Cut to the chase

OK, so here is my question: why do we automatically assume that the red shift is due to distant stars receding from us? Maybe light just naturally gets redder as it gets older. After all, we're talking about thousands of light years, here. And the light from distant stars has to pass through a lot of gravitational fields to get here. Wouldn't that sap away some of the energy? It wouldn't slow the light down (I don't think that ever happens), but maybe it would cause a little wave lengthening, a little red shift, shall we say?
Now, why should anybody care about whether the universe is expanding or not, as if it would actually affect us during our lifetimes, or even affect our species during our tenure on this plane of existence? That, my friends, is another rant entirely...

More about our universe

OK, so here's the thing about our universe: the further away an object is, the redder the tint. This has been attributed to the Doppler effect. Everyone is probably familiar with this effect, because that's what causes the siren to drop in pitch as the police car goes by. In the case of the siren, the sound drops in pitch because the waves are arriving at your ears less frequently. In the case of stars, the wavelength of the light gets longer because the waves are hitting you eyeballs less frequently.
So, now that we're clear on that, aren't these hyper links cool?

The name of my blog

OK, so Der Dschungel is German for The Jungle. I think it's a neat word, because that the way the German language deals with that hard "J" sound. If jungle were a German word, it would be pronounced "yoongle".

The shocking truth about our universe

OK, so I'm just going to jump in with both feet, here. The shocking truth is this: I don't believe in the expanding universe. Shocking, but there it is. Not that I'm an astrophysicist or anything, but what I've heard about the subject just doesn't convince me. As I understand it, there is a phenomenon called "red shift", and it works like this: Stars emit light energy. That light energy has a certain frequency, based on what kind of star it is. Stars that burn hotter emit a bluer light, and cooler starts have more of a reddish hue. Well, it turns out, as this fellow named Hubble happened to notice, that the farther away a star is, the more reddish the hue is.
Well, I guess that's enough about that for now. Anyway, how do you like my Toad's Place picture?

Look, Ma, I'm Blogging!

OK, so this is not a commitment to regular posts of any kind, but since everyone else in my family is doing it, I feel like a total lurker by reading their posts and not having my own space. so here it is.