Redshifts and the Expanding Universe
A conversation topic that comes up on the lonesome trail is how the universe is expanding, and why scientists believe this. Yep, nothing like having coffee and beef jerky at the campfire and discussing redshifts, relativity, and other cowboy stuff. Seriously, though, redshifts are a mite tricky, since they have more than one source.
You've heard of the Doppler effect? The most popular example is when you're waiting for a train to go by and its whistle changes pitch, sounding lower as it gets farther away. Waves are waves, just some are faster than others, so the same thing applies to light waves. Redshifts are when celestial objects are moving away. Blueshifted light happens in a few cases, and that means they are approaching us, but never mind about that now. Getting into a bigger picture and bringing Albert Einstein into the picture, redshifts also indicate the expansion of the universe itself.
There was a popular version of the universe called the steady state, where it had no beginning and will have no end, and somehow it replenishes itself. Various incarnations of the Big Bang have been in vogue for several decades, but that was resisted at first because secularists didn't cotton to the implications that if the universe had a beginning, it had a Beginner. Interestingly, some creationists resist the idea of the expanding universe because it implies the Big Bang, so they lean toward the steady state view. There's no need for this, and the expanding universe does not demand adherence to the Big Bang, darling of secular cosmologists; creationists can indeed build a biblical model of cosmology.
 |
| Image adapted from public domain pictures:Albert Einstein from the Library of Congress and Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 by NASA, neither of which endorse the site contents. |
There was a popular version of the universe called the steady state, where it had no beginning and will have no end, and somehow it replenishes itself. Various incarnations of the Big Bang have been in vogue for several decades, but that was resisted at first because secularists didn't cotton to the implications that if the universe had a beginning, it had a Beginner. Interestingly, some creationists resist the idea of the expanding universe because it implies the Big Bang, so they lean toward the steady state view. There's no need for this, and the expanding universe does not demand adherence to the Big Bang, darling of secular cosmologists; creationists can indeed build a biblical model of cosmology.
To read the entire article, click on "Are Redshifts Cosmological?"Dr. Danny Faulkner recently published an article in the Answers Research Journal making the case for redshifts being cosmological. He makes a number of important points about redshifts, quasars, and an expanding universe. This article will summarize Dr. Faulkner’s research.. . .Dr. Faulkner makes the case in his article that redshifts are cosmological because they are the result of the universe expanding. He bases this on something called the Hubble relation. The Hubble relation is a linear way of showing that redshift increases with increasing distance or decreases with decreasing distance. The Hubble relation ties to Einstein’s theory of general relativity. According to general relativity, the universe is either expanding or contracting. The universe could stay stable, with no expansion or contraction, but only under very specific conditions. If the universe is expanding, redshift ought to increase with increasing distance. Since the Hubble relation confirms this, most scientists have accepted that the universe is expanding. If redshifts of distant galaxies are due to expansion, then their redshifts reflect distance, and we say their redshifts are cosmological.