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Isn't the "rap" a little inappropriate and also a copyvio? —Keenan Pepper 23:01, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
This article needed a lot of work, and still needs more
Herbm 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC) START: The article, especially the early section on Zwicky's life was argumentative and lacking the tone of an encyclopedia article. The thrust seemed to be that no one in the scientific establishment understood Zwicky, largely due to the incompetence of other scientists.
I toned this down, and remove some of the repetive claims to this effect. One small example is changing 'prophet' (in reference to Zwicky) to 'visionary'.
This article needs more work, and might easily become the basis of a revision war so the editors should be alerted (I could not quickly find a tag for this.)
One possibly controversial addition by me: I quoted the Science Channel (with attribution) broadcast which claimed Zwicky was a "borderline psychopath" and difficult to work with.
It was this reference on "Most of Our Universe is Missing" which led me to curiosity about Zwicky and it would be appropriate to either document the original sources of this claim, or refute them with facts.
END Herbm 02:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
The Science Channel just reran the above cited program, and it did indeed call him a "borderline psychotic". Anyone have any citations for this? 69.165.175.130 09:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at this sentence from the end of the "Life and Work" section.
...career.He was a fitness freak and used to amaze onlookers by doing onearmed push ups.
"Fitness Freak"? Is this something that belongs in a so called encyclopedia? Plus the person who added the line did not put in a double space after the end of the previous sentence. And "onearmed" is not a real word.
- I agree, it struck me as odd. I investigated two of the cited references and found no mention of this, so I've deleted it on the basis of not having been supported with a citation. If someone has a citation to offer, by all means restore it. Accounting4Taste 19:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This article is still a mess. There are indications that much has been written by a modern day advocates of the "tired light model", which has no serious standing in astronomy at all. I've already deleted a paragraph about an alleged Mössbauer effect on photons in deep space, which is as silly a notion as you can possibly imagine. It was proposed by an amateur critic of modern cosmology, Lyndon Ashmore. Nothing of the kind can be found in the scientific literature. There is still a paragraph called "Feynman's explanation, rehabilitation of Zwicky", which is also extremely silly. It is presented as if Feynman was supporting the tired light model, and Zwicky's ideas on tired light have regained credibility. This is ridiculous. The material cited to Feynman is makes no mention of Zwicky at all, but rather to the transmission of light in a medium like glass. This is also part of Lyndon Ashmore's confusions on Mössbauer effect, as he relates this to light passing through a thin plasma. The very first paragraph says that Zwicky is mainly known for tired light. That's false also. He's much better known for proposing dark matter; and probably better known for his observational work and for his proposal of gravitational lensing. Duae Quartunciae 10:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
DONE?
I hope our club could help a bit to do so. 84.158.112.69 11:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I am going to remove the section: Mössbauer effect prevents blurring
This has no place in the article. Nothing about Zwicky's tired light proposal bears the slightest relation to the Mössbauer effect, which only occurs in solid crystals. The section refers to Lyndon Ashmore, with whom I am very familiar. He is a high school teacher with an amateur interest in reinventing most of cosmology, and has no credibility anywhere. He speaks of a Mössbauer effect in deep space plasmas, which is physically ludicrous; it is part of his unique proposal for tired light which conflicts with very elementary physics on conservation of momentum and energy, and has nothing to do with Zwicky. I don't know who put this there, but it is nothing but a plug for Lyndon's ludicrously incorrect theory that fails elementary physics. I will remove this section after dinner; this gives a bit of time for anyone to comment. Duae Quartunciae 08:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
OK. The deletion is done. Lyndon Ashmore showed up at the Bad Astronomy forum a couple of years ago, and had all the errors in his work explained to him at length by every other contributor. I was involved then, under the name "Sylas". You can see a sample post where I explain why Lyndon's work is unphysical, and unrelated to the Mössbauer effect. Check out msg #34 of thread and also read the rest of the thread if you really want to know more. Duae Quartunciae 09:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Tired Light
We have a bad problem with this article in relation to tired light. I have deleted two sections which were especially badly supported and were, in fact, founded on totally unphysical crank science that has no publication record. There's lots more still here that is badly flawed. Tired light is a long since refuted idea in physics. It has no credibility. Modern day tired light advocates do not use Zwicky's model in any case; they propose unphysical interactions with matter particles in deep space. Frankly, nearly everything in this article starting from the section heading "Tired Light" right through to the section headed "Hubble's Meaning" should be deleted, and replaced with a brief description of what Zwicky himself actually proposed and the fact that it was never generally accepted and is now long since falsified. Most of the material I think should be deleted is actually an attempt to argue an extreme tired light model quite different to that of Zwicky, and one which is universally dismissed as nonsense by working astronomers. However, I don't want to do more drastic deletions until someone else can speak up -- preferably someone who is also at little bit familiar with astronomy. Or, if I get a vote of confidence from a few folks, I can go ahead with the deletion and the replacement as suggested here. Duae Quartunciae 11:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Here is a concrete proposal for a replacement section, entitled Tired Light.
Zwicky proposed that the cosmological redshift apparent in distant galaxies was due to some physical process that caused photons to gradually loose energy as they traveled through space. He considered the most likely candidate process to be a gravitational drag effect; in which photons lose energy in some way to the gravitational fields through which they pass. (Ref here to Zwicky 1929)
No way has ever been discovered to make this work, and the effect is now understood to be a consequence of the cosmological expansion of space. (Ref here to the Misplaced Pages article Tired Light.)
If no one objects and anyone approves, I'll make the replacement. Duae Quartunciae 11:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- No one has commented; I am going to take the advice of some of the guides and jump right in. Major edits will be taking place. Deletion of most of the tired light material for reasons given, some changes to formatting of the rest to clean it up and help my edits. Duae Quartunciae 01:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
- Finished all the edits, for now. I've worked it over pretty thoroughly, though I'm sure there's lots more improvement possible. Did a whole pile of edits, one at a time. Is that an ok way to work? Duae Quartunciae 15:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
New user "Cosmic Relief" has come to make some further changes. I am relieved to see that I'm not alone here! The change to the accelerating expansion paragraph is very good; I approve. Thank you. I disagree with your change to the Tired light section. Can you please talk about it? For instance, you add the word "was" inappropriately. I had said of redshift "is now" understood to be a consequence of the cosmological expansion of space. You replaced "is now" with "was". That is incorrect. The redshift is far and away now understand to be due to cosmological expansion. The number of scientists disputing this is tiny. The correct term as an accurate and neutral account of current knowledge remains as I expressed it previously. It is now understood to be cosmological expansion. Duae Quartunciae 13:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Another change by "Cosmic Relief" that I dispute in the tired light section. He adds a sentence as follows: "However, several workers (admittedly in the minority) have now taken this theory up again and proposed several possibilities." No citation is given. If you are referring to people like Lyndon Ashmore, who was cited in older versions of this page, then you are speaking of ideas that are trivially inconsistent with simple physics and invoke concepts that cannot apply in a plasma, and which have never been published in the scientific literature. Ashmore is a high school teacher with a self published book, a web page, and a paper riddled with very elementary errors published in a fringe journal with no credibility and no meaningful review process. This is not worthy of any mention at all. There are a few other mavericks like this; but as far as I know there is no credible process for tired light that has been proposed in recent years or which has had any impact whatsoever on the scientific community. I'm happy to talk about it, and don't doubt your sincerity. But I think this change is not warranted. Duae Quartunciae 13:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I need to tread carefully. "Cosmic Relief" is actually Lyndon Ashmore; spoke to me at the Bad Astronomy forum we both read. I am going to fix the changes to something I consider more reasonable, while taking some account of Cosmic relief's perspective. If we cannot reach an agreement then there are processes we can use to help arbitrate. Duae Quartunciae 13:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
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