Quote :

"Hubble, who had been the first to establish that the universe included many other galaxies outside of our own, noticed something else: the galaxies were receding from us at a velocity proportional to their distance. The more distant the galaxy, the greater its redshift, and therefore the higher the velocity, a relation known as Hubble's Law."

if I am reading this right, then a galaxy farther away would have more of a redshift than a closer galaxy. I'm saying this because it says that receding speed is proportional to distance from earth.

but, as difficult as that notion is for me to currently comprehend, would that statement's truth not depend on the earth being the center of the universe, or else close enough to the center as to make the earth's distance from the center be negligible? otherwise, would it not be the case that the receding speed would have to be determined by a function of the distance from earth, which would, of course, make it not be proportional?

8/1/2005 5:11:17 PM

no, it would still be proportional it would just change what that proportion was

[Edited on August 1, 2005 at 5:22 PM. Reason : relative velocities holmes]

8/1/2005 5:22:12 PM

there's a problem with that idea, though. it would be one proportion on one side if the earth and another proportion on the other side of the earth... even worse, as far as I can figure it, this proportion would only work in one direction. it would seem that no two directions could have the same proportion, because the velocities would be split into vectors and such...

actually, now that I think about it, i think a lesser used form of the word "proportional" allows for multiplying by a function to still be proportional. its a fucked up way of saying something is proportional, since the normal definition is that you multiply one side by a constant and you get the other side...

[Edited on August 1, 2005 at 5:35 PM. Reason : ]

8/1/2005 5:30:02 PM