Cosmological Redshift of Light, (Hardcover)

This book addresses the cause of the cosmological redshift of light, currently assumed to be due to the Doppler effect on light resulting from the expansion of the universe following the Big Bang. However, there is an alternative less radical theory. Fritz Zwicky's "tired-light" theory attributes the linear cosmological redshift with distance from the observer to the loss of energy by photons, and consequent increase in wavelength, resulting from interactions between the photons and intervening electrons or matter whilst travelling through intergalactic space. Arthur Compton's paper [Compton, A. H. (May, 1923). A Quantum Theory of the Scattering of X-rays by Light Elements] confirmed that the scattering of electrons by X-rays or γ-rays results in a redshift due to the transfer of energy from the photons to the scattered electron. For electromagnetic radiation from remote galaxies observed from the Earth, travelling through intergalactic space known to contain electrons and other matter, this also results in a linear increase in the redshift with the distance travelled by the photons. It is possible that both phenomena contribute to the observed cosmological redshift of light, but the current volume concludes that the loss of energy by photons is sufficient. There was no Big Bang, the universe is not just 13.8 billion years old, but is indefinitely old, and in a steady state, not expanding.