The Speed of Light, Time, and the Bible

[rjh4 is back]

According to Wikipedia, One-way Speed of Light, what we normally consider the “speed of light” is really a “two way” speed of light, i.e., the speed of light determined by measuring the round-trip speed from the source to the detector and back. Apparently, Einstein, chose a convention such that the one-way speed was the same as the two-way speed but there is nothing requiring it to be the same. Apparently one could choose a different convention such as light travelling infinitely fast in one direction and ½ c in the opposition direction and result in the same experimental results as one choosing Einstein’s convention. See the part of the article that talks about Edward’s Theory. I tried to do some checking to see if anyone has proven that the one-way and two-way speeds are fundamentally the same but could not find any.

At this point you might ask: So what?

Well the reason I bring this up here is that one of the best arguments I have ever heard against young earth creationism is relative to starlight. It goes something like: How can the universe be only 6000 to 10000 years old when we can see the light from stars that are billions of light years away?

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.)

(I know there are other arguments against a young earth position and do not want to go down those other roads here in this thread. So I will request that comments be limited to the questions raised above.)

Thanks for any input.

[theVOID]

According to Wikipedia, One-way Speed of Light, what we normally consider the “speed of light” is really a “two way” speed of light, i.e., the speed of light determined by measuring the round-trip speed from the source to the detector and back. Apparently, Einstein, chose a convention such that the one-way speed was the same as the two-way speed but there is nothing requiring it to be the same.

His proposition was that it will take the light exactly the same amount of time to be refracted over two half-meter distances as it would for the light to travel a straight meter as the momentum of the light would not decrease over time nor with refraction. This was supported by measuring a light path involving multiple refractions and finding that the time between any two refractions down the chain did not change. The problem with the measurements has to do with the relationship between the observer and detector moving through space time in relation to the light.

Apparently one could choose a different convention such as light travelling infinitely fast in one direction and ½ c in the opposition direction and result in the same experimental results as one choosing Einstein’s convention. See the part of the article that talks about Edward’s Theory. I tried to do some checking to see if anyone has proven that the one-way and two-way speeds are fundamentally the same but could not find any.

Firstly, the ambiguity in Einsteins equations is in relation to the movement of the observer and the detector through space time in relation to the light, making a perfect measurement potentially impossible. It does not suggest that the light refracts at a slower momentum than it's one-way speed. It certainly does not suggest as you did that this could be as much as a variance as 1/2 c.

Secondly, Edwards theory is a more mathematically complex, also unverified hypothesis that is currently experimentally indistinguishable from Special Relativity, the difference between the two would increase the initial (one way) speed proportional to the two way speed, but yield the exact same result as Einsteins equations. Until verified in some way that Edwards formula for the relationship of one-way and two-way light is more accurate than Special Relativity there is no reason to prefer it as an explanation. Thus far it is the same thing with extra conjecture. A simple application of Occam's razor is all you need, and that clearly falls on Special Relativities side for now.

At this point you might ask: So what?

Well the reason I bring this up here is that one of the best arguments I have ever heard against young earth creationism is relative to starlight. It goes something like: How can the universe be only 6000 to 10000 years old when we can see the light from stars that are billions of light years away?

Let me guess, you're about to quote the Discovery Institute or AIG for some bullshit masquerading as science?

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).

I guess correct.

Typical AIG assumptive noise disguised as science, mangled with biblical references.

Is that article published in a scientific journal? Nope.
Been peer reviewed? Nope.
Free of premises that are purely assumptive: Nope.

They even go to the trouble at AIG to make their "papers" look like they were published, entirely to fool suckers like you into swallowing their loads.

This is Jason Lisle, a fucking dishonest little weasel, and if you actually bother to chew through all the word salad and obfuscation he is really trying to suggest that God created light-in-motion. He failed miserably to demonstrate this, which is why nobody takes it seriously.

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.)

No fucking way. For reasons listed above.

[Zen Badger]

Ahh the creationists, they try so hard to make reality conform to their little fairytale.

The articles premise hinges on this bit......

Light travels at the canonical speed of 1,079
million km/hr only when moving tangentially relative to an
observer. It moves at half the canonical value when moving
directly away from the observer, and it moves infinitely fast
when travelling directly toward the observer—travelling
instantaneously from point A to point B.

News to me.

[rjh4 is back]

His proposition was that it will take the light exactly the same amount of time to be refracted over two half-meter distances as it would for the light to travel a straight meter as the momentum of the light would not decrease over time nor with refraction. This was supported by measuring a light path involving multiple refractions and finding that the time between any two refractions down the chain did not change. The problem with the measurements has to do with the relationship between the observer and detector moving through space time in relation to the light.

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.”

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

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…

(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)

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, the ambiguity in Einsteins equations is in relation to the movement of the observer and the detector through space time in relation to the light, making a perfect measurement potentially impossible. It does not suggest that the light refracts at a slower momentum than it's one-way speed. It certainly does not suggest as you did that this could be as much as a variance as 1/2 c.

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:

“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.”

This also seems to be supported by the quote above from Zhang.

Secondly, Edwards theory is a more mathematically complex, also unverified hypothesis that is currently experimentally indistinguishable from Special Relativity, the difference between the two would increase the initial (one way) speed proportional to the two way speed, but yield the exact same result as Einsteins equations. Until verified in some way that Edwards formula for the relationship of one-way and two-way light is more accurate than Special Relativity there is no reason to prefer it as an explanation. Thus far it is the same thing with extra conjecture. A simple application of Occam's razor is all you need, and that clearly falls on Special Relativities side for now.

I don’t think anyone is saying here that Einstein’s synchronization is any better or worse than a different synchronization that allows the speed of light to be anisotropic. What I am arguing, and this appears to be supported by the wiki article and Zhang, that the clock synchronization is an arbitrary selection and as long as you stay consistent, the results one would get via experimentation would be equivalent to the results you would get with another choice of synchronization.

Certainly selecting a synchronization such that the one-way and two-way speeds of light are the same, as Einstein apparently did, makes the math less complex and this alone provides a good reason to do this on a normal basis. But it still appears to be arbitrary as I pointed out.

Typical AIG assumptive noise disguised as science, mangled with biblical references.

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

Is that article published in a scientific journal? Nope.
Been peer reviewed? Nope.
Free of premises that are purely assumptive: Nope.

Neither are these.

They even go to the trouble at AIG to make their "papers" look like they were published…

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).

…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.

This is Jason Lisle, a …dishonest little weasel…

argumentum ad hominem

…if you actually bother to chew through all the word salad and obfuscation he is really trying to suggest that God created light-in-motion.

Here, I think you are wrong. On page 80, Lisle specifically refers to the creating light en route point of view of and says this:

“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.”

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.

No … way. For reasons listed above.

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.

The articles premise hinges on this bit......

Light travels at the canonical speed of 1,079
million km/hr only when moving tangentially relative to an
observer. It moves at half the canonical value when moving
directly away from the observer, and it moves infinitely fast
when travelling directly toward the observer—travelling
instantaneously from point A to point B.

News to me.

Only one of the arguments hinges on this. The other one is independent of that. And while it might be news to you that clock synchronization can be arbitrarily selected such that this is the case, it does seem to be supported in the scientific literature as noted above. (Frankly, it was news to me also.) So while the article may never convince you, you also have failed to provide any reasons why the positions stated in the paper would not be a reasonable explanation to the question of the possibility of seeing starlight even given a young age to the universe.

[Tiberius]

This is Jason Lisle, a …dishonest little weasel…

argumentum ad hominem

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.

[Welsh cake]

At this point you might ask: So what?

Indeed, and I'm still asking that.

The lack of imagination some of you Young-Earth Creationists, like "Robert Newton" display in that you can envision a god who created space-time and can place the stars themselves wherever and whenever he desires, yet simultaneously, you can't possibly accept the notion that the universe is vast and billions of years old fucking astounds me. How can you dismiss astronomical systems of units yet still try to sound remotely credible in relation to physics?

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.

Thanks for the laughs rjh4, this'll keep me up all night. ^^

[rjh4 is back]

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.

---

How can you dismiss astronomical systems of units yet still try to sound remotely credible in relation to physics?

I wasn't dismissing anything in the questions I asked.

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?

[theophilus]

Well the reason I bring this up here is that one of the best arguments I have ever heard against young earth creationism is relative to starlight. It goes something like: How can the universe be only 6000 to 10000 years old when we can see the light from stars that are billions of light years away?

There are two possible explanations.

When sin entered the world it brought about death. It is possible that it also caused changes in the laws governing the universe, such as the speed of light. We have no way of knowing that light always traveled at the same rate it does now.

Another point is that believing in young earth creationism doesn't necessarily mean believing that the whole universe is young. Look at what Genesis 1:1,2 says: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." It states that God created the universe without giving any details about how long it took and then it speaks of the earth being in a formless condition. This was before the six days of creation. The six days are not the original creation of the earth but its transformation from a state of chaos. There is no indication as to whether this took place at the beginning of the creation or at some subsequent time. This means that even if the present earth is only a few thousand years old the universe as a whole could still be billions of years old. Here is a site that discusses this possibility:

http://www.ageoftheuniverse.com/Welcome.html

[rjh4 is back]

There are two possible explanations.

There are probably more than that. I just wanted to limit the thread to the possible solutions I mentioned in the original post. But thanks for providing other possibilities.

[downbeatplumb]

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

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

However you two are still talking bollocks.