Physics looks for new Einstein as nature rewrites laws of universe

A GROUP of astronomers and cosmologists has warned that the laws thought to govern the universe, including Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, must be rewritten. The group, which includes Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal, say such laws may only work for our universe but not in others that are now also thought to exist. "It is becoming increasingly likely that the rules we had thought were fundamental through time and space are actually just bylaws for our bit of it," said Rees, whose new book, Our Cosmic Habitat, is published next month. "Creation is emerging as even stranger than we thought." Among the ideas facing revision is Einstein's belief that the speed of light must always be the same - 186,000 miles a second in a vacuum. There is growing evidence that light moved much faster during the early stages of our universe. Rees, Hawking and others are so concerned at the impact of such ideas that they recently organised a private conference in Cambridge for more than 30 leading cosmologists. Cosmology - the study of the origins and future of our universe - became popular in the early 20th century for physicists who wanted to think the unthinkable about creation. Einstein's theory of relativity, which describes how gravity controls the behaviour of our universe, was one of cosmology's greatest triumphs. But Einstein said there was an even deeper issue, which he described as whether God had any choice. In other words, could the laws that governed the way our universe formed after the big bang have worked any differently? He concluded that they could not. In the past 40 years, however, the increasing power of astronomical instruments has turned cosmology from a theoretical science into a practical one and forced scientists to re-examine Einstein's conclusions. Among the most striking claims is that our universe only exists because of a fine balance between several crucial factors. One is the rate at which nuclear fusion releases energy in stars such as the sun by squashing hydrogen atoms into helium and then other elements. Astronomers have found that exactly 0.7% of the mass of the hydrogen is converted into starlight and that if this figure had been just a fraction different then carbon and other elements essential to life could never have formed. Another puzzle is the so-called "smoothness" of our universe, by which astronomers mean the distribution of matter and radiation. In theory, the big bang could have produced a universe where all the matter clumped together into a few black holes, or another in which it was spread out evenly, forming nothing but a thin vapour. "It could be that the laws that govern our universe are unchangeable but it is a remarkable coincidence that these laws are also exactly what is needed to produce life," said Rees. "It seems too good to be true." What he, Hawking and others such as Neil Turok, professor of maths and physics at Cambridge, are now looking at is the idea that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes, with different laws of nature operating in each. Some universes would have all their matter clumped together into a few huge black holes while others would be nothing more than a thin uniform freezing gas. However, Hawking and his colleagues increasingly disagree over how this "multiverse" could work. At the conference Hawking dismissed the idea of a series of big bangs on the grounds that it extended into the infinite past and so could never have a beginning.

All you say is the Red Shift is not evidence. That doesn't tell me anything. I've never seen the Second Law refuted on here yet. I've seen people who disagree, but as to refutation I haven't seen that because it's still occuring. What kind of answer is "Adam could see" you asked. I'd say it's a pretty straightforward one. Your attempt to cram biological processes into "atomic" processes in order to make a point was senseless, since you know very well had anyone else tried that type of juggling of words you wouldn't let them get away with it. As far as you hearing about something lifting Adam off the earth I can just say very simple that I guess you heard wrong since he wasn't. My answer stands: digestion, heartbeat, circulation are not "Atomic" processes. Let me say this since things seem to be getting a little heated in here. I come from a Bible Believing view of science, biology, history, astronomy, astrophysics, chemistry, etc. (Very simply, I think if you want to know about creation you go to the Creator.) I really didn't want to argue about something like the speed of light which I'd say is compartively insignificant in regards to some other things. I understand it's controversial and perhaps kin to throwing down a sacred cow.

1) how long ago did SN1987a occur, and Hmmm, probably about 14 years, but that's just my guess. Maybe later, maybe earlier.

Well, considering that we first observed SN1987a 14 years ago, you'd have to assert that either the speed of light was instantaneous, or the LMC is perched atop the Milky Way. But according to your sources, the speed of light has never been measured to be anywhere near instantaneous in the past few hundred years, so the instantaneous speed of light in recent time seems to go out the window.

That leaves the LMC hunched over the Milky Way. Do you have any evidence of this? Can you explain how the Cephied variable data can indicate that we are 150,000 light years away from the LMC when it is about to pounce on us? What about the gravitational effects of the LMC being as close as you suggest, why haven't we seen any evidence of that?

By the way, since you have now responded to "Physicist's" questions, you can now respond to the rest of mine in my previous post.

All you say is the Red Shift is not evidence. That doesn't tell me anything.

Before something is evidence for your position, you have to have the best explanation for it going. The most you have done is to cite Halton Arp to try to knock some holes in the conventional idea of what the red shift means.

Alas for your limited exposure to the facts, Halton Arp's claims (that red-shifted objects are as close as non-redshifted ones) has been severely knocked about. As Physicist has explained to us on past threads, a spectroscopic phenomenon called the "Lyman-Alpha forest" allows an estimate of how many intermediate clouds of matter lie between a light emitter and the earth. Arp's star-quasar bridges are simple accidents of juxtaposition. The quasar of the "pair" inevitably has a Lyman-Alpha forest consistent with its redshift. That is, it has far more stuff in front of it absorbing and re-emitting the light.

That means you haven't made a dent in the accepted expanation of the redshift. That also means that the CDK version, coming attached to the mess that is CDK, fails the Occam's Razor test of being the simplest workable.

I've never seen the Second Law refuted on here yet.

The Second Law is right. Creatonist attempts to apply it to non-thermodynamic problems are wrong.

Your attempt to cram biological processes into "atomic" processes in order to make a point was senseless, since you know very well had anyone else tried that type of juggling of words you wouldn't let them get away with it.

Most of your bodily processes are powered by chemical reactions. There are two main types of such: ionic and covalent bonding. In ionic processes, an electron goes from orbiting nucleus A to orbiting nucleus B. Both nuclei are thus left out of electrical neutrality (i.e, "ionized"), although the total electrical charge of the world is conserved. In covalent processes, an electron's orbit is altered so that it orbits both nucleus A and nucleus B in some variation of a figure-8.

Both processes are pulled along by electrical forces and would presumably be speeded in a world in which every atomic particle including the electron has lower mass. Now, guess whose theory does something as silly as that. Don't make me go into Dolphin's "cdkconseq" page and show you where he admits as much (albeit ignoring the problems).

As far as you hearing about something lifting Adam off the earth I can just say very simple that I guess you heard wrong since he wasn't.

First prove it, then use it.

What kind of answer is "Adam could see" you asked. I'd say it's a pretty straightforward one.

I'd say you are not dealing with the concrete objections I have to the CDK model. I did not impose CDK on Setterfield, Dolphin, and all the creationists such as you who have embraced it. Rather, you have waved it at me and said, "This is the real science and you people who believe the stuff about an old universe are fools!"

If your explanation is genuinely superior, I should be able to get answers to my questions on specifics. Seeing that part of CDK involves nuclear reactions taking place at about 11 million times the current speed, my first question was why Adam wasn't cooked as soon as he was created. That question had been asked often enough already that the CDKers anticipated it and described a complicated dance in which the mass of everything was tremendously lowered to keep the energy flux the same as now by the E = mc squared relation. But that, as Setterfield admits, means the photons are being redshifted and the sun isn't glowing in anything like the color it is now.

Having repeated my question yet again, I now ask you to note that "Adam could see" is inadequate. You have to explain why he could see. CDK is committed to those high reaction rates; they're absolutely integral to the theory. So you're cooking off a lot of fuel and making a lot of photons. If you redshift them, human eyes such as eyes are now cannot see them. If you don't redshift them, you cook Adam because there are so many of those photons and they have the same energy as solar photons now.

"Adam could see." Don't just say it, explain it. After all, you're trumpeting it as the real science.

You cited some guy who I've never heard of--Alton Harp; so whatever refutation he got for his theory has no relation to anything I've said since I've never cited him. As to nonthermodynamic phenomenon I guess I'm missing something unless you believe that stars give off no heat or that the light given off by the sun, and other stars, does not contain 3 types of waves one of which has heat. I didn't bother reading your rehashing of digestion REALLY being an atomic process. I'm not interested in word games. As to calling you a fool; I've never done that and I don't know why you say I did. People are just threatened by a God who has authority of them who doesn't give them light on a matter even after their 40 years of study and 10 Ph.D's. The reason that happens is that they rejected Him at the outset. I don't call you a fool and still haven't. When you die, that may be a different story, but I still won't be calling you a fool then either. Now, you ask why Adam wasn't fried. The explanation is that your assumption is wrong. You assume all things continue as you see them presently which is, as we know, false. After a few cataclysmic events, one being the Flood, the architecture, structure and chemistry of the earth were significantly altered. Bottom line there is that you can't go back 6000 years to see how things were then since they were not the same.

You cited some guy who I've never heard of--Alton Harp; so whatever refutation he got for his theory has no relation to anything I've said since I've never cited him.

I've never seen a more graphic demonstration that creationists don't themselves even read the unformatted glop they cut and paste onto this forum. The following comes from your own solid slab of hocus-pocus gibberish in post 168:

7) Some scientists worry that there may be yet other explanations for the red shift and that too much reliance may have been placed on Hubble's Law. Halton Arp, an American astronomer based in Germany, has collected "discrepant" red shifts which appear to be in conflict with traditional views.

You don't understand your own arguments, not having written or even read them, so no wonder my responses to them puzzle you. And don't try to tell me I said "Alton Harp" instead of "Halton Arp," either.

I didn't bother reading your rehashing of digestion REALLY being an atomic process. I'm not interested in word games.

Chemical processes are governed by electons and should have been fast in the early universe according to CDK. CDKers admit that much. They claim that weaker chemical bonds (caused by faster-flying, low-mass electrons) are good for you. Hah!

My point is that aging is more a matter of chemistry than it is of large-scale mechanics. Glucose molecules bind across your protein fibers, making your tissues more brittle. That sort of thing. No CDKer has attempted a coherent and credible model of biological processes in a light-speeded world, so it's just another area where all I get for answers is mumbling and arm-waving.

Bottom line there is that you can't go back 6000 years to see how things were then since they were not the same.

I have no use for a cosmology that won't even try to go back 6000 years. The CDK model does try to go back and say how things were, and the model doesn't work. Not my problem.

As to nonthermodynamic phenomenon I guess I'm missing something unless you believe that stars give off no heat or that the light given off by the sun, and other stars, does not contain 3 types of waves one of which has heat.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics refers to quantifiable thermodynamic processes. This law so far appears inviolable. The claim that "order" never arises "spontaneously" from "disorder" stands apart from the Second Law of Thermodynamics because 1) it's not about heat, 2) it's not quantifiable, 3) it's demonstrably false.

For instance, when the universe emitted the flash of light we see as the Cosmic Microwave Background, there were only a few kinds of atoms, mostly hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium, and they were very evenly dispersed.

Since then, much of the universe's mass has clumped gravitationally in a perfectly lawful manner. Stars and galaxies formed. Heavier elements were forged in stars and dispersed through space in supernovae.

In a perfectly lawful fashion we went from a universe that contained virtually no information to the one we see now. No violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics was necessary, since the almost-but-not-perfectly evenly dispersed hydrogen of that early CMB universe contained enough 1) gravitational potential, and 2) nuclear energy potential to power the changes. The laws of physics and the passage of time did the rest.

The claim that chaos into order stands apart from thermodynamics is only knit picking. In some points it may, and it others it doesn't, but if you honestly believe order arises from chaos, or that a "nothing" has the power to create--like this dictionary just appeared on my desk, no author, no book binder, it just happened--you're talking insanity and faith, nothing scientific. Scientifically speaking a ball of "nothing" has never been observed to create anything. Furthermore, if you're talking Big Bang, it is and was unobservable and therefore a matter of faith. Hiding behind science to promote a faith in something is par for the course these days though.

Everything you said about the way in which things were created lawfully is exactly right as it occurred in creation; that is why it was lawful. The Second Law of Thermodynamics was a result of the fall.

Now, according to everything that is observable presently, there is neither explanation nor proof of what you said about the elements present at the beginning. That is called faith; it is unobservable and cannot nor has been reproduced.

About this fella named Alton Harp; I've still never studied about him, but I have studied this Red Shift. Incidentally, as it seems, I didn't consult him for what I said about what the Red Shift was showing. Now if this guy and I agree, great.

You said:"They claim that weaker chemical bonds (caused by faster-flying, low-mass electrons) are good for you. Hah!" You guys continue to prove the Bible, but refuse to read it. Your point on that thing was about aging. And if chemical bonds such as you proport are good for you and occured at the beginng; perhaps you should read how long people lived back then. Up to 900 years. Perhaps because they had good chemical bonds going for them? Perhaps :)

As for your 6000 year comment about going back. You're free to make use of whatever you want to make use of: no skin off anybody's teeth. But if you assume that all things are as they are today you will be wrong in every case you forecast. (Of course, you'll never know that and just continue moving along blindly.) The funny thing about scientists is that they are so pious about this stuff and all they are doing is a form of modeling. Science can only observe PRESENT phenomena. You have no idea and will not ever be able to KNOW what was going on then, but you look very smug doing what you're doing; hence the Biblical term for what we are discussing is "science falsely so called."

1 Timothy 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:(KJV) Keep in mind, Science is word plagiarized from a King James Bible in Daniel 1:4.

The claim that chaos into order stands apart from thermodynamics is only knit picking.

You mean "nit-picking." I made my point. You seem to have nothing left to offer on the subject.

The Big Bang Nucleosynthesis theory accounts for the observed abundances of the chemical elements in the universe better than any other. While still a theory, it's a theory that works. Sort of like the theory of gravity.

CDK advocates are reduced to spinning that having chemical bonds weakened by a factor of about 11 million across-the-board is somehow healthy. To me, that says that compounds which are now rock-stable would be subject to spontaneously decomposing. I can't imagine any sort of stable biology such as we have now in such an environment. You might as well try to have organisms swimming around inside the sun.

Science can only observe PRESENT phenomena. You have no idea and will not ever be able to KNOW what was going on then, but you look very smug doing what you're doing; hence the Biblical term for what we are discussing is "science falsely so called."

You're just appealing to ignorance. If it's futile to try to say what was going on before you were able to make direct observations--i.e, before you were born--that's evidence for discarding CDK and even the Bible itself.

Another point on this:

You guys continue to prove the Bible, but refuse to read it. Your point on that thing was about aging. And if chemical bonds such as you proport are good for you and occured at the beginng; perhaps you should read how long people lived back then. Up to 900 years. Perhaps because they had good chemical bonds going for them? Perhaps :)

You're citing the Bible as proof of CDK. That's hopelessly backwards.

CDK is jury-rigged to get to the Bible story at all costs. Forgetting for a moment that you shouldn't be doing science that way in the first place, my main point is that CDK fails to attain its goal.

Setterfield et. al hoped that CDK would show "scientifically" that Adam was created into a viable Garden of Eden in which light was nevertheless flying very fast, radioactive materials were decaying rapidly, and the sun was cooking hydrogen into heavier elements rapidly, the sum of which tends to create a universe with a false appearance of age in the slow-light, slow-cooking later times.

That was the goal, and the announced success. However, upon closer examination, they don't have a theory that does that at all. Adam would either be cooked or blind. He's getting an alpha particle bombardment from the earth that just exacerbates the problem he's got with every molecule in his body being chemically unstable.

And you're answering me by quoting the Bible to show he was fine. Maybe, but you can't get there with CDK.

Finally, I notice that in your latest burst of posting you've left the discussion on Supernova 1987A hanging. As of now, Physicist's #189 is unanswered despite your having replied to me over the intervening days.

You and CDK have a problem with SN1987A. It's 150,000 light years away. We observed the propagation of light from the supernova to reflecting clouds at various distances from the source. What we observed confirms the standard picture of the distances involved and the invariant speed of light over at least the last 150K years. In other words, some huge part of the Large Magellanic Cloud didn't brighten all at once as it might have if light were flying at 11 million times the current speed. There were exactly the expected delays.

This blows a huge hole in the CDK cosmology. Note, for instance, that if you try to pretend the Magellanic Clouds are something smaller and closer than they appear, you create more problems than you answer. Now you have to say what the heck they are and why they look like small galaxies farther off. And now, given that the LMC is so close, you have to explain why the light sphere from that supernova expanded far more slowly than it should have. In other words, you're farther than ever from having a workable theory.

Or, go the other way. Say that the LMC is vastly farther away than standard cosmology would have it. If you move it ridiculously far out, those propagation delays make CDK sense. Now the light was really flying to cover the angular distances involved to those dust clouds as fast as it did. But how can we be seeing that? How did the light get to earth from so far off in so young a universe even with CDK? And what the heck is the LMC now if it's so far off and yet looks exactly like an ordinary wisp of galaxy much, much closer up?

I'd be interested in seeing you deal with 1987A. So far, your posts have reflected a (genuine? feigned?) lack of understanding of the problem posed by those observations of nature. Then you simply stopped answering.

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