The universe appears "old", but it is still less than 10,000 years old

[snowtracks]

all that has to be done by the 'young earthers' is to relax the requirement that every mention of 'day' mean the 24 hour solar day. for instance, the ref. to 'morning' and 'evening' in genesis 1 are not solar days since there is no sun or moon until the fourth creation day.

[Mudhammam]

This reminds me of the nut jobs who believe that dinosaur fossils were planted by Satan to deceive us. You should ask your friend why God is so deceiving that he would give us inquisitive minds only to mislead us from the truth.

[Statler Waldorf]

Are you suggesting that the speed of light is not natural?

The one-way speed of light in any given direction is stipulated by man as long as the round trip speed remains the experimentally verifiable value, this is a core principle of special relativity.

“That light requires the same time to traverse the path A → M as for the path B → M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own freewill in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity.” -Einstein 1961, p. 23 [emphasis is in the original]

You're the one who considers the one-way speed of light to be instantaneous (and thus magically affects the age of the universe) sans any supporting evidence whatsoever. Congratulations.

Yes, using this convention it moves at an infinite speed towards the observer, meaning we witness cosmic events in real-time. Imagine that.

And of course, you know someone who is infallible, right? (This should be entertaining)

Nope, but the person I cited had the proper credentials. You missed the second part of that for some unknown reason.

And yet he seems (or rather, judging from your claim) rather ignorant of the facts, as pointed out already:

http://www.religionfacts.com/judaism/denominations.htm For instance, according to a 1990 nationwide survey, 7 percent of American Jews are Orthodox. And like you and your fundy brothers and sister, they got Genesis wrong as well.

You claimed that only evangelical Christians believe in a literal Genesis, so I only needed to point to one Jew who also does in order to refute that claim. Consider it refuted, even by your own facts above ironically enough.

If there are (and there may well be), they aren't trying to cause permanent damage to our education system by demanding that it be taught in our science classrooms?

Are you asking me that? Your initial claim was wrong, evangelical Christians are not the only ones who believe in a literal Genesis. You’re also forgetting Reformed Christians, Mormons, many Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses as well.

Extraordinary claims, O' warped one.

Yes, in this instance naturalism is the extraordinary claim since the majority of people reject it.

You have my sympathies. Truly.

You feel sorry for me because I am a Calvinist? Please don’t.

Excuse me? Where in that article does it make the claim that light travels instantaneously? Moreover, where in that article is there an equation that provides a proof that light can travel instantaneously? What it does say is this:

I hate having to always hold your hand through this.

Even in the first paragraph!

“Though those experiments don't directly establish the isotropy of the one-way speed of light, because it was shown that slow clock-transport, the laws of motion, and the way inertial reference frames are defined, already involve the assumption of isotropic one-way speeds and thus are conventional as well.[4] In general, it was shown that these experiments are consistent with anisotropic one-way light speed as long as the two-way light speed is isotropic.” [Emphasis added by SW]

The equations are located in the section entitled, “Generalizations of Lorentz transformations with anisotropic one-way speeds”.

In that section it clearly states…

“κ can have values between 0 and 1. In the extreme as κ approaches 1, light might propagate in one direction instantaneously, provided it takes the entire round-trip time to travel in the opposite direction.”

“Using generalizations of Lorentz transformations with anisotropic one-way speeds, Zhang and Anderson pointed out that all events and experimental results compatible with the Lorentz transformation and the isotropic one-way speed of light, must also be compatible with transformations preserving two-way light speed constancy and isotropy, while allowing anisotropic one-way speeds.” [Emphasis added by SW]

To date, all experimental results agree with special relativity within the experimental uncertainty.

How disingenuous can you really get? I’ll quote the entire paragraph you quoted from which clearly states it is dealing with anisotropic two-way speeds in test theories that are different from special relativity and not merely an anisotropic one-way speed convention that is equivalent to special relativity.

“Theories not equivalent to special relativity
Test theories
A number of theories have been developed to allow assessment of the degree to which experimental results differ from the predictions of relativity. These are known as test theories and include the Robertson and Mansouri-Sexl[9] (RMS) theories. This test theory uses Einstein synchronization in a "preferred" frame, while all other frames take over the value of this "preferred" frame by "external synchronization". However, this alone does not provide any testable deviation from special relativity, therefore they included additional parameters, making the two-way speed of light anisotropic in this model. To date, all experimental results agree with special relativity within the experimental uncertainty”

---

Light, by definition, is an electromagnetic wave, a propagating disturbance in space and time that carries information about the acceleration of charges.

Were there an infinite value for the speed of light, light itself would not exist at all. Mathematically, the wave equation that describes light as an electromagnetic wave would lose its time-dependence.

an electromagnetic wave arises due to the finite time it takes for news of the change of location of an accelerated charge to arrive at a distant point. Think of an electric charge as being like a hedgehog with flexible rubber spikes going out to infinity in all directions. These spikes represent the electric field lines, the lines along which a test charge would move.

If the charge is jerked, the segments of the spikes close to the charge will move, but those farther out will still point in their original directions. The result is that each spike will get a kink that moves out to infinity. This kink relays the news that the charge has moved to the distant parts of the spikes and corresponds to an electromagnetic wave. If the wave moves infinitely fast, it is as if it were not there at all; the spikes are infinitely stiff and the news gets out to everywhere without any seeming kinks. In other words, there would be no electromagnetic wave, and thus no light.

The previous two arguments are two slightly different ways to say that if you think light is a wave, then it has to be something that propagates and takes time to go from one point to another. In other words, it has to travel at a finite speed. Infinite speed of propagation is an instantaneous magical change in things everywhere all at once, and not a wave at all!

---

[Chas]

Are you suggesting that the speed of light is not natural?

The one-way speed of light in any given direction is stipulated by man as long as the round trip speed remains the experimentally verifiable value, this is a core principle of special relativity.

“That light requires the same time to traverse the path A → M as for the path B → M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own freewill in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity.” -Einstein 1961, p. 23 [emphasis is in the original]

You're the one who considers the one-way speed of light to be instantaneous (and thus magically affects the age of the universe) sans any supporting evidence whatsoever. Congratulations.

Yes, using this convention it moves at an infinite speed towards the observer, meaning we witness cosmic events in real-time. Imagine that.

So your basic premise is that the speed of light is entirely dependent on an observer?

What is the speed of light without an observer?

N.B. You are utterly misinterpreting special relativity.

[downbeatplumb]

Why would light travel instantly in one direction and at light speed in the other?

Answer: to give creationists a last desperate attempt to explain reality that doesn't sound stupid. even though it is stupid).


Why isn't the speed of light instantaneous.

Were there an infinite value for the speed of light, light itself would not exist at all. Mathematically, the wave equation that describes light as an electromagnetic wave would lose its time-dependence.

if you think light is a wave, then it has to be something that propagates and takes time to go from one point to another. In other words, it has to travel at a finite speed. Infinite speed of propagation is an instantaneous magical change in things everywhere all at once, and not a wave at all!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...eed-of-lig

[snowtracks]

After spending some time researching why on 'earth' are the 'young earthers' insisting on this minuscule timeframe like 10,000 years, I reached an epiphany; they want to easily dispose of evolutionary models for the origin-of-life which would require eons of time. of course they have to argue that the law of physic have changed, but they being biblically based should know God has stated those laws are fixed throughout the U's existence.

[WesOlsen]

I smell a heavy dose of cherry picking, and a slight whiff of 'science' to prove a pre-determined conclusion, which isn't actually science at all. I'm sure Lawrence Krauss would have a right bloody riot with this one. Notice again that scientific theories establish clearly what would disprove the said theories, whereas you won't ever catch young-earth cranks conceding anything that could ever qualify as disproof. Also notice again, if there was really a convincing argument for variable light speeds but one that demonstrated clearly a 6-10 k universe age then we'd have ourselves a nobel prize winner by now. Waldorf is pretty good though, he's managed to re-work the entire realm of physics AND critical thinking from his keyboard. He's god deductive proof of god AND he knows the exact age of the universe........ using absolutely no mathematics whatsoever, bloody genius! Ultimate heroic armchair win.

[Cyberman]

After spending some time researching why on 'earth' are the 'young earthers' insisting on this minuscule timeframe like 10,000 years, I reached an epiphany; they want to easily dispose of evolutionary models for the origin-of-life which would require eons of time. of course they have to argue that the law of physic have changed, but they being biblically based should know God has stated those laws are fixed throughout the U's existence.

I agree with you as to the YEC's motives and add merely that this 'single-bullet', checkmate approach is misguided in a textbook cart before the horse sense. Evolutionary models for the diversity - not the origin - of life as we see it today do not require aeons of time so much as happen to have taken them to reach the current state. Species evolve over generations; those that take several years to reach reproductive maturity are necessarily going to have longer periods between generations than those reproducing over a shorter timescale, thus evolutionary effects are going to take much longer to become apparent. That's why biologists use fruit flies and bacteria in their experiments rather than humans with their inconveniently long maturation period.

[orogenicman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPZ_cRv9P8Y

[Statler Waldorf]

So your basic premise is that the speed of light is entirely dependent on an observer?

It’s not my premise; it’s a stipulation of the convention. Under either convention it’s completely dependent upon the observer, in this one it’s the observer’s position in the isotropic convention it’s the observer’s velocity. Neither is more correct than the other.

What is the speed of light without an observer?

Where at and measured how?

N.B. You are utterly misinterpreting special relativity.

Even though I quoted from Einstein’s work that explicitly agrees with me? Nice try.

Why would light travel instantly in one direction and at light speed in the other?

It doesn’t, it travels at 1/2 experimental c in the opposite direction. All of relativity is counterintuitive.

Answer: to give creationists a last desperate attempt to explain reality that doesn't sound stupid. even though it is stupid).

Why would non-creationists develop something “intended to save creationism and to make creationists not sound stupid”? If you’re going to postulate such conspiracy theories I’d first make sure that they made one iota of sense.

Why isn't the speed of light instantaneous.

It is in one direction, the round-trip speed cannot be in order to preserve causality.

After spending some time researching why on 'earth' are the 'young earthers' insisting on this minuscule timeframe like 10,000 years, I reached an epiphany; they want to easily dispose of evolutionary models for the origin-of-life which would require eons of time. of course they have to argue that the law of physic have changed, but they being biblically based should know God has stated those laws are fixed throughout the U's existence.

1. The creation timeline predates any such model, so that cannot be the reason.
2. Perhaps that’s the reason Darwinists desperately want the Universe to be that old…because they need it to be? Ever think of that?
3. You can have all the time you want, it’s not going to save your paradigm.

I'm sure Lawrence Krauss would have a right bloody riot with this one. Notice again that scientific theories establish clearly what would disprove the said theories, whereas you won't ever catch young-earth cranks conceding anything that could ever qualify as disproof. Also notice again, if there was really a convincing argument for variable light speeds but one that demonstrated clearly a 6-10 k universe age then we'd have ourselves a nobel prize winner by now.

1. Variable light speeds do not prove the Universe is 6,000 years old; they merely demonstrate that distant starlight in no way proves it is older than 6,000 years.
2. What on Earth makes you think the Nobel committee does not have their personal biases? That’s laughable.

Waldorf is pretty good though, he's managed to re-work the entire realm of physics AND critical thinking from his keyboard.

No, I merely managed to comprehend it.

He's god deductive proof of god AND he knows the exact age of the universe........ using absolutely no mathematics whatsoever, bloody genius! Ultimate heroic armchair win.

I do not know the exact age, but I know a very narrow range.

I agree with you as to the YEC's motives and add merely that this 'single-bullet', checkmate approach is misguided in a textbook cart before the horse sense.

Pretending to know someone else’s motives is not misguided? I believe what I believe because I know the Bible is what it claims to be.

Evolutionary models for the diversity - not the origin - of life as we see it today do not require aeons of time so much as happen to have taken them to reach the current state. Species evolve over generations; those that take several years to reach reproductive maturity are necessarily going to have longer periods between generations than those reproducing over a shorter timescale, thus evolutionary effects are going to take much longer to become apparent. That's why biologists use fruit flies and bacteria in their experiments rather than humans with their inconveniently long maturation period.

Even though fruit flies are still flies and bacteria are still bacteria after tens of millions of generations. The evidence just does not fit what you are saying.

Astronomy kitchen video

That’s measuring the round-trip speed of light which nobody here is disputing. I cannot believe I wasted seven minutes watching that.