location of the star by speed and distance. Let us follow that beam of light as it leaves star X84 to learn just what goes on.
First of all, as the light is generated and leaves the surface of the star it is not then as yet shifted to either the blue or red side of the spectrum. For however fast the star may be traveling towards or away from the direction in which the light was spun out, its track fastened within the matter that surrounds the star, it moves equally along with the star.
When however it reaches the border where the
atmospheric substance of that sun leaves off for a density of the same matter that is much less dense
(point A) - a change occurs. The wavelengths are expanded, showing up as a red shift, and the velocity of the light passing through space is increased.
Let us thus for the example say that the shift was equal to 3000 km/sec. Then as the light comes upon the galactic center, (point B) where the substance is denser, it is compressed by a shift to the blue equal to 2000 km/sec. And since it did not come straight upon it, but with an angle out of normal - as it is called, it is refracted taking on a new direction heading for point C.
Then as it leaves, again out of normal, it again takes on a new direction heading for star Y63 to graze its surface. Meanwhile, the shift it received at point B - has been corrected by a red shift at point C, and it is again traveling between point C and star Y63 with a 3000 km/sec shift.
A drastic change is now to occur at this star Y63, - for in grazing that star so closely, the light acts just as when it goes through a prism - its direction changes to head for what in the illustration is noted as point 2 (a bit above our earth). But will it exit the galaxy along that line? ... The answer to which is: No!
For here the other factor called dislocation, comes in to divert the beam of light - as it travels from point D to the edge of the galaxy - to exit the same along the line that points directly at our earth, and where we at last came to behold the light of star X84.
We must remember that galaxies are swirling masses of stars, planets, and gases. As therefore the light rode happily on its track in the substance of that galaxy, and it moved in a downward direction, - so by the time the light would have been at point E - instead - and luckily for us - it had been dislocated to point G.
Now let us see what all this comprehends, and how in our eyesight observation we may be deceived. If for example we stood at a point just before star Y63, and read the 3000 Km/sec red shift upon the light, would we then acclaim that star X84 is receding from us at that velocity?
Right now you may not answer me, but he is more to admit to faults than he who denies it. The shift in this case is not a reading of velocity, but of density, a change in density, as must be obvious since stars Y63 and X84 are not parting distance between them. Hence, we know for a fact - that a change in density changes shift accordingly.
Next, let us behold the total shift upon the light as we received it upon the earth. We for the example are assuming the galaxy to move towards the left at 10.000 km/sec, and the media of the space trailing behind - to have a velocity of 1000 km/sec, together with which we upon our earth are moving.
The light thus plunging from a 10.000
km/sec velocity into a 1000 km/sec velocity - will pick up an
additional red shift reading of 9.000 km/sec, which added to the existing 3000 leaves a final reading of 12.000.
And now note that I did not add "km/sec" behind the 12.000, for as we just learned – that not all of the shift can be interpreted into velocity. Only 9000 of the 12.000 can be written up as receding velocity. And thus with this new knowledge of light will we in fact record star X84 to be receding from us at 9.000 km/see?
We will make an error if we do, since as the illustration shows, star X84 it coming towards us at a speed of 1000 km/sec. And since it is still in a slow turn, this may not be to the full of that velocity, but nevertheless somewhere between 8.000 and 9.000 for a correct velocity of recession.
Have you ever wondered why most of the readings we get from space are on the “red” side of the spectrum? Ancient scientist interpreted it into an expanding universe.
But is this really so? A good understanding of the nature of light is foremost essential before we should set standards made by a measuring tape no more firm than a rubber band.
And to go back to the illustration once for a measure of time, - we can assume that the light traveled somewhere near 300.000 km/sec in passing from point A to point B, while its message upon it read an apparent 3000 km/see velocity for a star - which in effect was not of the star, but an increase in the velocity of the light itself.
Then - as this came to a 2.000-km/see reduction at point B, - the light traveled through the galactic center at only 1000 km/see more than
the speed at which it left from its source . . .. This little snag - traveling at a reduced velocity through the center of the galaxy - even if this was for only 3 days, can measure into many miles.
Distance therefore, in space, cannot be set by velocity in time - lest with it, all the particulars are known and accounted for. Nor can receding or approaching velocities be determined from merely the shift in wavelength. And as for the true location of the many lights in the sky, - there is more to it than just the time in looking at the past.
Atmospheric prism
The sky is blue, not because it is blue, but the shorter (blue) wavelengths are cast upwards to give the sky its blue deception. And by the same token, the red sky in the morning, or at evening are again a phenomena of light in its refraction which simultaneously produces a dispersion of the waves each according to their own measure, - the red taking a longer turn.
This is not something I have to teach; hand-held prisms and the rainbow in the sky are well defined subjects unto us. Yet with all this common knowledge in our own backyard - where the grass is green - we fail to realize how - over the fence in our neighbors yard - the grass is also green.
And so I am talking about how naive we can be, and how easily we are taken in by smooth talking salesmen -
to let ourselves be led upon stray paths with the stroke of a pen.
Beholding figure 51-2, the sun shining brightly, which for the illustration, I placed within a prism in order to prove a point.
By what phenomena of nature now do you think that the light of the distant star is refracted to give us the illusion as if it is located at what is noted as - the apparent location? Do I have to spell it out?
Leave then the ancient with their ancient so called gravity, but you follow right conceptions. In the first place, light has nothing to do with gravity, nor is it in any way susceptible to such declarations of force. But light is susceptible to changes in density.
And to end this discussion with one more example of "dislocation," note how the light from the star as it grazed our sun did not pass from points E to point G - straight on, but by a curved trajectory.
The reason being, as the matter (the gases surrounding the sun) move in a circular fashion with the rotation of the sun, and the light depending for its tracks upon it, so - the light - together with its track - is dislocated following the impending curved path.
Meanwhile,
the light - for itself - is oblivious to all this following its own momentum tracing for all it knows - a perfectly straight line.
Leonard
