Some help understanding the red shift hypothesis for quasars

[atomiccolm]

I was recently sent a paper by a friend relating to The Red Shift Hypothesis for Quasars. He is an active geo-centrist and creationist and used it as a means of proof that the Earth is the center of the Universe.

 

“The Earth is indeed the center of the Universe. The arrangement of quasars on certain spherical shells is only with respect to the Earth. These shells would disappear if viewed from another galaxy or quasar. This means that the cosmological principle will have to go. Also it implies that a coordinate system fixed to the Earth will be a preferred frame of reference in the Universe. Consequently, both the Special and General Theory of Relativity must be abandoned for cosmological purposes.”

- Y. P. Varshni, “The Red Shift Hypothesis for Quasars: Is the Earth the Center of the Universe?” Astrophysics and Space Science 43 (1): 3 (1976).

He also provided another more recent paper listed below:

However, according to a Fourier analysis by Hartnett & Hirano, the galaxy number count N from redshift z data (N–z relation) indicates that galaxies have preferred periodic redshift spacings.........*A natural interpretation is that concentric spherical shells of higher galaxy number densities surround us, with their individual centers situated at our location*.”

- Professor Shigeo Hirano, "Observational tests for oscillating expansion rate of the Universe" Physical Review D, 2010.

After reading the paper, i found no mention of a central Earth, or even the word Earth contained within, and certainly no suggestion that the Earth is in a favored position, but unfortunately, the advanced math contained with makes me feel that I may have missed an inference from the data!

I have a general understanding of cosmology, although to most of you I am certainly a layman! When it comes to the advanced mathematics and physics in the paper, I tend to struggle. I was wondering if someone could help to explain the significance of these paper in terms of the claim made above. Is this an accepted viewpoint in modern cosmology or is it refuted? Or perhaps, has my friend misinterpreted the meaning and quote mined it to make his point?

My understanding was that this type of study into quasars was to help to quantify them and the redshift they create while giving us information about the past and current rates of expansion of the Universe.

Any help you could give would be most appreciated!

[swansont]

From what I can understand, any periodicity in redshift of any objects we observe falls within the expectations of galactic clustering. Use of the phrase "concentric circles" and asserting that this structure is unique to our observation reference point implies not only a radial distribution, but also an angular one, and there is not enough information given for me to know if this is true.

 

If it's simply due to clustering, I think one would see the same effect in some other galaxy albeit with different values, much the same way if one sits in a chair, one can discern a lattice structure, but it's not limited to one chair.

[atomiccolm]

Hi swansot,

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

I should have posted a link to the paper. It can be found here: http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?journal=Ap%2bSS&year=1976&volume=..43&letter=.&db_key=GEN&page_ind=5&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES

 

In your opinion, why do you think the author made the assumption, that it must mean the Earth is the center of the universe? It seems a rather bold claim considering the majority of scientists believe the contrary i.e we have no special position. Could you point me in the direction of some papers/articles that have found issue with the results/assertions? I would really like to respond to my friend with some hard evidence but I'm struggling to find any. When i search for the actual quotation, i find nothing but creationist blogs that agree with it, yet i find little in terms of rebuttal..

[swansont]

So it looks like there are four near one value, and two or more at each of
a few other values. That means the assertion about concentric circles is
wrong, i.e. the points would lie on a circle because they are
approximately equidistant, but to claim that the circle itself exists is
unsupported.

The distributions are compared to what one would expect from a random
distribution. That fails twice as any kind of proof: it's a small sample,
and also because gravitational clustering explains a non-random
distribution. They mention this, but I think their dismissal lacks
substance.

I also think their analysis of the statistics is bunk. Any random sample
will show clustering ‹ an equal distribution is not random. I would be
surprised if, in a random sample, that you didn't have several groups of
data points clustered, and have some gaps as a result. In fact, the
birthday distribution scenario seems like an appropriate system to look at
here. If you have 25 points randomly distributed in a 365 point line, the probability of

two being on the same point is above 0.5. k=2, n=365, r=25

Using their formula I get .002, and with r=30 I get .003

 

I think I know what's wrong. For k=r=n=2 (2 points in 2 possible places,

what are the odds of getting 2 in the same place) you get a probability of 0.25. But

those are the odds of getting 2 in a particular (pre-chosen) place. The odds of getting

2 in any hole is 0.5. (first one goes in either hole, second one is 0.5 to join it there)

So their formula is the wrong one to use. They have found the probability of 4 quasars

with a z of 1.955, not the probability of 4 that just happen to be very close

to each other.

 

What they should do is a Monte-Carlo simulation and see if they get similar clustering.

I think they will.