If the redshift was somehow caused by the Sun’s gravitational field, then the redshift would change depending on the angular separation between the sun and the galaxy. It’s pretty easy to observe the galaxy when it’s 60 degrees away from the Sun (say, 40 degrees above the horizon when the Sun is 20 degrees below), and again, later in the same night, when it’s 180 degrees away. We’d have known immediately if that was happening.
Also, if the Sun’s gravitational field was responsible for the redshift, why does it affect the most distant galaxies most, and not affect light from stars?
In addition to many points raised upthread;
If redshift were due to our sun’s gravity, it should look different when looking directly away from the sun versus looking perpendicular to plane of the ecliptic (also in the directions with and opposite direction of travel).
Also, (and I don’t know if this is fighting your hypothetical) relativity would predict (very minimal) blue shifting of light coming into a star’s gravitational field. In what way does your theory predict that the wavelength should be stretched, rather than compressed?
Ninja’d.
Moreover, not all galaxies we see are red-shifted. Some (like Andromeda) are blue-shifted, due to the fact that they’re actually coming towards us. Also, the cosmic microwave background is blue-shifted in the direction of Earth’s travel, and red-shifted in the other. So no, gravitation doesn’t cause the redshift of light we observe, since we don’t in fact observe all light to be red-shifted.
The OP seems to have his own ideosyncratic idea of how gravitational redshift works. It doesn’t seem to correspond to how GR says it works, but here’s my layman’s understanding of the latter.
When light moves into a gravitational field, it blueshifts; when moving out of a field, it redshifts. So light coming from outside the solar system to the Earth is going to be blueshifted by a slight amount. It doesn’t actually matter which way it’s coming from, it’ll have the same blueshifting. Even that perpendicullar to the Sun-Earth line will have the same blueshifting. Star light seen past an eclipsed sun will also have the same blueshifting, by the way. More about that anon.
As far as I know, astronomers ignore this Solar gravitational blueshifting. This is because it’s mostly cancelled out. When light leaves a star, it gets redshifted and then gets blueshifted coming into the Solar system. These effects largely cancel each other out. Yes, a more massive star will redshift more than the Sun blueshifts, but the net effect is small. Besides which, it’s generally overwhelmed by motion red/blueshifting, which is almost always of a greater magnitude. The same cancellation happens for light from other galaxies, it get’s redshifted by the gravity of the other galaxy and then blueshifted by the gravity of ours.
But this is all gravitational redfshifting. The cosmological redshifting is not due to gravity, but rather motion. Things moving towards us get blueshifted, things moving away get redshifted. For stars in our galaxy, roughly equal numbers are red and blue shifted. For galaxies, that’s not the case. There’s a small number of nearby galaxies that are blueshifted, but the vast majority are redshifted. Because those more distant are redshifted more than those closer, plus some other evidence, they’ve concluded that the universe itself is expanding.
As far as the eclipse goes, as I said it makes no difference. Star light passing near the Sun will be blueshifted even more than that we would see on Earth at other times, but that extra blueshifting will be exactly cancelled out by the redshifting of the light moving away from the sun.
Even as you describe it though cosmological red shift should depend on our local gravitational potential in the sun only, meaning we should not see the observed distance relationship and whether the cosmological source is being observed with the Sun “in-between” or behind us it should not make a difference.
So, what size lens do you think a radio telescope has?
One simple way to determine if this question has merit is to find out how much the sun would shift light and see if it’s close to what astronomers measure from the stars. If the sun has enough mass to shift light by X but astronomers measure redshifts that are nowhere near X, then the notion that the sun is causing the redshift if wrong. If astronomers measure redshifts that are in the vicinity of X, the OP might be onto something. Of course, I’m ignoring blueshifts and variations in redshifts and assuming everything is redshifted by a set amount, because that’s what the OP appears to do.
Well, I looked it up. The sun’s mass produces a gravitational redshift of around 0.633 km/s.
The redshift of a distant galaxy is typically hundreds to tens of thousands of km/s. GNz11, the farthest galaxy we’ve discovered, has a red shift of 670,000km/s
My theory predicts that the wave length should expand as it approaches the mass of the sun, the compress as it moves away from the sun. problem is - we only observe it as it approaches the sun, due to our position relative in the suns gravitational field. I looked on the web to find out if red shift has ever been measured during the solar eclipse and could only find articles concerned with defining positions of stars concerning proving Einstein’s theory.
The red shift would also be dependent on every other mass relative to the observation. only the difference probably would not be noticeable. So, the most extreme difference that we might be able to observe should be during the solar eclipse, the same as position.
Actually the experiments are designed to disprove GR, they just happen to confirm it due to GR being fantastically correct.
As for your theory it completely fails to take into account the lack of variation due to the numerous points raised above. If you have specific objects to one of them, pick it, present why it confuses you and we’ll get back to you.
I understand that there are varying degrees of red shift dependent on velocity, duh! I’m only saying that all light in the spectrum should shift in one direction when observed approaching the sun’s mass, and shift in the other direction when moving away from the suns mass. but you would have to be able to observe the effect from both positions at the same time to compare the difference, if there is a difference at all. If there is no difference, my theory would be wrong.
My theory does not require GR to be wrong. My theory takes GR further in showing how gravity, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and magnetism, are all side effects of the effect that matter has as it occupies space.
There is a gravitational blueshift from light coming deeper into the Sun’s gravitational field, but it’s the same in all directions, because we’re always the same distance from the Sun. You’re trying to describe the Sun’s gravitational field like one of those Escher drawings with people going around a rectangular staircase and always walking down steps.
You must have missed the part of my post where I said that the sun does create a redshift. It shifts by .633 km/s. This is known. If they are looking at something with a redshift at 0.3 km/s, then you definitely have a point. The sun causes a redshift that’s enough to completely screw up that measurement. Otherwise, it’s negligible.
There are catalogues of thousands upon thousands of objects in the universe with their redshift listed. Practically none fall within that 0.6km/s range while. Here is just one section of a list of 3000 objects surveyed. These are the redshifts listed in “z.” z is the the speed an object is redshifted relative to the speed of light (look up the redshift formula for more info). This is easily converted into km/s, but I’m too lazy. The numbers less than zero are actually blueshifts.
0.03002
2.247
0.116
0.01329
0.009
0.00584
2.6E-4
0.345
0.28401
0.05835
0.189
0.646
0.443
0.72802
0.01289
1.84043
1.9416
2.01004
1.85467
1.7703
2.10481
Ok, the sun’s gravitational redshift of .633km/s equates to 0.000002 in “z.” So, how does that effect any of these?
The effect would be miniscule. The only thing I am left wondering is, the location of the instrument that measured the suns redshift effect. Wouldn’t the measurement of that effect also be relative to the position of the instrument in the gravitational field that it is measuring, or is this calculation based on only mathematical formulas. this whole argument frustrates me, every time you inject relativity in to it, it’s like a snake eating its own tale.
You have an understanding of my theory but, you have it backwards. A mass distorts the space around it, that distortion is an opposite representation of the density of the mass. Any light moving through the distortion would expand, (red shift) as it approaches the mass, and then compress as it moves away from the mass, (blue shift). if a mass does not have changes in its density, such as a proton, the distortion of space would not be gradual. When the light wave enters the distortion, it has an abrupt expansion, and can not compress to escape the distortion. I think this is how protons get their charge. I also think the same process is going on in a black hole, and is the reason for the magnetic field around the black hole.
Except there’s no abrupt boundary to the gravitational field, it’s a smooth curve and varies by well known physics explained by Newton.
You are correct that light can be red-shifted or blue-shifted to various observers based on their particular position within a gravity field. But as has been explained to you, the amount the sun will redshift photons is very small compared to the redshift we see from very distant galaxies.
And you still haven’t acknowledged that the redshift we see in distant objects is proportional to their distance, which was discovered famously by Hubble: Hubble's law - Wikipedia
If redshift was caused only by the sun, then light from every source outside the solar system would be shifted the same amount. And in fact it is, as was explained. But this redshift is very small compared to the actually observed redshift we see from distant sources.
The only explanation of Hubble’s Law that makes sense is if these distant objects are moving away from us, and the simplest physical explanation of that is that the universe is expanding. You could explain it in other ways–the universe could stay the same size but everything in the universe is shrinking, for example. But that’s a funny explanation, and it makes more sense to just say that the universe is expanding.
I feel ripped off. I’m pretty sure the only photons I get to see are the ones entering my eyes. I never get to see these photons moving away from me.
Light and all other electromagnetic radiation is composed of photons. Where are you getting protons from?