You are insisting it be interpreted literally… and insisting that it’s true.
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I’m not generally too impressed with ad hominems, personal attacks, or simple name-calling as being effective argumentation…..
I’m not impressed by people who quote only half a sentence and respond as if the other half didn’t exist.
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From my very limited understanding, I concur that using an anisotropic convention doesn’t prove anything one way or another about the actual age of the universe. One could hypothetically affirm on other grounds that the universe is 900 quintillion years, old, and yet still utilize an anisotropic perspective on light that has light currently reaching earth at infinite speed. I was just recognizing that given all this, the “problem” of distant starlight does not seem to be the problem for young earth creationism that I once thought it was.
I looked up the link to the radio galaxy you provided above, but as I am ignorant, any chance you could link to further amplifying information about the first and third points you mentioned above? (Most distant galaxies appearing the youngest, and containing more hydrogen and helium?)
What, people now have to respond to absolutely everything someone puts in a post here, including the parts where they find agreement, and cannot select and respond to the one particular point with which they disagree or want to interact?
I did not have any issue or significant disagreement with the rest of what @St.Roymond wrote (I found the rest helpful and instructive), so why do i need to quote or respond to what I found helpful? I was taking specific issue with the name-calling. I would respectfully object to anyone on this page (and probably report to a moderator) if someone made a similar accusation of intentional lying, or used a similar cute alliterative name-calling insult, against anyone else on this page, as I would find it highly inappropriate. And thus I personally find it distasteful to use name-calling or accusations of intentional lying against anyone, whether on this page or not.
One can strongly disagree with someone, and even suggest that his commitment to a forgone conclusion blinds his methodology, without reading hidden heart motives and labeling him as being a straight up liar. I submit that we should give our opponents in any conversation the basic dignity of recognizing that they can be mistaken or erroneous, without accusing them of intentionally violating the ninth commandment or assigning cutesy pejorative nicknames to them.
Using your favorite Google AI, “when were aesop’s fables written”
They were collected over time and have been read up to current times. Still in print actually. Basically they are as old as the Bible and were considered credible sources for educating youth.
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It’s an indeterminate form which means you can’t use normal algebraic rules to simplify or determine the result. Hence the use of calculus.
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I have now, but not before the posts before this one.
Actually, he did claim that light could have an infinite speed in some direction, and he did so on multiple occasions.
He only addressed why we couldn’t use GPS satellites to measure the one way speed of light. He did not discuss the implications of a varying one way speed on the actual function of the GPS system at different positions on the Earth.
But he didn’t show this. All he was able to show is that the observation of light leaving and arriving at different locations would be unchanged. He didn’t go into the other quite obvious physical implications of light travelling at different speeds, such as the change in the momentum of light.
No, they probably haven’t missed those observations which is probably why physicists agree that light travels at the same speed in all directions.
That doesn’t make him infallible.
That sounds like a fun Google rabbit hole. Here is one of my first finds.
Special relativity is the spacetime geometry described by the Minkowksi metric:
ds2=−c2dt2+dx2+dy2+dz2
where c is a constant. The Minkowksi metric is the solution to the equations of general relativity when no mass or energy is around to curve spacetime1. All the symmetries you alluded to are encapsulated in the Minkowski metric - indeed all of special relativity is encapsulated in this metric.
Experiment confirms that the Minkowski metric correctly predicts observations i.e. no deviation from it has ever been observed. So our working hypothesis is that the Minkowski metric is the correct description of flat spacetime.
From the metric it’s easy to show that c is a velocity and indeed is the maximum possible velocity anything can have. Maxwell’s equations also tell us that c is the velocity with which electromagnetic waves propagate. Therefore we conclude that the constant c is the speed of light and therefore that the speed of light is constant.
Any deviation from the predictions of relativity could be evidence that the speed of light isn’t constant, and there is no shortage of scientists looking for them. So far no such deviations have been found.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/232129/speed-of-light-invariance-once-again
That’s just part of the post, I would suggest reading the rest.
From an article I linked to earlier:
In physics, we’re more concerned with constants that have no units or dimensions — in other words, constants that appear in our physical theories that are just plain numbers. These appear much more fundamental, because they don’t depend on any other definition. Another way of saying it is that, if we were to meet some alien civilization, we would have no way of understanding their measurement of the speed of light, but when it comes to dimensionless constants, we can all agree. They’re just numbers.
One such number is known as the fine structure constant, which is a combination of the speed of light, Planck’s constant, and something known as the permittivity of free space. Its value is approximately 0.007. 0.007 what? Just 0.007. Like I said, it’s just a number.
So on one hand, the speed of light can be whatever it wants to be, because it has units and we need to define the units. But on the other hand, the speed of light can’t be anything other than exactly what it is, because if you were to change the speed of light, you would change the fine structure constant. But our universe has chosen the fine structure constant to be approximately 0.007, and nothing else. That is simply the universe we live in, and we get no choice about it at all. And since this is fixed and universal, the speed of light has to be exactly what it is.
So the speed of light is based on a fundamental constant of the universe which doesn’t change, so neither can the speed of light. Less fundamentally, Maxwell’s equations and special relativity would both break down if the speed of light varied, and no evidence to date has shown these equations and theories to be wrong, and there are a whole lot of people looking for evidence that those concepts are wrong. A Nobel prize awaits the person that discovers experimental evidence disproving relativity.
Adam mentioned dark matter above which is tangentially related to another set of observations that illuminate this problem (pun intended). The gravity of foreground galaxies (from both light and dark matter) bend space. The light from background galaxies will follow the curved space created by this mass. In certain situations, this can result in us seeing multiple images of the same galaxy.
However, the background galaxy will not necessarily be at the dead center behind the foreground galaxies. This means the light takes shorter or longer paths around the foreground galaxies. This results in the light arriving at different times. This means astronomers can observe the same supernova at multiple times. If the speed of light were instantaneous then we would see the same supernova at the same time in the different images, but that’s not what we see. Instead, we see the same supernova at different times which could only be observed if light as a set speed.
When the four images fade away, astronomers predict they will have the rare opportunity to see the supernova again. This is because the current four-image pattern is only one component of the lensing display. The supernova may have appeared as a single image some 20 years ago elsewhere in the cluster field, and it is expected to reappear once more in about a decade.
NASA’s Hubble Discovers Four Images of Same Supernova Split by Cosmic Lens - NASA Science
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What exactly are the biblical writers reaffirming? They weren’t eyewitnesses of anything, and neither was the original author of Genesis (traditionally Moses).
The universe isn’t 6,000 years old. We have the evidence. If you insist that the Bible would be false if the universe were quite old, then what option are you leaving us?
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The age of the universe, as determined by measurements of the CMB, is around 13.8 billion years. Part of that calculation is redshift data. In fact, we see redshift in all directions in the universe. This redshift is caused by space expanding between us and distant stars/galaxies. If light were travelling instantaneously then it wouldn’t be redshifted because no expansion would have taken place between us and those distant objects. We would only see a redshift if light had a non-infinite velocity so that it would travel across space as it expanded.
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Yes, but literally nothing else in the universe makes sense still from a YEC cosmology perspective. For example, one of my favorite graphs in cosmology are graphs like this one that show the temperature of the cosmic microwave background as a function of redshift:
Suppose that this light could “shoot” here instantaneously fast because of a technical possibility in the mathematics of some equations. Well, it just so happens that the further away it is, the background temperature gets hotter, as measured from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect.
Put another way, we measure the CMB temperature to be 2.7 K today, and when it was first formed in the early universe, its temperature was around 3000 K. So in principle, if we measure the CMB temperature of distant objects (or those with higher redshift), it should be hotter than today, but not as hot as when it first formed.
So…. the CMB photos from the distant objects (billions of light years away) match what we would expect with the measured expansion of space, assuming the speed of light traveled at one light year per year. Which brings me to another point, if light travels instantaneously fast, it cannot explain the CMB at all or the redshift of light from distant galaxies. Instantaneous travel does not produce any redshift at all because the redshift comes from the actual wavelength being stretched slowly by the expansion of space itself.
Not to mention there are gazillions of old objects in our universe with evidence of past processes and events like the fun article on BioLogos from 2017:
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Lisle lays out his basic idea here:
Answers Research Journal - Anisotropic Synchrony Convention
The act of choosing a synchrony convention is synonymous with defining the one-way speed of light. If we select Einstein synchronization, then we have declared that the speed of light is the same in all directions. If we select ASC, then we have declared that light is essentially infinitely fast when moving directly toward the observer, and ½c when moving directly away. Under ASC, the speed of light as a function of direction relative to the observer (θ) is given by cθ = c/(1-cos(θ)), where θ = 0 indicates the direction directly toward the observer.
First note that his equation glibly divides by zero without bothering to take a limit, so there’s that. But the real issue is not the attention getting infinite c and c/2, which can be made to work on paper if only special relativity is considered. The problem is that inertial frames which have direction, has been replaced by observers requiring that the speed of light be independent of direction in space. Thus Alice and Bob each have their own special universes, so that as they face each other, photons from each are paradoxically traveling at both velocities of infinite and 150,000 km/s.
But light does have direction. We know that, because we can use gravitational waves, which like light are massless, to triangulate the source region of space. By Lisle’s formula, this is impossible, because each gravitational wave observatory is an independent origin point, and therefore time of flight between each station, however their clocks were synchronized, is instantaneous for the entire celestial sphere.
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For what it’s worth, a critique of Lisle’s work, also from Answers Research Journal:
Jason Lisle has formulated a model that purports to solve the light travel time problem (LTTP). The model is based on the Reichenbach ε formalism of specifying remote simultaneity by a coordinate convention (Reichenbach 1958, 127). The convention is directly based on the assumption that the one-way speed of light cannot be measured, since remote clocks cannot be synchronized. This conventionalist approach apparently allows one to alter the one-way speed of light such that incoming light to an observer can be made arbitrarily large by a suitable choice of the ε parameter. We show herein that such is not the case. The ASC model explicitly assumes the mathematical structure of Minkowski space and the foundations of special relativity (SR). Minkowski space presupposes an isotropic physical speed of light. The assumption of Minkowski space, as correctly embraced by Lisle, is incompatible with the conclusions of ASC which purports that the incoming speed of light can be made arbitrarily large.
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I think we need to clarify terms: Derek obviously claimed the speed of light could be infinite or instantaneous in one direction, but he never claimed that c could be different or faster. c is by very definition the two-way speed of light, and I believe Derek was rather specific that this could not change.
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You know you people.dont read widely enough on the problems here…
Take the following complaint about Lisle’s ideas from another scientific forum…
His “model” is that the Bible is using an anisotropic synchrony convention and creation on the “4th day” is given within an anisotropic nomenclature.
There is a very good reason to choose an isotropic convention, although one which would likely escape Lisle. If you’ll recall…our whole universe was in a hot, dense state, then nearly 14 billion years ago, expansion started. We know from the CMB that there was contact between all parts of the observable universe during the pre-inflationary epoch. This means that we started at a point in which all parts of the universe had essentially the same location, making an anisotropic convention impossible. We define comoving time relative to the Big Bang because that is how we started.The failure of Jason Lisle's ASC paradigm - #51 by David_MacMillan - Peaceful Science
Note the reason why Lisle must be wrong according to that writers statement…
Its because the universe must have derived from a “hot dense state”!
That is not what the bible states or even implies. The Bible quite clearly states/implies that all knowledge and matter comes directly from God…what this means is that for the Christian, in order for the gospel to be true, He (God) is not bound to science. If He was, the Second Coming is impossible because its unscientific.
“God spoke and it was so”…that is no different from the miracle of rasing Lazurus from the dead, Christ rising from the dead, or Christ ascending into heaven against gravity and in a vacuum unsurvivable by us in bodily form (resurrected Christ was physical read “doubting thomas” in the gospels)….none of those miracles are scientifically probable or even possible.
Attempting to jgnore that very obvious dilemma in Darwinian views inserted into Christianity, thus corrupting it, refutes all thjs bullshit about the distant starlight problem in a 6 day Creation…its simply not relevant and the miracles of Christ prove that for the Christian. You people are dog barking up trees…its plain stupid. The Christians here should find something intelligent to talk about because its pointless arguing with or from the persepective of atheists about this issue.
Two world views who have an opposing consensus on God cannot find common ground on miracles and science when it comes to this and many other supposed problems the atheist raises. The answer is God…the atheist doesnt accept God.
That reaches the end of any meaningful discussion between the two…they fundamentally cannot agree beyond this point unless one is willng to cave in their world view.
c is the speed of light in a vacuum, in any direction, either one way or two way. If light is travelling at an infinite speed in any direction it will have consequences that we can observe, such as the lack of redshift that @pevaquark and I have talked about (which is a one way speed). Those consequences aren’t seen when they should be observed if light travels at a speed different than c in any direction.
What Veritasium talked about is the paradoxes that make it nearly impossible to directly measure the one way speed of light. This, in no way, is evidence for light travelling anything other than c in any direction, one way or two ways. Relativity and Minkowski spacetime require an invariant speed of light, and the fact that Veritasium uses both SR and Minkowski space to model his lightpaths means the speed of light is invariant because that is how they are defined. It’s the same type of contradiction that the ARJ article talks about, which I cited above. It’s a bit like using the metric system to demonstrate meters don’t exist.
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We have mountains of evidence that the universe did start out in a hot dense state, the cosmic microwave background being one of the primary pieces of evidence.
God is not bound to the bare assertions made by young Earth creationists.
It’s also nonsensical to say anyone or anything is bound to science. You are under this strange delusion that science is nothing more than an ideology or religion. It isn’t. Science is nothing more than our best attempts at finding falsifiable explanations for what we observe in the universe, and having those explanations based just on those observations. If all knowledge and matter came from God, then what we understand of God should match the knowledge we have gained from the creation. YEC goes in the entire opposite direction and has decided that knowledge doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts in YEC is theological obedience to their dogma that ignores any fact that might contradict it.
The difference is in what evidence they would leave behind. The miracles in the NT wouldn’t leave any evidence that we could look at today. The history of the universe is a completely different thing. We do have evidence that tells us what that history is.
We aren’t talking about views. We are talking about observable facts.
False. YEC is the world view. We are talking about observable facts.
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From an actual physicist:
. . . if you think light is a wave, then it has to be something that propagates and takes time to go from one point to another. In other words, it has to travel at a finite speed. Infinite speed of propagation is an instantaneous magical change in things everywhere all at once, and not a wave at all!
Why isn't the speed of light infinite? | Scientific American
I had mentioned this earlier in the thread. Light does have a frequency which is cycles/sec. Those cycles are oscillating changes in electrical charge and magnetism. Light can’t be moving infinitely fast in any direction and still have a frequency. Furthermore, the light we measure coming from distant galaxies has a frequency meaning it has to be travelling at less than infinite speeds, and by measurement it is c.
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Because it is a matter of God giving evidence of vast age when there was no vast age.
This doesn’t need Bible verses, it’s basic definitions.
It’s not an ad hominem, it’'s a summary of the actuality of his methods.
That too.
Following academic standards is best: quote enough to show the actual point being made.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with Lisle. “Lying Lisle” is a quite common label that sums up his methodology. That’s why I put it in quotes.
Lisle is labeled “a straight up liar” because he presents as facts things that any (junior or senior) astronomy major in university knows: he has the degree, he learned those things, so he knows better.
I would find his proposals fun reading if he would stop with the lying.
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Though enough are ribald and such that some were never introduced to English schoolboys. I don’t recall anything quite X-rated, but there’s a fair amount of R material.