The Speed of Light, Time, and the Bible

[rjh4 is back]

Light may well have travelled at different speeds in the early universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light

I don't think this has anything to do with my original post either. The wiki article you posted seems to deal with the possibility of the two-way speed of light changing over time. In fact, the article by Lisle seems to reject this when it says:

"Some have claimed that light may have travelled faster in the past. This idea is intriguing, but the speed of light is not an arbitrary 'free' parameter. A change in the speed of light would have profound consequences for the rest of physics, and these are not observed."

So the possibilities offered in Lisle's paper were clearly not dealing with this issue whereas one did deal with the possibility of arbitrarily being able to choose a clock synchronization such that the speed of light varies by direction.

[Tiberius]

Argumentum ad hominem does not equate to an insult. Argumentum ad hominem is where you attack the person and attempt to link it to the veracity of their argument.

See Common misconceptions about ad hominems.

Even if I was wrong in my characterization, Void's statement that I quoted was still irrelevant to the questions I asked.

Irrelevant as it may be; it isn't grounds for an ad hominem. If it's irrelevant, don't comment on it.

Robert (Jason Lisle) is a hopelessly intellectually bankrupt individual for stating utter nonsense such as big bang theorists are not allowed to speculate about the origins of the universe because they weren’t around when it happened. He incredulously goes further to dig himself into a deeper hole by asserting our attempts to investigate the cosmos is "beyond the scope of science" since only God was present at its creation. Seriously, by that logic we're also not free to calculate the orbit of Pluto because no one will live to see one rotation – I'm surprised his peers in the American Astronomical Society haven't already laughed him out. I also particularly loved the manner in how he ignores the phenomenon of time dilation whenever it suits his argument to build up a case for the Genesis depiction of events.

Irrelevant to the questions I asked. I wonder, Adrian, would this quote from Welsh Cake qualify as an ad hominum attack?

No it wouldn't. At no point does he insinuate that the asserted "intellectual bankruptcy" of Jason Lisle has any affect on the validity of his argument. Instead, he points to the illogical nature of the argument Jason uses.

[rjh4 is back]

Irrelevant as it may be; it isn't grounds for an ad hominem. If it's irrelevant, don't comment on it.

ok

No it wouldn't. At no point does he insinuate that the asserted "intellectual bankruptcy" of Jason Lisle has any affect on the validity of his argument. Instead, he points to the illogical nature of the argument Jason uses.

Except that none of what Welsh said was directed to the questions I raised. So maybe it is an ad hominem via implication, i.e., maybe he is implying that because of Jason's alleged "intellectual bankrupcy" in one area, why listen to what he says in this other paper. One could also possibly make such an argument relative to Void's comments also.

Anyway, I see no need to push this "ad hominem" issue any further as it gets me no closer to an answer to my original questions.

[ABierman1986]

Recently, I ran across and article that provides two relatively simple possible explanations. See Distant starlight and Genesis: conventions of time measurement. In the article, Robert Newton, aka Jason Lisle of AiG, proposes two relatively simple solutions. Both are based on the concept of “observed time” with one of them also being based on an anisotropic speed of light (the speed depending on the direction relative to the observer).

So anyway my question is this. In your opinion, does this article provide a reasonable answer to the possibility of seeing starlight even given a young age to the universe? If not, why? (I am certainly no expert in relativity so I may very well be missing something important.)

Ok, I have a real problem with this article. The author discusses that the assumption of light's velocity being isotropic is one that need not be taken seriously. The way that light is determined to travel in this fashion is not determined by time measurements. The speed of light as symmetrical can be directly drawn from the laws of electromagnetism, this article is not confirmed by an educational institution but is accurate in it's handling of the question of light's speed and explaining why it must be constant:

http://www.vttoth.com/LIGHT/light.htm

Newton says that one could design an experiment to prove either theory for the way light propagates....sure, if you only want to use one set of parameters that does not cover all your bases. Questions like this are deeply rooted in fundamental models of universal descriptions. It is possible that it's wrong, but using this argument of velocity measurements ignores the other empirical evidence that has been gathered to substantiate these models.

The one way speed of light is not 'chosen' by synchronization, it's been deduced to be fundamental to electromagnetism and its models have been used to successfully predict numerous scientific experiments and observations have confirmed these models' accuracy on countless occasions.

[rjh4 is back]

The speed of light as symmetrical can be directly drawn from the laws of electromagnetism...

And what law is that? What is your evidence? I have provided a wiki article and a scientific article by Zhang to support what I was saying regarding one-way vs. two-way speed of light. So far you have not provided anything.

this article is not confirmed by an educational institution but is accurate in it's handling of the question of light's speed and explaining why it must be constant:

http://www.vttoth.com/LIGHT/light.htm

This article seems to be talking about the two-way speed of light, not the one-way speed of light. There is a big difference. No matter what convention you take on clock synchronization, apparently it will not affect any measurements of the two-way speed of light. Also, it seems apparent from the articles I provided that the one-way speed of light is "undefined (and not simply unknown), unless one can define what is 'the same time' in two different locations" (from the wiki article).

Newton says that one could design an experiment to prove either theory for the way light propagates....sure, if you only want to use one set of parameters that does not cover all your bases.

I'm not sure what part or quote you are referring to specifically but I think his point was that whichever convention you choose for clock synchronization, you will get consistent experimental results as long as you are consistent in your application of synchronization. I think this is supported by the Zhang paper I cited.

The one way speed of light is not 'chosen' by synchronization, it's been deduced to be fundamental to electromagnetism and its models have been used to successfully predict numerous scientific experiments and observations have confirmed these models' accuracy on countless occasions.

I have provided evidence that says otherwise. So far you have provided nothing to substantiate this position of yours.

[Tiberius]

Except that none of what Welsh said was directed to the questions I raised. So maybe it is an ad hominem via implication, i.e., maybe he is implying that because of Jason's alleged "intellectual bankrupcy" in one area, why listen to what he says in this other paper. One could also possibly make such an argument relative to Void's comments also.

Anyway, I see no need to push this "ad hominem" issue any further as it gets me no closer to an answer to my original questions.

Ad hominem by implication doesn't exist as a fallacy, nor would it. There is a difference between saying outright that "Person X is a liar, so we shouldn't trust anything he says." and making an argument against what someone has said on logical grounds, and then adding that they are a liar. In the first case, the person being a liar is linked directly to the conclusion to not trust them. In the second, there is no such direct link.

You wanting it to be a fallacy reveals much about your intellectual honesty in my opinion. There is more to debates than pointing out fallacies.

[theVOID]

I’m not really sure what this has to do with the issue I raised.

The wiki article said:

“Albert Einstein chose a synchronization convention (see Einstein synchronization) that made the one-way speed equal to the two-way speed.”

Over a comparative distance... You seem to have it in your head that he was saying light takes the same time to travel one meter one way as it does two meters two ways, just because he chose to say that... What he was really saying is that all reasonable assumptions and the most efficient calculations see no reason to assume that the speed of light refracted after a half-meter back to it's source is at any different from the speed traveled in a straight line.

Is this a reasonable conclusion for the wiki writers to have drawn? If not, why?

It is, the only thing that stinks here is your understanding of what was said. That's what happens when you wiki mine, you end up trying to draw conclusions from summaries - that's simply stupid.

Zhang in the article Test Theories of Special Relativity seems to support this conclusion when he says on page 492:

“So that we come to the following conclusion…

[quote]
(ii) In other words, the directional parameter q cannot be observed in any physical experiment. That is to say that its modulus can be taken as any value in the range (-1,+1), or to say that the definition of simultaneity can be chosen arbitrarily.” (emphasis added)

[/quote]

You have absofuckinglutely no idea what you posted do you? This whole issue is about the inability to know for certain the momentum of the observer and detector in relation to the journey of the light being measured over a round trip. you cannot know for certain just how far the light actually traveled because both the source of the light, the refraction point and the destination(also the source) have been in momentum over the course of the light's journey.

This certainly seems to support what the wiki article said and it looks like it is in a published scientific journal that is peer reviewed.

Firstly, I have no problem with the content of the wiki article, just your erroneous conclusions.
Secondly, it's a book, not a scientific paper.
Thirdly, it does not support your silly conclusions at all.
Fourthly, Why the fuck would you post a link to an abstract for a book than i have to pay to read? Disingenuous much?

I never suggested Einstein’s synchronization allowed for a variance as much as ½ c. Edwards theory seems to indicate that one can choose a synchronization that allows for the one way speed to vary from infinite to ½ c. See the wiki article where it says:
[quote]
“This allows the one-way speed of light to take the form c/(1+q) in a given direction, with the sign of q reversed in the opposite direction. In the extreme as q approaches 1, light might propagate in one direction instantaneously, provided it takes twice the time to travel in the opposite direction. The average speed for the round trip remains the experimentally verifiable two-way speed. All predictions of Edwards theory are experimentally indistinguishable from those of special relativity; the difference is only that the defined clock time varies from Einstein's according to the distance in a specific direction.”

[/quote]

Lmao, go put that into your own words in context... That should demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that you have no fucking clue what you are reading.

Secondly, i already pointed out why nobody pragmatically uses Edwards theory , there is no way to verify his calculations. It's special relativity + entirely unnecessary conjecture and it adds absolutely nothing to our understanding of light.

It's like saying:
We know the car took 2 hours to get from A to B and back to A.
This distance was 200km total.

Einstein assumed the car went 100kmph in either direction.
Edwards suggested the car went at any possible speed in any direction, so long as the average speed was still 100kmph.

Nobody actually knew the speed of the car in any given direction, either could be true.

However, when you apply this to light, there is no evidence at all of Light travelling at any speed other than 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum, therefore there is no reason to assume that Edwards theory is correct.

Umm…this also is not an argument but I do wish to point out that it was published in 2001 in a journal called TJ (now Journal of Creation).

Precisely.

My comment about Torch Bearing elves was published in fairy-tail-science-weekly, a journal which is run by me, the proponent of the theory. Please smother me with credibility!

…entirely to fool suckers like you into swallowing their loads.

From my original post, it should be clear that I asked the question to make sure I wasn’t missing something. So far you have not really demonstrated a thing.[/quote]

I have pointed out why it is stupid to assume Edward's unsupported theory as accurate, and why it is even more stupid to try an build a proof around it. I have pointed out your egregious mistake in interpreting the concepts presented, pointed out that the "paper" in question wasn't ever published in a serious scientific forum...

Anything else i need to beat through that skull of yours?

argumentum ad hominem

No it isn't. I did not rely on my disdain of Lise as a reason not to accept the theory, the flaws are obvious.

“Others have claimed that God created the light en route, but this would mean that supernova 1987A never actually happened, but rather that God created the image of the exploding star en route to Earth. Moreover, it would mean that the progenitor star never actually existed even though we have been able to see its image throughout time. While some 'appearance of age' is essential in a supernaturally created universe where things were created functionally mature, would God create the image of a star that never actually existed, or a supernova that never happened? Perhaps we cannot completely eliminate this possibility, but it nonetheless seems a remarkably uncharacteristic act for the God of the Bible.”

He's changed tack then.

Lisle later goes on to explain the two possibilities relative to “observed time”. The one possibility would even require the light to have travelled for billions of year in “calculated time” but not in “observed time”. The other possibility, that relies on a choice of clock synchronization (which, as noted above, appears to be supported in the scientific literature) such that light travels infinitely fast toward an observer and ½ c away from an observer coupled with the “observed time” idea. Neither of these seem remotely close to the God created light en route argument.

More noise. There is no substance to this argument, it is a shockingly poor interpretation of a completely unsupported hypothesis.

As noted above, I did not see any real arguments given, just conclusions and ad hominem arguments. You certainly have the right to not think the article provides a reasonable answer to the possibility of seeing starlight even given a young age to the universe regardless of your reasons. I was just hoping for a more substantive response.

Want a more substantive response? Try arguing from some more substantiated material. Using a totally unsupported hypothesis to begin with is enough to reject the argument.

And there were no ad hominem's, as both I and Adrian have pointed out.

[rjh4 is back]

Ad hominem by implication doesn't exist as a fallacy, nor would it. There is a difference between saying outright that "Person X is a liar, so we shouldn't trust anything he says." and making an argument against what someone has said on logical grounds, and then adding that they are a liar. In the first case, the person being a liar is linked directly to the conclusion to not trust them. In the second, there is no such direct link.

Ok...so a direct link is needed for the ad hominem fallacy to be present. Fine. I'll remember that.

You wanting it to be a fallacy reveals much about your intellectual honesty in my opinion. There is more to debates than pointing out fallacies.

Personally, I could care less whether or not it was a fallacy on Void's part. Fallacy or not, it did nothing to support Void's position except maybe make him look like he's already got a chip on his shoulder relative to Lisle which immediately makes me wonder whether or not his emotions would allow him to evaluate Lisle's paper in an evenhanded manner.

---

Over a comparative distance... You seem to have it in your head that he was saying light takes the same time to travel one meter one way as it does two meters two ways, just because he chose to say that... What he was really saying is that all reasonable assumptions and the most efficient calculations see no reason to assume that the speed of light refracted after a half-meter back to it's source is at any different from the speed traveled in a straight line.

I get that and have no problem with that. I would have done the same thing. It doesn’t change the fact that it was based on assumptions, as you point out.

This whole issue is about the inability to know for certain the momentum of the observer and detector in relation to the journey of the light being measured over a round trip. you cannot know for certain just how far the light actually traveled because both the source of the light, the refraction point and the destination(also the source) have been in momentum over the course of the light's journey.

No. The issue is about one-way vs. two-way speed of light.

Fourthly, Why … would you post a link to an abstract for a book than i have to pay to read? Disingenuous much?

I tried to post the link to the pdf article. I did notice that the first time I clicked on the link I got to that page where the book or journal is being sold. Nonetheless, if you get to that page and look right under the picture of the book or journal (whatever it is), there is a link to the full pdf of the particular article. I did the best I could at providing the proper link.

It's like saying:
We know the car took 2 hours to get from A to B and back to A.
This distance was 200km total.

Einstein assumed the car went 100kmph in either direction.
Edwards suggested the car went at any possible speed in any direction, so long as the average speed was still 100kmph.

Nobody actually knew the speed of the car in any given direction, either could be true.

I understand and agree with your assessment here. However, notice that Einstein assumed the speed in either direction.

However, when you apply this to light, there is no evidence at all of Light travelling at any speed other than 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum, therefore there is no reason to assume that Edwards theory is correct.

No. When you apply your car scenario to light, you would get the same conclusion: Nobody actually knew the speed of light in any given direction, either could be true. And as I have been pointing out, there does not appear to be any way to prove a fundamental value for the one-way speed of light. You can refer to Occam’s Razor all you like but it does not prove the one-way speed of light, it merely provides you with a practical way of doing things.

This is no argument relative to the issues proposed by Lisle.

He's credited with much of the work in Moore's "paper".

What are you talking about? I never mentioned a paper by Moore and neither did you.

Neither are these.

I'm not claiming to have disproved Special Relativity.

Again…What are you talking about? Nobody said you claimed to have disproved Special Relativity.

No it isn't. I did not rely on my disdain of Lise as a reason not to accept the theory…

Fine. I addressed this in my reply to Adrian.

“Others have claimed that God created the light en route, but this would mean that supernova 1987A never actually happened, but rather that God created the image of the exploding star en route to Earth. Moreover, it would mean that the progenitor star never actually existed even though we have been able to see its image throughout time. While some 'appearance of age' is essential in a supernaturally created universe where things were created functionally mature, would God create the image of a star that never actually existed, or a supernova that never happened? Perhaps we cannot completely eliminate this possibility, but it nonetheless seems a remarkably uncharacteristic act for the God of the Bible.”

He's changed tack then.

That is your response???? This indicates to me that you did not even read Lisle’s paper before you responded the first time because he didn’t change tack in the specific paper I cited. Furthermore, if you had actually read it you would have known that this was not the position he was putting forth.

More noise. There is no substance to this argument, it is a shockingly poor interpretation of a completely unsupported hypothesis.

Did you even read the paper yet?

You know, if you don’t want to read Lisle’s paper, you don’t have to. But it seems to me that if you don’t, you should also refrain from commenting on it.