Talk:Wolf effect: Difference between revisions

Joshua, I have restored your changes on the following grounds:

• According to peer-reviewed souces, the description of Wolf Effect as (a) being able to produce redshifts and blueshift

it's more correctly defined as a frequency shift. --ScienceApologist 17:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• (b) that it may produce Doppler-like shifts, appears to be accurate. There are several peer-reviewed articles on the Wolf Effect which consistently use the term "redshift", that are conveniently listed as footnotes on the article page.

Still, frequency shift is more accurate. --ScienceApologist 17:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• As you can read from the peer-reviewed articles, the Wolf Effect has actually been demonstrated in the laboratory.

No objection to that. -ScienceApologist 17:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

• That the Wolf Effect will produce a redshift has been previously confirmed [1] to you by one of the article authors, Prof. Daniel F.V. James.

It's a frequency shift, no doubt. But it isn't NPOV to call it a redshift without acknowledging its differences.

• I have previously made you aware that I have confirmation from three professors of physics that they use the term 'redshift' in the context of the Wolf Effect, including Prof. Daniel F.V. James [2], Prof. Emil Wolf [3] [4], and Prof. Theoretical Physics, Indian Statistical Institute, Sisir Roy [5]
• This is not a point of view issue since (a) this is not my point of view (b) the information is accurate (as indicated by the numerous peer-reviewed references), and confirmed by at least three Professors of physics in the field.

This is your point of view. You conveniently ignored the real form of my edits which was to remove the suggestion that it provided a measure of "intrinsic" redshifts in quasars which is an argualbe POV. --ScienceApologist 17:14, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

--Iantresman 11:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Claiming that the Wolf Effect is a redshift is a POV issue. It is a frequency shift, but it doesn't always manifest itself as a redshift in the sense of redshift in astronomy. That's why it's important to keep it NPOV and remove the insinuation of new causes. --ScienceApologist 17:18, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As the article makes clear, the Wolf Effect is "a phenomenon in radiation physics". Three professors of physicists, and several peer reviewed papers, demonstrate that the term "redshift" is not only used freely and regularly in the peer reviewed papers (see my examples here); and where the Wolf Effect can produce a frequency-independent distortion-free redshift (again, see peer reviewed article describing this), it DOES use the term correctly in an astronomical sense too since it produces Doppler-like redshifts. That's not my point of view, that is the point of view of the literature and scientists doing the work.

Emil Wolf's original paper has been cited at least one hundreds time, and I am sure the other reference in the article have been cited too. Provide just TWO peer-reviewed paper which criticises the use of redshift as used by Wolf and James, and I'll revert to your wording. Otherwise the edit is only your Point of View.

--Iantresman 17:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Since you haven't responded to my request demonstrating you understand redshift, I have no reason to respond to this request since it evinces a truly limited understanding of the rationale for describing this as a frequency shift. --ScienceApologist 00:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Whether I understand redshift or not, is not the issue here. You are not my judge, and I have never questioned your knowledge, depite your persistent allegations against me [6]. What is important is that our peers do, and this amply demonstrated for the reasons given. Hence:

• 1. I have cited credible sources, as suggested by Wikipedia Cite Sources page
• 2. That according to Wikipedia, the information is verifiable "Articles in Wikipedia should refer to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have been published by a reputable or credible publisher. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth."[7]
• 3. We have had extensive comments [8] on the Wolf Effect before, and the consensus does not support your view.

Consequently your ascertions do not appear to meet any of these criteria.
--Iantresman 17:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The NPOV version of this page is the previous one. There is no reason to assume that this effect need be dynamically linked to the redshift page unless you have an agenda. Frequency shift adequately defines the effect as shown in the quote you provided on the page. Therefore revert. --ScienceApologist 19:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

After all, we can dynamically link to the redshift page by quoting the name of his article. The NPOV definition of redshift is given on the redshift page and therefore we link appropriately via Wolf's own advocacy. --ScienceApologist 19:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In other words YOU don't think it is a redshift (because I've provided abundant peer-reviewed evidence that it is), and it does not conform to YOUR definition of redshift which you've provided on the redshift page, despite my providing 500+ peer-reviewed references which use the term otherwise.

No, the definition corresponds to a frequency shift. That is the most generic definition. --ScienceApologist 20:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've already provided peer-reviewed references showing that more than just Prof Emil Wolf says it's a redshift, and until you provide ANY KIND OF PEER REVIEWED EVIDENCE OR CITATION, your word is not verifiable according to Wikipedia policy.

The verification is in the very quote you cite. --ScienceApologist 20:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is there diagram that illustrates the Wolf Effect? (And while I'm leaving a comment, I find the splitting of hairs between a frequency shift and a red shift ludicrous. The red shift is a shift in frequency. What's the agenda??)

The agenda is, many proponents of nonstandard cosmology think that the Wolf Effect is an explanation that eliminates the Hubble Law even though the Wolf Effect creates shifting in lines toward higher frequencies and the process doesn't conform to the standard definition of redshift which is a proportional shift. --ScienceApologist 16:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What crazy people think about the implications of this phenomenon should not influence the way it is described. Think NPOV. I've just corrected one of your edits where you introduce the idea that the "Wolf effect was..." (past tense.) It sounds as if you're scared to acknowledge that the nonstandard cosmology is a point of view, and you want to exclude them by fiddling definitions. --sittingduck123 20 January 2006, 21:21 UTC

Thanks for your correction of grammar which I assure you was not meant to be "POV". Nonstandard cosmology is a perspective outside of the scientific mainstream. Acknowledging that sometimes takes skill and often require a lot of wrangling on these talkpages. --ScienceApologist 23:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Find me one peer-reviewed citation where a critic has suggested that "the Wolf Effect is an explanation that eliminates the Hubble Law".
• When Wolf and James write that the Wolf Effect ".. can generate arbitrarily large spectral shifts whose z numbers are independent of the central frequency of the spectral line [p.167] ... just as in the case when the shift is due to the Dopper effect, the relative frequency shift z induced by this mechanism is independent of frequency and can take any value in the range -1 < z < ∞, even though the source, the medium and the observer are at rest with respect to each other [p.169]" [9] (my emphasis)
• This fits the definition of redshift as described in the Wikipedia article?
• --Iantresman 17:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Points in turn:

• Peer-review doesn't matter as the majority of proponents of nonstandard cosmology do not publish peer-reviewed papers. I remarked this as a point of fact about the agenda. You will notice it is not in the article, it is on the talkpage.
• The problem is that Wolf and James are talking about a very narrow space for the emitted photon even though it extends through the entire spectrum for the observed photon. It's frequency dependent like any other scattering mechanism.

---ScienceApologist 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• As far as I know, Wolf has no interest in "non-standard" cosmologies. He's a Professor of Optical Physics & Theoretical Optics [10]. Likewise Daniel James, who is an Associate Professor of Theoretical Optical Physics and Quantum Information [11]. They have no agenda, and whether you think I have an agenda is irrelevent.
• Why do you say "frequency dependent" when they clearly write "..they are frequency independent and they can generate reshifts or blueshifts of any magnitude" (p.167) [12] (my emphasis). Your claim appear to be the opposite of what they show in their paper(s).
• --Iantresman 00:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• As you well know, the Wolf Effect is often quoted by nonstandard proponents. You yourself being an example. I don't care if the people who made it up have an agenda, though their commentary about quasars and redshift "anomalies" makes me wonder if they are as "neutral" as you are implying. --ScienceApologist 00:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• They are writing in terms of individual lines. They are not writing for emission across the entire spectrum, for example. They cannot because of basic rules of optics. Many people have told you this many times, and yet you seem to be unable to understand this simple fact. --ScienceApologist 00:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• You completly ignored by previous statement that you wrote "frequency dependent" when they clearly write "..they are frequency independent". I even gave you a citation (b) Your response provides no explanation. "The basic rules of optics" is an over-generalization; give me some specifics and a citation. (c) Who are these many people who have "told me so"; you're the only person, who has told me much, but substantitated with little (c) Daniel James also answered you that "the frequency shift will be the same for every line present in the spectrum of the incident light". [13] --Iantresman 08:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ian, it is impossible for the Wolf Effect to be the same for the emission of gamma rays as it is for the emission of radiowaves by simple fact that the index of refraction is frequency dependent. There is no material-based mechanism that has ever been proposed that is frequency-indepedent in that manner. Photon-phonon coupling is never completely frequency-independent. You can read about it in any radiative transfer text. --ScienceApologist 14:46, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So when Prof. Daniel James writes that the Wolf effect may be "frequency dependent", he must be wrong. --Iantresman 14:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean "frequency independent". My ideas are that he could be referring to a few things:

1. Most spectra observations are not broadband. Usually spectral observations are confined to at most two or three order of magnitude in energy. If we talk about dozens of orders of magnitude in energy this is bound to change the analysis for photon-phonon interactions.
2. The effect could be frequency independent in that all possible frequencies are available for the emission to shift to. This is, however, observational possibility independence. There seems to be some confusion however as saying that z can take on all values could be seen as the effect being "frequency independent" since you could get any redshifted frequency. This is a different sense from what I am using frequency independence to mean.
3. James normally refers to resonance of line emission which are defined for a single type of atomic or molecular transition. In cases where we don't have line emission, it isn't clear that the effect works since it relies on the reasonance of the material and the "tuning fork" analogy maximally breaks down.

But I don't know precisely what he means: he hasn't been clear. --ScienceApologist 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the intro-paragraphs from one of the papers you link to which seem to confirm my suspicions:

The influence of the statistical properties of random fluctuations of a light source on the spectrum of radiation Which the source generates has been a subjects of great interest in recent years. It was first shown by Wolf [ 1 ] that, as a consequence of spatial correlations within the source, the spectrum of light is, in general, not invariant on propagation even in free space, contrary to usual beliefs. Further, it was predicted theoretically that suitable source correlations can cause redshifts or blueshifts of spectral lines [2-5 ]. Experiments confirmed these predictions [ 6-11 ]. The spectral shifts which can be induced in this way are small (effectively of the order of or smaller than the width of the line in question) and, in general, have z numbers #~ (relative frequency shifts) which are frequency dependent.

Because of ihe intimate connection between radiation from localized sources and scattering from media of finite extent, one may expect that spectral shifts may also be produced by scattering on static as well as time fluctuating media and this has indeed been demonstrated theoretically [ 12,13 ]. Recently it was predicted [ 14 ] that dynamic scatterers can generate arbitrarily large spectral shifts whose z numbers are independent of the central frequency of the spectral line. Such scatterers can, therefore, produce a change in the spectrum which imitates the most important feature of the Doppler effect, although the source, the scattering medium and the observer are all at rest relative to each other. In this Letter we carry this investigation a stage further, by specifying correlation functions of scattering media which give rise to such shifts. A model scattering medium is introduced with a correlation function which, in general, is spatially anisotropic. Using a recently derived expression for the spectrum of the scattered radiation (ref. [ 15 ], eq. (5.10) ) such scatterers are shown to produce relative frequency shifts which depend on geometrical factors only; they are frequency independent and they can generate redshifts or blueshifts of any magnitude. In the special case when the collation function is isotropic, only redshifts are produced.

The authors here have clearly refering to relatively narrow-band spectra. Not their fault since they are mostly concerned with optical spectra anyway.

--ScienceApologist 15:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored the image to the article which is based on one in a peer-reviewed article. If you have a problem with it, EDIT it according to the original, or conatact the authors. --Iantresman 18:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The image is included is a bad one, physically. We are committed here at Wikipedia to providing accurate facts. I'm sorry that these particular editors and authors placed a technically poor image out there, but it doesn't deserve inclusion in the encyclopedia. --ScienceApologist 19:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ScienceApologist, your edits are appalling, and are clearly trying to reflect your own PERSONAL point of view.

• It's one thing to remove "spoonfeeding" on the grounds that the supporting peer-reviewed quotes are excessive, but to remove the information they support (that the Wolf effect is considered to be a new redshift mechanism), is disgusting.
• And to remove information that the Wolf effect does not occur "in free space" as described in the text, and supported by a quote, again is disgusting.
• Your suggestion that Wolf used the term "noncosmological" apparently refering to a controversy in the 1970s, again is YOUR FANTASTY... I provided an ACTUAL QUOTE from Wolf giving his view, which you then removed.

--Iantresman 18:32, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you disagree with some of additional information, DISCUSS them first before editing them. --Iantresman 18:43, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]