Vacuum Friction and Cosmological (Hubble) Redshift

[Pentcho Valev]

"Indeed, Wilczek began his lecture by speaking of the profound analogy between materials and vacuum. What our naked senses perceive as empty space turns out to be a riotous environment of virtual particles fluorescing and dying away on extremely small scales of space and time, as well as fog-like fields and condensates, which permeate all space and dictate the properties of elementary particles. To give an analogy for this perplexing new picture of reality, Wilczek asks us to imagine intelligent fish in a world surrounded by water. Such creatures would perceive the water surrounding them as their version of empty space or a vacuum. "The big idea I want to convey is simply this: We're like those fish," he said. What our senses perceive as empty space is better understood as a substance, a material." https://asunow.asu.edu/20170208-finding-nothing-conversation-frank-wilczek

Paul Davies: "This leads to the prediction of vacuum friction: The quantum vacuum can act in a manner reminiscent of a viscous fluid." http://philpapers.org/rec/DAVQVN

"Some physicists, however, suggest that there might be one other cosmic factor that could influence the speed of light: quantum vacuum fluctuation. This theory holds that so-called empty spaces in the Universe aren't actually empty - they're teeming with particles that are just constantly changing from existent to non-existent states. Quantum fluctuations, therefore, could slow down the speed of light." https://www.sciencealert.com/how-much-do-we-really-know-about-the-speed-of-light

So it is quite reasonable to assume that, by gradually slowing down the speed of light, "vacuum friction" causes the cosmological (Hubble) redshift, in a non-expanding universe.

 

[Pentcho Valev]

"Reber (1982) pointed out that Hubble himself was never an advocate for the expanding universe idea. Indeed, it was Hubble who personally thought that a model universe based on the tired-light hypothesis is more simple and less irrational than a model universe based on an expanding spacetime geometry...any photon gradually loses its energy while traveling over a large distance in the vast space of the universe." Wilfred H. Sorrell, Misconceptions about the Hubble recession law, Astrophysics and Space Science, Sep 2009 http://paperity.org/p/19837385/misconceptions-about-the-hubble-recession-law

Monday, Dec. 14, 1936: "Other causes for the redshift were suggested, such as cosmic dust or a change in the nature of light over great stretches of space. Two years ago Dr. Hubble admitted that the expanding universe might be an illusion, but implied that this was a cautious and colorless view. Last week it was apparent that he had shifted his position even further away from a literal interpretation of the redshift, that he now regards the expanding universe as more improbable than a non-expanding one." https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,757145,00.html

 

[Pentcho Valev]

"Vacuum has friction after all. A ball spinning in a vacuum should never slow down, right? Wrong. It turns out quantum effects can create a type of friction in the void." https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927994-100-vacuum-has-friction-after-all/

Vacuum has friction after all. Photons traveling through vacuum should never slow down, right? Wrong. It turns out quantum effects can create a type of friction in the void.

The idea that vacuum slows down light has been largely discussed but only in terms of quantum gravity. The implication that the cosmological (Hubble) redshift might be due to slow speed of light is blocked by crimestop:

"...in some quantum-gravity models, the speed of photons in gamma rays would be affected by the grainy nature of spacetime..." https://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/255

Sabine Hossenfelder: "It's an old story: Quantum fluctuations of space-time might change the travel-time of light. Light of higher frequencies would be a little faster than that of lower frequencies. Or slower, depending on the sign of an unknown constant. Either way, the spectral colors of light would run apart, or 'disperse' as they say if they don't want you to understand what they say. Such quantum gravitational effects are miniscule, but added up over long distances they can become observable. Gamma ray bursts are therefore ideal to search for evidence of such an energy-dependent speed of light." http://backreaction.blogspot.fr/2017/01/what-burst-fresh-attempt-to-see-space.html

George Orwell: "Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."

 

[Pentcho Valev]

"Is the space inside, say, a galaxy growing but overcome by the gravitational attraction between the stars? The answer is no. Space within any gravitationally bound system is unaffected by the surrounding expansion."

View: https://youtu.be/bUHZ2k9DYHY?t=356


Sabine Hossenfelder: "The solution of general relativity that describes the expanding universe is a solution on average; it is good only on very large distances. But the solutions that describe galaxies are different - and just don't expand. It's not that galaxies expand unnoticeably, they just don't. The full solution, then, is both stitched together: Expanding space between non-expanding galaxies...It is only somewhere beyond the scales of galaxy clusters that expansion takes over." https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...ont-actually-expand-in-an-expanding-universe/

So cosmologists apply the expansion solutions only to voids completely deprived of gravity; to galaxies and galactic clusters they apply nonexpansion solutions. Why do cosmologists resort to this trick? Because, if they applied expansion solutions to galaxies and galactic clusters, observations would immediately disprove the expansion theory. Here is why:

If expansion is actual inside galaxies and galactic clusters, the competition between expansion and gravitational attraction would distort those cosmic structures - e.g. fringes only weakly bound by gravity would succumb to expansion and fly away. And the theory, if it takes into account the intragalactic expansion, will have to predict the distortions.

But no distortions are observed - there is really no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters. And cosmologists, without much publicity, have decided to apply the expansion theory only to gravity-free space. Prudence and honesty.

Since there is no expansion inside galaxies and galactic clusters, there is no expansion anywhere else.

 

[Newsbuff]

"Indeed, Wilczek began his lecture by speaking of the profound analogy between materials and vacuum. What our naked senses perceive as empty space turns out to be a riotous environment of virtual particles fluorescing and dying away on extremely small scales of space and time, as well as fog-like fields and condensates, which permeate all space and dictate the properties of elementary particles. To give an analogy for this perplexing new picture of reality, Wilczek asks us to imagine intelligent fish in a world surrounded by water. Such creatures would perceive the water surrounding them as their version of empty space or a vacuum. "The big idea I want to convey is simply this: We're like those fish," he said. What our senses perceive as empty space is better understood as a substance, a material." https://asunow.asu.edu/20170208-finding-nothing-conversation-frank-wilczek

Paul Davies: "This leads to the prediction of vacuum friction: The quantum vacuum can act in a manner reminiscent of a viscous fluid." http://philpapers.org/rec/DAVQVN

"Some physicists, however, suggest that there might be one other cosmic factor that could influence the speed of light: quantum vacuum fluctuation. This theory holds that so-called empty spaces in the Universe aren't actually empty - they're teeming with particles that are just constantly changing from existent to non-existent states. Quantum fluctuations, therefore, could slow down the speed of light." https://www.sciencealert.com/how-much-do-we-really-know-about-the-speed-of-light

So it is quite reasonable to assume that, by gradually slowing down the speed of light, "vacuum friction" causes the cosmological (Hubble) redshift, in a non-expanding universe.

Maybe here is why Hubble was uncomfortable with Doppler Redshift. If you apply Doppler to light as you would with sound, you would get this. The greater the redshift wavelength, the further and faster the star, galaxy is moving away from us. But as the light passes earth and continues its journey the wavelengths have to shorten and move towards the blue spectrum. So now the star/galaxy has to be moving towards us. Right? Ridiculous.

 

[Pentcho Valev]

"Only a little more than six months after the Webb team released the first observations from the grand observatory, scientists are already challenged to rewrite their theories about the early universe." https://www.scientificamerican.com/...rmous-distant-galaxies-that-should-not-exist/

No problem. The Big Bang theory, like any other preposterous theory in modern physics, is invincible and immortal:

Ethan Siegel: "Scientific Theories Never Die, Not Unless Scientists Choose To Let Them. When it comes to science, we like to think that we formulate hypotheses, test them, throw away the ones that fail to match, and continue testing the successful one until only the best ideas are left. But the truth is a lot muddier than that. The actual process of science involves tweaking your initial hypothesis over and over, trying to pull it in line with what we already know. [...] By the addition of enough extra free parameters, caveats, behaviors, or modifications to your theory, you can literally salvage any idea. As long as you're willing to tweak what you've come up with sufficiently, you can never rule anything out." https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...die-not-unless-scientists-choose-to-let-them/

Sabine Hossenfelder (Bee): "The criticism you raise that there are lots of speculative models that have no known relevance for the description of nature has very little to do with string theory but is a general disease of the research area. Lots of theorists produce lots of models that have no chance of ever being tested or ruled out because that's how they earn a living. The smaller the probability of the model being ruled out in their lifetime, the better. It's basic economics. Survival of the 'fittest' resulting in the natural selection of invincible models that can forever be amended." http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9375

 

[Pentcho Valev]

Even more trouble for the Einstein Cult:

View: https://youtu.be/M3Ua_koAnSU?t=219

 

[Atlan0001]

Maybe here is why Hubble was uncomfortable with Doppler Redshift. If you apply Doppler to light as you would with sound, you would get this. The greater the redshift wavelength, the further and faster the star, galaxy is moving away from us. But as the light passes earth and continues its journey the wavelengths have to shorten and move towards the blue spectrum. So now the star/galaxy has to be moving towards us. Right? Ridiculous.

"Light passes Earth and continues its journey...."? Where to, penultimately and ultimately in turn, pray tell? Where is the end, or the ends, of the journey? You imply there is a 0-point center of our local universe more advanced in the future, to much more advanced in the future -- in light time's future, somewhere but not here . . . one anywhere but here. The non-local (+/- 'c') of the speed of light is constant to all local velocities everywhere, everywhen, without exception. So is the non-local of the Big Bang / Planck / Infinity Horizon, at maybe 13.7 billion light years, and about 18 layers of level down quantum universe-wise, a current and concurrent constant to all local light time distances everywhere, everywhen, without exception. The redshift is a matter of histories, light time histories there (-) to here (0-point) via futures (+). The vastest difference, as is the least difference, in redshifts is between 0-point here (wherever 0-point here is) and the farthest there ((-) wherever, whenever, 'there' is). So . . . that distant steady state concurrent of Big Bang / Planck / Infinity 'Horizon' ('there' at a steady state constant 'emergent' horizon -- in one dimension of it -- 13.7 billion light years distant from everywhere and everywhen in past, present, and future history) does not go away exactly like a train and the sound of its whistle goes away from the observer.