Cosmology Views
This is a follow-up to yesterday's post "Arp's Misleading Quasar Sample"
In some presentations, Arp says something like, " I asked for the object's red shift and [ zzz] got the value for me."
Unfortunately, some of the quasars were rather dim so their red shift could be interpreted to 2 very different values.
The typical quasar's red shift comes from the hydrogen lyman-alpha emission line. Unfortunately many quasars are surrounded by various elements and these ionized atoms are attracted to the plasmoid (so they have a red shift) which is probably a negative potential. A dim quasar can somewhat hide a single hydrogen emission line among the others.
From the data in the Seeing Red book's Figure 1-2, anyone could determine a rough red shift of either z < 1. or z > 6, depending on whether the lyman-alpha line was used or not. For this figure's z value, that H line was not used.
Perhaps Arp was required to ask someone else to review any value given to him.
Since astronomers rarely publish a spectrum for any red shift value (figure 1-2 is rare), I suspect such a request would be frowned upon by everyone hearing it. No one likes to hear their group's competence questioned.
I am disappointed to conclude the handling of spectra and their red shifts is inept in modern astronomy. Publishing spectrum data enables verification.
Perhaps this post is out of place but Arp was probably getting some bad numbers for the basis of his attempt at explaining quasar red shifts.
I expect he would have been upset when told the value could be one or another. After the fact, it is discouraging to conclude any number of quasars might have a red shift value of one or another.
Astronomy has so many credibility problems, like the dark stuff, and quasar red shifts are another.
By the way, given these red shift value mistakes, EU should not use Arp's theory for the age of matter being indicated in a red shift. I believe that theory required certainty about the red shift values and that certainty is not justified. The quasars were usually z < 1 so those values are in doubt.