On a new method to analyse QSO spectra

TL;DR

This paper critically evaluates the 'Thong method' for analyzing QSO spectra, demonstrating that it is flawed and its results, including limits on fundamental constant variations, are unreliable and should be disregarded.

Contribution

The paper provides the first critique showing the flaws in the 'Thong method' and challenges previous claims about limits on the variation of the fine structure constant.

Findings

The 'Thong method' is fundamentally flawed.

Results obtained using the method are invalid.

Limits on the variation of the fine structure constant are unreliable.

Abstract

A new method of analysis of QSO spectra, usually referred to as the "Thong method", has been recently presented and made use of in a number of publications. Several of these have been withdrawn because the authors have been convicted of plagiarism. However, there exists no publication showing that the method itself, which is an original contribution of the authors, is wrong. The purpose of the present note is to show that it is and that the results obtained when using it, including limits on the time variation of the fine structure constant many times smaller than published by other authors, must therefore be ignored and discarded.