Inconstant Speed of Light May Debunk Einstein

Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | Wed Aug 7, 2:07 PM ET | By Michael Christie

[Momaw Nadon]

FYI and discussion

[vannrox]

They are not the first to propose this. It's been kicking around for a while now. It makes quite a bit of sense.

[logos]

Do you remember our discussion of this some month's back? Interesting, this, to say the least.

[Psalm 73]

Hmmm - I can picture God chuckling and saying to Himself: "You guys got it figured out, yet?"

[VadeRetro]

Earlier thread. This one may or may not be removed.

I forget the details of what we discussed, I fear.

[far sider]

Barry Setterfield, an Australian creationist, published his theory that the speed of light has decreased over 20 years ago. He produced evidence from historical observations of the speed of light and other "constants" of physics. It's amazing how science keeps on proving the truth of creation.

[coloradan]

Unlike the case in math, in which conclusive proofs can be had, there are no hard proofs of science. The best you can do is show a theory isn't inconsistent with anything yet known. You can never say that a theory is proved, incontrovertibly, to be true, because there might always be some regime in which it breaks down.

For example, Newtonian physics is very nearly true, except near very strong sources of gravity, or at very, very high speeds, or in the microscopic world of atoms. The needed modifications to Newtonian physics, repectively general relativity, special relativity, and quantum mechanics, hardly influence daily experience, and it took a long time to discern that Newtonian physics demonstrably failed in these regimes. (And, all of these theories reduce to classical Newtonian experience in the limits of low gravity, slow speeds, and large quantum number.)

[maxwell]

ping

[Jesse]

Ok, for you physicists out there, I have a question. In the expansionist model of the universe, the size of the universe expanded far faster than the speed of light. Could it be that the rate of expansion of space has something to do with the observed effect? If this light is 12 billion years old, maybe the rate of expansion of the universe, being closer to the date of creation, was faster then and somehow interfered with the photons.

[logos]

No, I was thinking about this discussion:

Is Even the Bible Relative?

I don't remember joining in the thread you linked to... [but I am getting older...]

[det dweller too]

I remember from my old physics that the speed of light is NOT constant. Light slows up based on the index of refraction. Glass is typically at ~1.3 refracvtion index. That means while the light is moving through your glass lenses, it's speed has slowed to 300,000/1.3 or about 230,770 kph.
We assume that space is a perfect vacuum with an IR of 1.0. There can be traces of gases which will effect the light speed traveling through it and make the IR something slightly higher than 1.0

[smokinleroy]

The discrepancy could only be explained if either the electron charge, or the speed of light, had changed.

... or there was a smudge on his telescope lens.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

...published his theory that the speed of light has decreased over 20 years ago.

You know, the explains why ever since the early eighties it's seems to take the light longer to come on after I flip the switch. ;-)

[VadeRetro]

Click here.

"Well, it certainly doesn't vindicate CDK, as we're talking about a change of one part in 100,000 over 12 billion years."

---- the freeper known as "Physicist"

[VadeRetro]

I was pointing out that the lead article of this thread was posted yesterday. The AMs are inconsistent about deleting dupes, so who knows about the life expectancy of this one?

It was interesting rereading that two-year old thread. You aren't the only one getting older!

[Momaw Nadon]

Earlier thread. This one may or may not be removed.

This is messed up. I did a search on FR to see if the article had been posted yet.

I used all of the words in the headline, but got no results.

[VadeRetro]

I just pick a key word rather than trying to match phrases when I title-search. The search engine has some treachery in it.

[logos]

So far as I know, there is only one alternative to getting older...

With all the articles posted at FR every day, I would be more amazed to learn that the moderators were aware of all the duplicates than I would be to learn that the theory of relativity was all a big mistake. (Although it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the T.ofR. needed some modification - I do believe in the evolution of revelation, after all.) :^)

[far sider]

"Click here."

I did. Thanks, Vade.

[Stone Mountain]

It's amazing how science keeps on proving the truth of creation.

How did science prove the truth of creation in this case? And what is the truth of creation?