Why do some astronomers insist on using the special relativity Doppler formula for the cosmological redshift?

As I pointed out in an article I wrote for Sky and Telescope magazine with Richard Feinberg The Cosmological Redshift Reconsidered, using the special relativistic Doppler formula instead of the correct general relativistic one, has been a common heuristic mistake made by astronomers for decades. Each astronomer that uses it seems to have there own motivation, and I cannot explain why this 'tradition' has persisted for so long. There is nothing 'radical' about my plea to astronomers to stop doing this. I am not some 'fringe' astronomer trying to promulgate a radical new way of interpreting the cosmological redshift. All I am asking is that astronomers stop trying to make general relativity consistent with special relativity in the one domain in nature where every cosmologist knows these two theories must naturally go their separate ways. By insisting that the cosmological redshift is an extension of the special relativistic Doppler shift, some very important differences between special relativity and general relativity are obscured, leading to questions about general relativistic cosmology that are entirely NON QUESTIONS!


Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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