Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #40 on: January 29, 2018, 09:13:17 AM »
controlled experiment

so i promise i'll stop pestering this thread after this post, but i have one more genuine confusion.

you make this request for "controlled experiments" multiple times in this thread; but, your "notes on empiricism" does not at all make clear that this is the only path to knowledge.

some quotes:

Quote
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
...
[We are] concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation.
...
Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.
...
What we see and experience of the world is the extent of our total knowledge. In order for an alternative explanation to have merit, it must be observed or experienced, and it is hard to argue against that.

you're clearly trying to imply in this thread that we cannot learn anything about stars since we cannot bring them to earth.  but your own standard for an empirical statement does not include this ridiculous criterion.

so i guess what i'm asking is: is a "controlled" experiment the only path to knowledge?  why do the observations we've all presented in this thread not count as "empirical evidence from observation and experiment?"

Well, you didn't observe that stars that are moving towards you are blue and that stars that are moving away from you are red. A controlled experiment with the stars would provide that observation.

Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Please provide the detail of a controlled experiment.

*

Offline AATW

  • *
  • Posts: 6488
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #41 on: January 29, 2018, 09:56:57 AM »
Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.

Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

*

Offline Tom Bishop

  • Zetetic Council Member
  • **
  • Posts: 10637
  • Flat Earth Believer
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #42 on: January 29, 2018, 10:33:59 AM »
Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.

If you were to hear a single high pitch sound, it is not possible from that alone to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.

Hearing a whole variety of sounds, without knowledge of their ranges, and that is assuming that there are ranges, does not tell us whether it is normal for all of those sounds to be that way, or whether it is one sound that is put under different conditions.

Similarly, since the stars cannot be put under controlled conditions, any "normal" cannot be determined.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 11:02:43 AM by Tom Bishop »

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #43 on: January 29, 2018, 10:36:29 AM »
Observing a blue star and logically deducing that it is because it is blue it is approaching you is rationalization, and certainly not a direct evidence that will produce a direct conclusion, as a controlled experiment would provide.
Why do you keep ignoring what people are trying to explain to you?
If you know the pitch of an emergency vehicle siren at rest and you hear one where the pitch is higher than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle is moving towards you. If the pitch is lower than you would expect then you can deduce that the vehicle of moving away from you.
Doppler shift is proven every time a moving object which is making a sound goes past you, the reasons for it are well known.
That is basically what is going on here. Scientists are NOT saying "Hey, that star looks a bit red, it must be moving away from us".
What they are doing is doing spectroscopy and noticing that the absorption lines - the positions of which are known, analogous to the pitch of the siren at rest - are shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. That shows Doppler shift and that shows movement.
The science between all this is well understood and proven.
You not understanding it, as you have repeatedly shown you don't, is not a counter argument.

If you hear a high pitch sound it is not possiblr to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.

Since the stars cannot be put under controlled conditions, any "normal" cannot be determined.
So you question science?  Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.

*

Offline Tom Bishop

  • Zetetic Council Member
  • **
  • Posts: 10637
  • Flat Earth Believer
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #44 on: January 29, 2018, 11:04:43 AM »
So you question science?  Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.

This is the appropriate forum, and it is your responsibility to make your defense.

*

Offline AATW

  • *
  • Posts: 6488
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #45 on: January 29, 2018, 01:03:32 PM »
If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.

1 is the only reasonable explanation.
Tom: "Claiming incredulity is a pretty bad argument. Calling it "insane" or "ridiculous" is not a good argument at all."

TFES Wiki Occam's Razor page, by Tom: "What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter to an escape velocity of 7 miles per second"

*

Offline Tom Bishop

  • Zetetic Council Member
  • **
  • Posts: 10637
  • Flat Earth Believer
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #46 on: January 29, 2018, 06:40:57 PM »
If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.

1 is the only reasonable explanation.

I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 07:29:43 PM by Tom Bishop »

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #47 on: January 29, 2018, 09:48:44 PM »
Well, you didn't observe that stars that are moving towards you are blue and that stars that are moving away from you are red.

you're still hung up on two key misunderstandings.  1) we're not observing the color of stars and galaxies; we're observing missing wavelengths of light in a spectrum.  2) this isn't a theory of starlight, it's empirically how light and matter work in general, as measured in careful laboratory experiments.

these points are key for two reasons: 1) this measuring the missing wavelengths in laboratories is how we know the baseline, and 2) these observations are meaningful so long as stars and galaxies are made of elements, and denying that they are made of elements would be absurdly rationalist.

If you were to hear a single high pitch sound, it is not possible from that alone to know whether it is a doppler effect or simply a high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.

Hearing a whole variety of sounds, without knowledge of their ranges, and that is assuming that there are ranges, does not tell us whether it is normal for all of those sounds to be that way, or whether it is one sound that is put under different conditions.

the first bit is totally correct, but the second bit is not.  no one is assuming anything.  the baseline has been verified in laboratory experiments (see: the sodium video), and relativistic doppler effects have, too (see: ives-sitwell).

let's explore the siren analogy.  suppose garyetta is a scientist who wants to better understand emergency sirens; but, for whatever reason, she's never allowed to touch one.  she can never bring a siren in her lab and take it apart.  she can only record the siren sounds as she's out and about in the city or whatever.

so garyetta does some experiments on the materials she thinks sirens are probably made of, and she makes a discovery: every kind of material (wood, metals, ceramics, alloys, plastics, etc.), no matter how you make sound with it, is always missing certain frequencies of sound depending on the material.  for example, she strikes a brass bell, makes a spectrogram of the sound, and notices that some wavelengths are always missing.  crucially, each kind of material has its own unique missing wavelengths.

now she goes outside and makes spectrograms of the siren noises she hears.  she can look at her spectrogram and determine exactly what kind of material the siren uses to make its sound.

you can see how the rest goes from here.  she notices that sometimes all the missing wavelengths are systematically shifted up or down the spectrum.  so she goes and learns about doppler effects and studies them in her lab and works out the relationship between velocity and the systematic shifts in the lines.

finally, she can record the siren noises and know exactly how they're moving relative to her just by looking at the positions of the missing wavelengths on her spectrogram.  she doesn't have to know the intrinsic "loudness" of the sirens, just as astronomers don't need to know the intrinsic color of the stars.  she's using a different metric altogether.  you think this is nonsense just because she never brought a siren into her lab? 
I have visited from prestigious research institutions of the highest caliber, to which only our administrator holds with confidence.

JohnAdams1145

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #48 on: January 30, 2018, 12:29:53 AM »
I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.

You know what this means? This means that you think you know more about spectral analysis than all of us, even though your lack of understanding of mainstream physics has been demonstrated elsewhere (see the rockets don't work in space thread). You're completely wrong.

Well, Tom, if you're just going to assert that without actually trying to understand the science, then I encourage everyone here just to give up. Repeatedly saying something doesn't make it true; this is not how scientists figure out stuff is blue-shifted. I don't know what else to say. We can't debate someone who relies on proof by completely unfounded assertion.

This will be the third time that I encourage you to take an AP Physics test. In this case, it is AP Physics 2, as you clearly don't even have a modicum of understanding of what absorption lines are and how we know what they are. As I said before, there's no shame in not understanding what absorption lines are and why they happen, but just plainly saying that the spectral analysis is based on the color of the star is just like saying doctors heal patients by giving them garlic -- no matter how much you assert it, it's not true, and demonstrably not so.

I deeply encourage you to throw out all of your preconceptions of the world and at least just try to understand physics on a basic level, starting with AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2, which are introductory algebra-based physics (no calculus involved!). Otherwise you can sit here and spout as much wrong science as you want, and everyone who knows physics on a basic level can laugh at you. Now I will explain the absorption lines, even though you should've done this research before coming here and ignorantly and stubbornly asserting demonstrably wrong stuff. This is in addition to your completely ignoring the parallax argument, which completely eviscerated your assertions; you, however, have refused to address the issue of multiple measurements after the calculations have been done for you. You should easily note that you are unable to perform any complex calculations because you don't have a deep understanding of physics. I'm a new subscriber to the idea of the "credit score" in the debates, although in modified form. I think you should see who's putting up all of the mathematical calculations and who's just tossing them out with a few words of pseudoscientific drivel.

Now for the useless explanation, as the education issue is far deeper than this one misconception in physics:
To understand absorption lines, you must first understand what a potential field is. A potential field arises from an object (for electric potential, an electric charge, for gravitational potential, a massive object) that exerts forces over a distance on other objects. I'll use a static electric potential field for the sake of explanation because it involves units you've heard of before.
Let's call E(x) the value of the potential field (in J / C = V) at the 3D point x. Then for a small test charge q (that exists at a single point), the amount of work that the electric force does on q from point x_1 to point x_2 is approximately q(E(x_1) - E(x_2)). So if the voltage between the hot and neutral pins in my wall outlet is 156 V, then for every coulomb (1 amp x 1 second) of charge that flows through the device I've plugged in, I get 156 joules of energy. For every electron I pass through that potential difference, the device gets 156 eV. By the way, potential functions exist only for conservative force fields, where the curl is 0, since the work is the line integral of the force field on a given path and the potential difference should be path-independent.

Now that you hopefully understand potential fields, it's easy to see that each atom nucleus also generates an electric potential field. Therefore, the electrons around the nucleus and the nucleus have potential energy between them (potential energy exists only in systems of objects). Of course, this is where the "small test charge" assumption fails a bit, as the other electrons mess around with the potential field (since they're charged particles), and the whole thing becomes super-hard to calculate. Fortunately, hydrogen only has one electron. Now, energy is quantized at these scales; an electron can only be in one of several energy levels (i.e. places in the potential field; see http://astro.unl.edu/naap/hydrogen/transitions.html for hydrogen). Bohr explained this with quantized angular momentum as a result of the requirement of the orbit size to be a multiple of the electron's de Broglie wavelength, but that's been superseded by quantum mechanics. You can calculate these energy levels with Rydberg's formula or just look them up. Only incoming radiation with quantized energy (photons) that corresponds exactly to a difference in energy levels can be absorbed (apply conservation of energy + quantization of energy) or emitted. Because stars emit mostly black-body radiation, the surfaces of the stars will absorb the frequencies of light corresponding to the energy level differences (E = hf). These energy level differences, then, create "gaps" in the normal black-body spectrum that are seen as black lines on the spectrum. These are called absorption lines. We can also support this explanation of absorption lines with experiments showing that the emission lines (using high voltage to excite the atoms) of hydrogen fall right on where the absorption lines are... do you see how nice physics is when you're right?

Since these "gaps" depend only on the elemental composition of the stars (i.e. hydrogen, unless you want to deny that to patch up your hypothesis), we know exactly where they must be on the spectrum. If they're shifted back, we can conclude that Doppler shifting is responsible. So, no, your junk idea of not knowing what the starting pitch of the sound is can be thrown where it belongs: the garbage.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2018, 12:35:38 AM by JohnAdams1145 »

*

Offline Tom Bishop

  • Zetetic Council Member
  • **
  • Posts: 10637
  • Flat Earth Believer
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #49 on: January 30, 2018, 01:31:48 AM »
The red shift and blue shift of a substance's spectral lines isn't something that only happens with high velocities. It also happens in chemistry. Look into Bathochromic Shift and Hyposchromatic Shift. The spectral lines of a substance can shift left or right along the color spectrum for a variety of chemical reasons.

http://photonicswiki.org/index.php?title=Changes_in_Absorption_Spectra

Quote
Terminology for absorption shifts

Bathochromic, Hypsochromic, Hyperchromic, Hypochromic shifts summarized

Changes in chemical structure or the environment lead to changes in the absorption spectrum of molecules and materials. There are several terms that are commonly used to describe these shifts, that you will see in the literature, and with which you should be familiar.

Bathochromic: a shift of a band to lower energy or longer wavelength (often called a red shift).
Hypsochromic: a shift of a band to higher energy or shorter wavelength (often called a blue shift).
Hyperchromic: an increase in the molar absorptivity.
Hypochromic: an decrease in the molar absorptivity.

Solvatochromism

Negative and positive solvatochromism

If as substance shifts to a lower energy state with a longer wavelength, it is referred to as a Bathochromic shift or (also called) red shift. The color will move more toward the red. Conversely, something that moves to higher energy will be referred to as a hypsochromic shift. If there is an increase in the absorptivity or cause the spectrum to become more intense, it will be referred to as a hyperchromic shift. But a decrease is referred to as a hypochromic shift. There is a variety of factors that can cause these changes. One of the factors is found in a process known as solvatochromism. This explains why certain molecules can, in a profound way, look very different in terms of their color depending on whether the molecules are in a polar or non-polar solvent.

Solvatochromism is the property of a molecule changing its color as a function of the solvent polarity. But it is actually more complex than that. It can be related to the solvent polarizability as well. Basically it is the change in the color of a material, or change in the spectrum, as a function of the dielectric properties of the solvent. The dielectric properties of the solvent have polarizability and polarity built into them. Therefore, if molecules go from a less polar solvent to a more polar solvent and a red shift or a bathochromic shift occurs, then the substance is referred to as being positively solvatochromic. Conversely if you put molecules into a more polar solvent and a blue shift occurs, i.e. higher energy, the molecules are referred to as being negatively solvatochromic.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2018, 01:37:16 AM by Tom Bishop »

JohnAdams1145

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #50 on: January 30, 2018, 04:34:06 AM »
Tom, I don't appreciate your pretending to be knowledgeable on this subject and then spouting utter garbage. As I've said before, you should really take an AP Physics test to see how well you do, as an exercise in personal reflection. Why you won't do this is beyond me. You first argued that scientists didn't use the absorption spectra, instead looking at the color of the stars. After I demonstrated this to be patently false, you now argue that the shift could be due to other things, giving an almost completely irrelevant phenomenon to support your hypothesis. You're on a Gish Gallop here; your second completely-imagined hypothesis (where's the Zetetic empirical evidence???? you definitely just made this one up) also makes absolutely no physical sense.

Pasting a wiki article that you don't even understand does not count as refuting the argument I've made. It also shows your ignorance on the subject. You affect a working and sophisticated understanding of the physics involved while simultaneously making the most fundamental of mistakes. You clearly didn't take any time to read my post or understand it, so why should I even bother responding to you? Oh wait... there are a lot of other people who might actually be misled by your machinations.  Can you at least, for once, stop pretending to know all sorts of science and focus in on what you know best? I don't go around these forums talking about my "expertise" in navigation or star-reading... I don't even talk about rocket science beyond the fact that they work in space. Yet you feel like you know so much about physics that you can just paste some random wiki article that appears (to you at least) to support your hypothesis? It's irrelevant.

1. You're entirely clueless on what bathochromic and hypsochromic shifts are, beyond the cursory understanding that they involve shifts in absorption spectra. Let me help you out with this one: they involve shifts of the absorption spectra of molecules under chemical change. Are you going to be so ignorant as to suggest that different stars are made of things significantly different than H2 molecules (or just H atoms depending on where in the star you are)?
2. Molecules don't even exist beyond the surface layers of the stars... it's too hot. Even at the surface layers, pretty much all complex molecules have decomposed into elemental molecules because it's so hot.
3. Spectrum shifts caused by molecular changes would not leave the spectrum gaps in their original spacing. Effectively, the chemical changes change the potential function (which varies with time with multiple electrons) within the atom, as the electrons move to different orbitals depending on the change in chemical structure. Doppler shift would leave the spacing intact.
4. You're literally talking about chemical changes in the hellishly hot atmosphere of a star, in which most chemicals can't even exist.
5. You probably didn't even know that the wiki article you were on referred to chemical changes.
6. Hydrogen doesn't exhibit bathochromic or hypsochromic shifts when it's on its own... the emission spectra have been measured in labs everywhere and it's exactly the same.

Tom, maybe instead of just immediately trying to cough up proof that we're wrong based on a deeply flawed understanding of physics, at least ask for an explanation of things that you don't quite understand. It's fine to not understand some of the arguments being made; I'll admit firsthand that I don't for anything that involves cartography or stars or navigation, and I'm fairly geometrically impaired. How much would you laugh at me if I decided to put up 1 or 2 sentence "refutations" of something I was clueless on?

It's really rich that people like Pete Svarrior try to tell me and other Round Earth people that we have a lot of misconceptions of Flat Earth (and why shouldn't we? By your own admissions, the resources on it are much more limited than those for Round Earth), while you don't even understand the very basics of physics. And then you attempt to dismiss it all as wrong... what happened to the empirical basis of Zeteticism?

*

Offline Rounder

  • *
  • Posts: 780
  • What in the Sam Hill are you people talking about?
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #51 on: January 30, 2018, 04:36:02 AM »
Followed your link, Tom.  That was interesting, thank you.  I did wonder why you suggest that the behavior of molecules in a solvent is at all applicable to stars?  Anyway, I then did some more reading.  Wikipedia has this relevant point:
Quote
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra

That means the mechanisms you suggest as substitute explanations of spectral shift are not applicable here, as we are talking about atomic spectra. 
Proud member of İntikam's "Ignore List"
Ok. You proven you are unworthy to unignored. You proven it was a bad idea to unignore you. and it was for me a disgusting experience...Now you are going to place where you deserved and accustomed.
Quote from: SexWarrior
You accuse {FE} people of malice where incompetence suffice

JohnAdams1145

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #52 on: January 30, 2018, 04:41:18 AM »
Followed your link, Tom.  That was interesting, thank you.  I did wonder why you suggest that the behavior of molecules in a solvent is at all applicable to stars?  Anyway, I then did some more reading.  Wikipedia has this relevant point:
Quote
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra

That means the mechanisms you suggest as substitute explanations of spectral shift are not applicable here, as we are talking about atomic spectra.

Eh. We can't assert that we're talking about atomic spectra unless we ascertain that stars are pretty much only made up of elemental molecules and free-floating atoms (which they are). After all, the measured spectra "could be" a result of molecular spectra if we knew that stars contained such complex molecules capable of such things... Of course, I've pointed out in my previous post that this hypothesis is trash.

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #53 on: January 30, 2018, 05:22:03 AM »
Your current fundamental misunderstanding is that you think atoms and molecules are the same thing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathochromic_shift

Quote
Bathochromic shift is a phenomenon seen in molecular spectra, not atomic spectra;

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #54 on: January 30, 2018, 05:47:10 AM »
dudes it actually doesn't matter if there are molecules in the photosphere or not (there are).  y'all are focusing on the wrong details.

The red shift and blue shift of a substance's spectral lines isn't something that only happens with high velocities. It also happens in chemistry. Look into Bathochromic Shift and Hyposchromatic Shift. The spectral lines of a substance can shift left or right along the color spectrum for a variety of chemical reasons.

that's kinda neat tbh.  it doesn't do anything to negate the usefulness of absorption lines, though.  if you shine light through a gas of atoms and molecules, the molecular absorption lines exist alongside the atomic lines.  even if there are molecules in stars with these chemically shifted absorption lines (there are), these effects won't affect the atomic lines, and your own lit says that these effects only happen for molecules.

also your literature indicates that these effects only occur under a very specific set of circumstances involving chemicals suspended in solvents.  but we already know that those solvents are not present in stars.  that's the cool thing about spectra; we can know what the sun is made of by looking at the absorption lines.  every element (and molecule) has a unique set.
I have visited from prestigious research institutions of the highest caliber, to which only our administrator holds with confidence.

Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #55 on: January 30, 2018, 08:37:20 AM »
So you question science?  Why not join an appropriate forum to question this and then come back and tell us what they all say.

This is the appropriate forum, and it is your responsibility to make your defense.
Defense of what, anything you say without any proof?  It is for you to fully explain your claims.  In particular with detais of recent experiments, if these are not available then they are just your thoughts.

Offline StinkyOne

  • *
  • Posts: 805
    • View Profile
Re: "The stars are not light-years away"
« Reply #56 on: January 30, 2018, 01:50:27 PM »
If you were to hear a single high pitch sound. You need knowledge of what that sound should sound like normally, if it even has a normal sound, for any gauge on the matter.
Correct. So the question is do we know what the "sound" is at rest?
And the answer is yes. Because scientists are not just saying "hey, this star looks a bit red". They are doing spectroscopy and looking at absorption lines which match the signature of certain elements. The lines of various elements are known to be always at the same part of the spectrum when at rest. If you see that same pattern of lines shifted towards the red end of the spectrum then either:
1) The source of that light is moving and it's Doppler shift or
2) The pattern is from some new element whose signature exactly matches that of a known element but the new element's signature is slightly shifted. It's an element we have never observed before.

1 is the only reasonable explanation.

I do think it is a simple matter of whether the star is blue or red, just like the doppler shift of sound is a simple mater of the pitch is high or low, and believe that you are misinterpreting what is actually happening. I will come back to this later.

Tom, one thing I would like to point out is that we don't have to do this on far away stars and galaxies. We can detect the doppler shift caused by the Sun's rotation. (one side is moving towards us, the other away) From your comments, it is pretty clear you don't understand this concept. I don't fault you for trying to engage, it is appreciated, but you may want to do some reading first.
I saw a video where a pilot was flying above the sun.
-Terry50