Tamara Davis’s cover article (paywall) in the latest issue of Scientific American is about the old puzzle of whether it makes sense to talk about energy conservation in the expanding Universe. It has the good taste to refer to my work with David Hogg on the nature of the redshift, which is at the heart of this question. In fact, one of the figures in the article is essentially a slick, nice-looking version of something from our paper:
I think the article’s very good. I think it gets the science right and emphasizes pretty much the right things.
Despite the paywall, one can read the comments. Perhaps predictably,
many of them are from crackpots using this as a jumping-off point for
promoting their pet theory. I was thinking of commenting along these
lines, then found this gem, which says it all:
I’m planning on writing a book called “Scientific American forums: the YouTube comments of smart people. A story of how the anonymity of the internet allows anyone to pretend to be an expert on anything, even subjects the smartest people in the world are struggling over daily, without any proof of credentials whatsoever”. Think anyone will read it?
Interestingly, Davis was a student of Lineweaver (whom I’m sure you know), and Lineweaver is a big Harrison fan. Apparently, though, Tamara has not allowed reverence for Harrison to get in the way of the facts. 🙂