More recently it has been argued that the Freeman law is an effect of selection bias. However, after accounting for selection effects, the Freeman law was confirmed in the year 2010 for a sample of 30000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxy images. It can be used with the Tully–Fisher relation to determine the luminosity and therefore distance of an observed galaxy.
The Freeman law is sometimes called the Fish-Freeman effect.
Fish law
The Fish law (or Fish's law) in astronomy is the analogue for the Freeman law with disk galaxies replaced by elliptical galaxies. It was described in 1964 by Robert A. Fish based on photometric results for 29 elliptical galaxies.
The acceleration constant of the modified dynamics (MOND), a0, appears in various predicted regularities pertinent to galaxies. For example, it features as an upper cutoff to the mean surface density (or mean surface brightness translated with M/L) of galaxies, as observed and formulated in the Freeman law for disks, and of the Fish law for ellipticals.
↑Minnesota State University, ""Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-07-06. Retrieved 2008-01-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)"