Fritz Zwicky’s Largely Ignored “Tired Light” Proposal of 1929 May Actually Be Right After All
Fritz Zwicky was not a shy person – He called them like he saw them. And he was very outspoken about his views. He, for example, was the first astrophysicist to come up with the concept of Dark Matter in 1933. He also had very strong views about redshift. Zwicky's contention was that the redshift observed from Earth was not because the galaxies were moving faster and faster away from us, but because the light photons were being shifted toward the red side of the spectrum as they lost energy while traveling long distances through space. Zwicky proposed that the longer the light traveled, the more energy it lost, leading to an illusion that galaxies that were more distant from Earth were also moving faster. His “Tired Light Theory” was largely ignored and neglected at the time (and even today), as astronomers adopted the more popular Big Bang Theory as the consensus model of the Universe. Now, new peer-reviewed research from Kansas State University shows that Fritz Zwicky may actually have been right, putting the whole narrative supporting the Big Bang Theory into question.
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Further support for tired light comes from a paper written by theoretical physicist Lior Gupta who suggests light loses energy over time based upon some equations from Paul Dirac.
Furthermore, please explain how this incomplete and very simply contrarian theory explains the well documented time dilation of distant supernovae. Observations of distant Type Ia supernovae show that their light curves are stretched in time, consistent with the expansion of space. If tired light were responsible for redshift, this time dilation effect would not occur.
These are just two very practical and easy to understand examples that discredit the tired light theory. I won't even bother to get into how it can't predict the CMB or how it doesn't work with general relativity because it doesn't have a foundation in fundamental physics.
Within the field, we call this phenomenon "adult-onset cosmology." It's depressingly common. I can't think of a single case in the last half century in which it has ever contributed something positive to the field, but it does produce lots of clickbait.