OffusMax t1_jcnle8d wrote
Reply to comment by FMLAdad in Where do photons go if they've been emitted but are destined to never be absorbed, and would these photons traveling ad infinitum define the edge of the universe (even if space itself were still larger)? by mysteryofthefieryeye
Redshift is caused by the motion of the object emitting the light and the fax that light behaves like a wave.
Consider the following example. Imagine a train sitting still on the tracks. The sound waves emitted by the engine propagate away from it as expanding, concentric spheres. There is no motion so an observer hears the sound at their natural frequency.
Then the train starts to move. At each interval, it emits a new spherical wave that has moved from the position where the last sphere was emitted. That means that the distance between the sphere just emitted and the previously emitted sphere in front of the train is closer than the distance between them in the back of the train. When the observer hears the sound, they hear a higher pitched sound as the train approaches them (blue shifted) and a lower pitched sound as it recedes from them (red shifted).
The same thing happens with the light emitted from stars in a galaxy. The color of the light changes because it’s light and not sound. But it’s all caused by the way we perceive light (or sound for the train) and not anything intrinsic about the universe.
FullOfStarships t1_jco9rvz wrote
This is wrong (except for any difference proper motion that exists at the time the photon is emitted).
Cosmic redshift is an expansion of space.
Your analogy requires that the train is stretched by the expansion.
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