[eisvogel]

I've never heard it mentioned, but I strongly suspect that cosmological redshift is simply the result of photons losing energy over vast distances due to some as-of-yet-undiscovered interaction with the quantum vacuum. It was a couple of vatican-sponsored jesuits with an obvious creationist agenda who turned the observation of redshift into an assumption of spatial expansion to support the theory of a single-point-of-origin universe with a finite age and a finite size. I think western science is predisposed, due to religious cultural influence, to being uncomfortable with an infinite universe, because it implies our own ultimate insignificance.

[jl6]

Science does not suppose a finite or infinite universe, but rather an observable universe of finite size plus an unobservable universe which may or may not be finite in size. Science is a lot more comfortable and accepting of uncertainty and unknowns that you give it credit for here.

[eisvogel]

This is a reasonable, and i don't accuse all of Science. I am just very suspicious of the certainty with which astrophysics has pursued proof of a big bang for most of a century. There are number of glaring assumptions, many of which point back to an unreasonable level of faith in the Standard Model.

[eisvogel]

Also, the infinty that i think scares people the most is temporal, not spatial.

[cygx]

https://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm

[eisvogel]

Hah that's great. I can see straight away that I'm going to become a devoted, tunnel vision tired light enthusiast. In fact, i'm tired already. i could use a nap.

[snarfy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_light

[eisvogel]

Hey thanks for that snarfy. I love this topic.

[mr_toad]

> photons losing energy over vast distances

How does that theory explain the blue shift of Andromeda?