Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science (Paperback)

by Halton Arp (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
This book lays down a lifetime of seeing the world differently, looking at alternative explanations for a complex, beautiful universe. -- Sky & Telescope, June 1999

Product Description
Arp's new book is a frontal assault on the standard model of the universe, replete with anecdotes and illustrations, including 8 pages of colour plates.

"Seeing Red" represents a senior scientist's personal account of the crisis in moderrn astronomy. Dr. Arp presents observations showing that extragalactic redshifts are not caused by an expanding universe. He crafts up an empirical picture of the birth and evolution of quasars and galaxies, demonstrating that crucial observations have been ignored and suppressed by the astronomy community. Finally, he cites examples of how academic science fails its ideals and potential.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: C. Roy Keys Inc (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0968368905
• ISBN-13: 978-0968368909
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #218,562 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and extremely disturbing, October 1, 2003

By	Eric B. Norris (Santa Clara, California USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If Dr. Arp's earlier book, "Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies" put a few pinpricks into the Big Bang and Redshift-Distance Relation theories, this book blows open a hole so large you could drive a Mack truck through it. Dr. Arp shows us a number of galaxies that appear to be associated with quasars or other extremely compact, radio-emitting objects that have grossly different redshifts. If these objects are indeed related then the inconsistent redshifts mean the accepted distances for these objects are bogus, to use a scientific term. Dr. Arp states in the preface that if you are math-impaired you will still be able to follow the book easily because the eye-popping evidence is all in the pictures. And so it is.

What is so disturbing is the effect on Halton Arp's career this decades-long search for the truth has wrought. In the earlier book one of the appendices is the letter from CalTech throwing him off the 200-inch Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar. In this book he describes how difficult or impossible it has been for him to publish his research. Dr. Arp is no crackpot claiming aliens are making crop circles or the Bermuda Triangle is swallowing up ships--he received his Ph.D with honors from CalTech itself, and created the Catalog of Peculiar Galaxies (using of course the same 200-inch Hale telescope he was later denied). In the later part of the book Dr. Arp also catalogs several other scientific theories, such as continental drift, which were heresy at the time they were published but later became universally accepted. He discusses the sometimes stifiling atmosphere of academia, and how it impedes the investigation of new ideas. Finally, Dr. Arp offers some intriguing ideas on just where those quasars and other active objects came from in the first place.

This book is a page-turner, and you don't need to understand calculus or anything else to read it. A basic understanding of statistics would help but is not necessary.

My only gripe is that the paper used is so thin the illustrations can be seen somewhat on the opposite side of the page.

If you have any interest in astronomy or cosmology I would say this book is a must read.

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be ready to give up the Big Bang, September 27, 2000

By	D. Sinclair - See all my reviews

Arp argues convincingly that the holy grail of cosmology, the hubble flow, exists only in the minds of astronomers. There are abundant examples of high-redshift quasars which are physically connected to low-redshift galaxies. There is convincing evidence that redshift is quantized, which is inexplicable in the conventional picture where redshift is caused by recession speed. Big bang cosmology has been overthrown, and the evidence against it is getting stronger with new observations.

Mainstream astronomy, unfortunately, does not want to recognize this evidence. Scientists who have built whole careers on a flawed theory are not ready to admit that they have been totally, completely wrong. Instead, they have chosen a much easier way to deal with this unpleasant evidence, one that has been succesfully employed in many other fields of science: they suppress, ignore & ridicule, while they keep adding epicycles to their ever more complicated theory of the big bang.

Arp's account of the utterly unscientific behavior of the scientific establishment is sobering. It reveals once more how the great human endeavor of science, which should be an unbiased and objective search for the truth, has been corrupted by the vested interests of individuals and academic institutions, blind belief in authority and by herd mentality, and thus turned into something that is eerily reminiscent of the medieval Catholic Church. Then, as today, observations and new theories were suppresed by those in power for contradicting what was considered the truth.

Although this book is a bit technical in nature, it is accessible to any layperson with some basic knowledge of astronomy. If that describes you, or if you are interested in great case material for a study of the sociology of science, I can unconditionally recommend it.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Triumph of Empirical Astronomy, February 3, 2000

By A Customer

Having read many of Dr. Arp's articles in the astronomical journals, I was not sure that I would find anything new in Seeing Red. I was wrong! The contents of this book put together an accessible argument that leaves no doubt in the open minded readers mind that the Big Bang is wrong!

The most stunning revelation in Seeing Red for me was the association of Abell galaxy clusters with nearby galaxies and quasars. The Abell clusters fall in close proximity to nearby galaxies. This is a remarkable coincidence if the Abell clusters are actually at their redshift distance.

Anyone who looks at the pictures in Seeing Red will be able to understand why the Big Bang's future lies on the ash heap of theories based upon faulty assumptions.

The views presented in this book will provide a foundation for the future of cosmology.