History of the Light-Speed Debate by Helen Setterfield
Here is an excellent article highlighting the Speed of Light Debate:
History of the Light-Speed Debate by Helen Setterfield
[Ed Note: We have been following Barry Setterfield’s research on the speed of light since 1993.
It is interesting that both evolutionists and creation scientists can be blinded by their own presuppositions…]
Fascinating article. But since it disagrees with my view of things, I must reject it out-of-hand.
Comment by Bilbo — April 6, 2007 @ 7:27 pm
More, more… !
I’m excited about reading more on this blog.
Disappointed that there’s been no posts since Feb.
Looking forward to more material. I’m very interested in the YEC vs. OEC vs. TE vs. [other forms of ambiguously defined dissent from Darwin] vs. Darwinism debate.
I always enjoy your posts and comments on UD.
Comment by jb — April 11, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
I’ve been doing some reading up on Barry Setterfield. I’d never even heard of him. He takes a pretty strong beating from just about everyone, except Lambert Dolphin. Admittedly I’m having trouble understanding any specific arguments used against him. On the one hand–that which I understand–it’s claimed that his arguments are just-so stories full of ad-hoc factors to get his theory to fit Biblical chronology, and his use of historical measurements of the speed of light are deemed dubious. On the other hand, a bunch of mathematical formulas which I’m having trouble deciphering are trotted out to refute him.
Can anyone explain a specific issue that causes problems for Setterfield’s theory that we could discuss?
Comment by motthew — April 11, 2007 @ 11:34 pm
It always seems that way. But in my experience, it’s best to get two sides into a debate versus letting people fire off on the net unchecked.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 30, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Hi. This is Barry’s wife. A good deal of the criticism for his work comes from people who have not read it. We get some of the strangest emails!
A lot of YEC’s don’t like the implications of his work because although it gives pretty solid evidence that we live in a very young creation, it disagrees with the standard YEC model that one flood (Noah’s) was responsible for the vast majority of the geologic column. This does not make sense geologically and it tends to ignore both the Babel disaster as well as the Peleg division of the continents.
Right now Barry is deeply involved in studying the material on plasma. It is very possible that plasma was the beginning material which God created. The Bible says ‘water’, which means that, if it were plasma, then it was nuclei of both oxygen and hydrogen. That makes it quite easy, under the initial very high temperatures, to get all known elements in their known abundances extraordinarily quickly.
Plasma works the same on every scale. With the initial high rate of atomic processes (including the speed of light), the plasma formation corresponds exactly to Genesis 1. The first light would have appeared about half way through day 1. The cores of galaxies (the population II stars) would have lit up about the end of day one. The earth and all the planets would have formed before the core of the plasma filament, our sun, let on day 4, along with the other stars in the spiral arms of galaxies.
In other words, he is fascinated by the implications involved here.
Barry started out as a long-age theistic evolutionist. Many people don’t realize this. It was the data itself which changed him to a young creation creationist. It takes a lot of courage to admit you have been wrong, and I deeply respect my husband’s humility and honesty. There is no doubt that the speed of light and a number of other atomic ‘constants’ are not constant.
At any rate, that’s enough for now. People are welcome to email us and we do try to keep up with answers, although that is not always possible. I will try to keep up here if there are questions. At least he is only feet away from me at his computer and I can ask him the questions!
God bless.
Comment by Helen Setterfield — May 30, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
couldn’t edit. Our sun LIT up, it didn’t “let”. Sorry….
Comment by Helen Setterfield — May 30, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Helen,
Thank you for visiting our website. I consider myself someone who is willing to defend Barry’s work primarily because I think he is correct. Like Barry, I accepted an old earth once upon a time but the evidence is forcing me to come to another conclusion. I have no strong apriori reason to be a YEC. In fact most of my earlier reasons for rejecting YEC were the suggested mechanisms for distant starlight (and these mechansism were unscientific). The foremost “mechanism” being one promoted was by the beloved and venerable Duane Gish.
Gish to this day argues for created light which gives the appearance of age. Imho, “appearance of age” is a horrible argument, and for the literalists out there, I would argue that such a view isn’t even consistent with the Bible (romans 1:20).
There are two physicists (one who is a department co-chair of a renowned secular university) who are working with me regarding your husband’s work. [We even have access to Albert Michelson’s equipment!!!] They have recently warmed to Barry’s work and they are actively revisiting and re-educating themselves on General Relativity.
I will try to keep my e-mails to Barry limited as I respect your husband’s time. Furthermore, at some point, I hope the people who participate in this discussion can actually assist your husband by independently reviewing and correcting his work.
I do have one burning question however. Lambert Dolphin said Faster Than The Speed of Light
I’m doubtful of the claim. Does Barry have any thoughts on Lambert’s claim? But if true, I mean, this has some serious technological implications!
God bless you,
Salvador
PS
Helen, if anyone here acts toward you or Barry in an uncivil way, they’ll be ejected from our website. I hope you can consider this a friendly place for discussion of your husband’s work.
Further, don’t feel obligated to defend Barry’s work as the participants here (especially me) will hopefully defend his work. The only time I may call upon him is if there is something of his work I don’t understand.
I welcome constructive criticism of your husband’s work, and I look at this website as a means of helping ensure Barry’s work is technically correct. I respect the fact that some of his ideas may be provisional, and this website will hopefully be a resource to help him in his research.
Regarding the edit features and so forth, we’re working on it.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 30, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Barry is here and just read your post. Thank you so much! Because I am the faster typist, he will talk and I will type. So from here on is from him on this post:
A very deep thank you for the assistance you are providing in this process. We are all learning and, if you will excuse the expression, the study is evolving!
As far as Lambert’s claim is concerned, there is an element of truth in it, and I want to come at it this way: the speed of light is, to a large degree, dependant upon the virtual particles in the vacuum which come as a result of the energy density from the ZPE (Zero Point Energy). As the ZPE has increased with time, the number of virtual particles per cubic cm has also increased. Thus, a photon of light, which is absorbed and then re-emitted by any virtual particles, in its way has more particles to deal with — like a runner with more and more hurdles in his path over a set distance. No matter the speed between virtual particles, which may still be at the original speed, the fact is the absorption and re-emission require time — although each only takes an infintessimal small amount of time — and therefore the more particles, the more time it takes light to reach its final destination. It has been estimated that, in the human body, at any given instant, there would be something like one hundred billion virtual particles flashing in and out of existence at any one moment. This gives you a feel for the problem a photon of light has to deal with.
Given that scenario, let us turn to gravity. It is generally admitted that gravitational waves, if they exist, are exceedingly long. Let’s assume they exist for a moment. By contrast, light, radio, and other waves of the electromagnetic spectrum are short. Recall that cars have fog lights, which are yellow compared to our ordinary headlights. The longer wavelength light of the yellow penetrates further into the fog. In a similar way, astronomers use infrared light to find out what is happening inside clouds of gas and dust out in space. The infrared penetrates much further into these dust clouds. Alternatively, infrared radiation from the stars embedded in these dust clouds can get through, whereas ordinary light cannot.
Returning to gravity — if gravitational waves are so very long, it is possible that they are not affected by the virtual particles to the extent that other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are. Accordingly, gravitational waves may travel considerably faster — or may seem to travel considerably faster than the current speed of light because there is less interaction with any associated impediments. On that basis, it may be that the gravitational interactions, such as some mentioned by van Flandern, are indeed faster than the CURRENT speed of light.
On the Zero Point Energy approach, however, gravity is a ZPE phenomenon. It arises as a result of the jiggling of charged point particles by the ZPE. This jiggling of charged particles causes them to emit a secondary radiation which has been shown by Puthoff, Haisch, and others to have an attractive property, which is exactly in accord with known gravitational phenomena. Therefore, with any cluster of charged particles there will be some gravitational interaction. If gravity waves exist, and their wavelengths are, indeed, as long as anticipated, it is still possible that these waves may travel faster than the current speed of light. Much more research must be done in this area. It promises to be a fruitful line of inquiry for anyone wanting to take it up.
Comment by Helen Setterfield — May 30, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
Barry and Helen,
Thank you again for visiting this site. Many of the brethren who would otherwise be friendly to your work are like me, who had backgrounds in physics, and fully willing to accept God could do anything he wishes, including creating the world in 6 days only a few thousand years ago.
The barrier for them is that if the world looks old to them, it is hard for them to deny in good conscience what seems true and what seems to be the way God did things. For them, the moral thing to do is to defend an old earth creation.
That said, I hope you will not be too perturbed to see me have discussions over criticism of your work. I fully believe that confronting the criticisms will win over the old-creationists who love God and believe in His miraculous power. Many of them would accept YEC if they can accept in good conscience the physical facts are consistent with YEC.
These people will be in the best position to help this enterprise. Most creationist physics students, like myself who were taught the traditional form of Maxwell’s equations will be Old Earth Creationists. That is understandable. It will take a lot of learning for us to comprehend a new way of looking at the universe.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 30, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
There is no problem at all with you doing whatever you see best! Barry seems to be considered either an angel from God or the very devil himself, depending on who you ask. Not too many people who are at all informed about his work hold a middle ground.
At lot of his responses to people are on the Discussion page of our website, and a lot more are in the material of his most recent paper.
In the meantime, have a go at any of it. A couple of years ago a physicist from Spain ripped into Barry for not considering the recombination of Planck Particle Pairs. Barry looked at his emails and said, “He’s right.” So that ended up resulting in further research and the last two papers which were published on the net by the Journal of Theoretics. Those papers on on our website, the last papers listed on the Research Papers page.
As far as things looking old and thus it being moral to defend an old age creation, that is where we both stood for a number of years. Long before we knew each other we were both theistic evolutionists — thus long-agers. I came to a young life position due to population genetics although I had no idea about the age of the entire universe. Barry ended up a YEC (YCC — young creation creationist!) due to the data he was finding out about in his years of study. So we both certainly understand the position others are taking.
What we have encouraged everyone we have talked to, to do is dig for the truth. God has not lied in His creation and we can dig for the truth confidently, knowing that we will all, sooner or later, understand what He has told us in Genesis. From what Barry has found in both his study of the atomic constants and his more recent research into plasma physics is that we may have found how God actually did it in six days using the very laws of physics He Himself created. We know He created the initial material ‘ex nihilo’, out of nothing. We certainly would never dispute that. But how He put it together is a fun mystery to work on. The more Barry digs, the more he is finding that Genesis knows exactly what it is talking about and that we don’t need to stretch days into eons or put gaps anywhere. God knows how to communicate with us, and He did in Genesis.
God bless.
Comment by Helen Setterfield — May 30, 2007 @ 11:54 pm
Please Note:
ATTENTION! YOUNG COSMOS HAS MOVED!
Salvador
Comment by scordova — August 6, 2007 @ 11:32 pm