The red shift is explained by a decrease in the speed of light, not by an expanding universe.
RECONSIDERING LIGHT-SPEED
It is at this point in the discussion that a consideration of light-speed becomes important. It has already been mentioned that an increase in vacuum energy density will result in an increase in the electrical permittivity and the magnetic permeability of space, since they are energy related. Since light-speed is inversely linked to both these properties, if the energy density of the vacuum increases, light-speed will decrease uniformly throughout the cosmos. Indeed, in 1990 Scharnhorst [51] and Barton [20] demonstrated that a lessening of the energy density of a vacuum would produce a higher velocity for light. This is explicable in terms of the QED approach. The virtual particles that make up the 'seething vacuum' can absorb a photon of light and then re-emit it when they annihilate. This process, while fast, takes a finite time. The lower the energy density of the vacuum, the fewer virtual particles will be in the path of light photons in transit. As a consequence, the fewer absorptions and re-emissions which take place over a given distance, the faster light travels over that distance [52, 53].
However, the converse is also true. The higher the energy density of the vacuum, the more virtual particles will interact with the light photons in a given distance, and so the slower light will travel. Similarly, when light enters a transparent medium such as glass, similar absorptions and re-emissions occur, but this time it is the atoms in the glass which absorb and re-emit the light photons. This is why light slows as it travels through a denser medium. Indeed, the more closely packed the atoms, the slower light will travel as a greater number of interactions occur in a given distance. In a recent illustration of this light-speed was reduced to 17 metres/second as it passed through extremely closely packed sodium atoms near absolute zero [54]. All this is now known from experimental physics. This agrees with Barnett's comments in Nature [11] that 'The vacuum is certainly a most mysterious and elusive object…The suggestion that the value of the speed of light is determined by its structure is worthy of serious investigation by theoretical physicists.'
On the new model,the redshift measurements imply that light-speed, c, is dropping exponentially. For each redshift quantum change, the speed of light has apparently changed by a significant amount. The precise quantity is dependent upon the value adopted for the Hubble constant which links a galaxy's redshift with its distance.
AN OBSERVED DECLINE IN LIGHT-SPEED
The question then arises as to whether or not any other observational evidence exists that the speed of light has diminished with time. Surprisingly, some 40 articles about this very matter appeared in the scientific literature from 1926 to 1944 [56]. Some important points emerge from this literature. In 1944, despite a strong preference for the constancy of atomic quantities, N. E. Dorsey [57] was reluctantly forced to admit: 'As is well known to those acquainted with the several determinations of the velocity of light, the definitive values successively reported … have, in general, decreased monotonously from Cornu's 300.4 megametres per second in 1874 to Anderson's 299.776 in 1940 …' Even Dorsey's own re-working of the data could not avoid that conclusion.
However, the decline in the measured value of 'c' was noticed much earlier. In 1886, Simon Newcomb reluctantly concluded that the older results obtained around 1740 were in agreement with each other, but they indicated 'c' was about 1% higher than in his own time [58], the early 1880's. In 1941 history repeated itself when Birge made a parallel statement while writing about the 'c' values obtained by Newcomb, Michelson, and others around 1880. Birge was forced to concede that '… these older results are entirely consistent among themselves, but their average is nearly 100 km/s greater than that given by the eight more recent results' [59]. Each of these three eminent scientists held to a belief in the absolute constancy of 'c'. This makes their careful admissions about the experimentally declining values of measured light speed more significant.
EXAMINING THE DATA
The data obtained over the last 320 years at least imply a decay in 'c' [56]. Over this period, all 163 measurements of light-speed by 16 methods reveal a non-linear decay trend. Evidence for this decay trend exists within each measurement technique as well as overall. Furthermore, an initial analysis of the behaviour of a number of other atomic constants was made in 1981 to see how they related to 'c' decay. On the basis of the measured value of these 'constants', it became apparent that energy was being conserved throughout the process of 'c' variation. In all, confirmatory trends appear in 475 measurements of 11 other atomic quantities by 25 methods. Analysis of the most accurate atomic data reveals that the trend has a consistent magnitude in all the other atomic quantities that vary synchronously with light-speed [56].
All these measurements have been made during a period when there have been no quantum increases in the energy of atomic orbits. These observations reinforce the conclusion that, between any proposed quantum jumps, energy is conserved in all relevant atomic processes, as no extra energy is accessible to the atom from the ZPF. Because energy is conserved, the c-associated atomic constants vary synchronously with c, and the existing order in the cosmos is not disrupted or intruded upon. Historically, it was this very behaviour of the various constants, indicating that energy was being conserved, which was a key factor in the development of the 1987 Norman-Setterfield report, The Atomic Constants, Light And Time [56].
The mass of data supporting these conclusions comprises some 638 values measured by 43 methods. Montgomery and Dolphin did a further extensive statistical analysis on the data in 1993 and concluded that the results supported the 'c' decay proposition if energy was conserved [60]. The analysis was developed further and formally presented in August 1994 by Montgomery [61]. These papers answered questions related to the statistics involved and have not yet been refuted.
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