First, on the letter about Thomson scattering causing redshift, I must strongly disagree with the conclusions of the author Dean Mamas. It is absolutely clear that Compton scattering cannot do the job, but I argue that Thomson scattering cannot do it either. The deep redshift pencil surveys of galaxies in 6 directions indicate that the density of galaxies is periodic with a period of about 400 million light years, is damped approximately as 1-over-r-squared from earth, and is spherically symmetric about an origin in the vicinity of Virgo, about 70 million light years from earth. Charles Sven has remarked on the spherical symmetry in the direction of Virgo, and I have demonstrated in my last NPA papers that the density drops in a similar manner in the entire Sloan SDSS survey.
The equations solved by Mamas do not include the n(r) density variation, so the exponential solution is not correct. Tom Van Flandern has concluded that only a uniform density of exotic matter could provide a tired light redshift. But this then argues that exotic matter, if it exists, cannot interact with a non-uniform distribution of real matter if it is to remain uniform, and if it does interact then it will fail to meet the conditions needed for tired light.
Experimentally, the galaxy periodicity is too perfect to be caused by a non-uniform tired light variation. Periodicity does not mean quantization, which is Halton Arp?s explanation. Hence, the only conclusion that can be made is that the galaxies are actually moving in space in a radial direction from an origin, and that movement has nothing to do with the Big Bang model, i.e., General Relativity has nothing to do with the movement at all! The movement is in space, but space is not uniformly expanding in space, which is consistent with Peter Erickson?s argument about absolute space. The data also falsifies the idea of a static universe.
The second paper I would like to comment on is Walter Chase?s article on the Dynamics of Black Holes. He assumes that the only things we know about black holes are that they are massive, nothing gets out, and the mathematics of General Relativity solely governs what happens inside them. Actually, we know a fair amount about black holes. We have pulsars, or neutron stars that are made up entirely of a ball of neutrons at nuclear density. There is some data about quark stars that apparently have measured densities greater than nuclear density, so some of the neutrons have been crushed to their quark constituents. We also know that there is a Chandrasekhar mass limit of a few solar masses where a neutron star would have to collapse to a black hole if more mass is added. And finally, we know that gravity does get out, so gravity must not be bound by the speed of light, but acts almost instantaneously as Van Flandern reports. Newton?s action-at-a-distance seems to work, even though we still can?t explain why.
At the most recent NPA meeting, Bob Heaston presented an analysis of the history of Einstein?s derivation of General Relativity over a ten year period, primarily concentrating on the physics terms on the right-hand-side of the equations. He concluded that Einstein made a conceptual error when he set the speed of light equal to 1.0, which had the effect of creating a singularity in the solutions. Heaston calls the offending term Eta = Gm/rc2, which is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given sized ball. He concludes that Eta <= 1.0, where 1.0 is the Heaston Limit where mass spontaneously converts to energy. Hence, a singularity is not possible, and with that, the Big Bang, inflation, string theory and black hole singularities are physically impossible. Peter Erickson in his book argues forcefully that space-time is also impossible, that time is here this instant and is replaced the next instant, and that motion bends in space while space remains absolute. Hence, Erickson argues that the left-hand-side tensor equations in General Relativity are also wrong.
The inescapable conclusion is that the Schwarzchild metric doesn?t apply to the black hole problem at all, and thus Chase?s mathematical solutions are not meaningful. The black hole is a finite sized ball of crushed neutrons whose gravitational attraction gathers any mass that enters and causes light to bend in a circle at the event horizon such that the net effect is total internal reflection. Whether or not we can form equations that govern such things as temperature and pressure in such an environment depends first on knowing what is inside and how that matter interacts with itself. It reminds me of what Dorothy said about arriving in Oz, ?this isn?t Kansas anymore?. We should derive our mathematics from the experimental results, instead of deriving beautiful mathematical relationships and then looking for physical situations they apply to!
