Why do young earth creationists always find me and try to argue?
The furthest objects that we could possibly are 13.6 billion light years away. That isnt because we cant see any further, its that light emitted from more distant objects has not had time to reach us yet. And how do we know that? Hubble's constant of course! If we assume that the speed of light is a constant, by observing various redshifts we can calculate the age of the universe at 13.6 billion years old; which is the standard most people go by today.
Now lets assume that you are all creationists. 13600000000 >> 6000 and that pisses you off, so you have to poke holes in the above theory somehow. Arguing that the distances we measure are not accurate is a good way make people think youre an idiot (lol its not 3.4665x10^24 is 4380, my bad guys!). So whats left to attack? Well, I guess the speed of light must not be constant througout time.
The trouble with this (for me at least) is that its probably true. There is evidence that suggests that the speed of light has been exponentially decreassing since the beggining of the universe. Exponentially is a misleading term though, because the actual difference between the speed of light then and now isnt all that great. However, misleading is what you specialize in, and youll be damned (lol pun) if youre gonna miss out on this one.
That brings me to what I want to talk about. Lets assume that the world is as the creationists would have us believe and see how royaly fucked things would be.
(as an aside there is a lot of math I have left out. I am goning to be throwing numbers around but dont think Im pulling them out of my ass)
We assume the age of the universe is 6000 years. Therefore light would have to traverse a 13.6 billion light year gap in 6000 years. We have that today the speed of light is 3.0x10^8 m/s and we assume that the original speed has been deteriorating exponentialy (ie. c(t)= Coe^-t). We cannot solve this exactly due to having to make the assumption that the speed of light has not varied noticibly since maxwell first determined it roughly 150 years ago. However, we can put a good lower bound at 3.404 X10^14 m/s.
Freekin 3.404x10^14 m/s! Thats a little over a million times faster than the speed of light we see today.
So?
First, We all remember than E=mc^2. So that difference of a million up there, it just got squared. All atomic reactions make use of this idea of matter transfering into energy. And we happen to be quite close to a very large souce of atomic reactions.
The Sun
Not really the sun, any star will do. Since there happen to be about 100 billion in our galaxy you can have your pick. All these stars generate power by the same means, Hydrogen fusion (until they run out, but we dont need to consider that). Every time 4 H nuclei combine to form one He nucleus 4.3x10-12 joules of energy are released. If the speed of light were as the fundies claim this would turn into a whopping 11 joules. thats means 2500000000000 times more energy would be released per atom of helium created.
That has dire implecations to a stars life. You see, they are in a constant state of blowing up and imploding at the same time, but in a stable star both forces are equal. Well, the creationists say, We need bigger stars so the force of gravity can keep up with the force blowing the stars up. Hell this could even explain Polulation III stars! The problem with that is that larger stars use their fuel faster, and no ammount of added material will even the forces out.
What That means is that no stars will be able to form. Which doesent look like the universe we see at all.
But lets just assume they could.
Stars give off light. They give off light because they are hot (the hotterr the star the higher frequency the light). With the speed of light increased a million times they would be REALLY hot. so the frequency of light they emit would be REALLY high.
If youve ever got a sunburn or cancer I dont have to tell you what high energy photons can do. But the sun is a pussy compared to what these radiative beasts would be. In fact the whole galaxy would be bathed in gamma ray radiation (you know, the stuff that comes out of nuclear bombs) making life across the universe impossible.
In conclusion I would like to say that I typed way more than I was planning on. Also, because of the above, the speed of light could never have been as high as it would have had to be 6000 years ago for the creationist viewpoint to be viable. Stellar radiation would fry any life upon contact not to mention that stars could not form in the first place. Therefore, anytime someone brings up this argument you may refer these ideas to them and not have to dismiss their comments offhand.
This is all culminating from being very bored and arguing for 2 hours about the same subject.
Now lets assume that you are all creationists. 13600000000 >> 6000 and that pisses you off, so you have to poke holes in the above theory somehow. Arguing that the distances we measure are not accurate is a good way make people think youre an idiot (lol its not 3.4665x10^24 is 4380, my bad guys!). So whats left to attack? Well, I guess the speed of light must not be constant througout time.
The trouble with this (for me at least) is that its probably true. There is evidence that suggests that the speed of light has been exponentially decreassing since the beggining of the universe. Exponentially is a misleading term though, because the actual difference between the speed of light then and now isnt all that great. However, misleading is what you specialize in, and youll be damned (lol pun) if youre gonna miss out on this one.
That brings me to what I want to talk about. Lets assume that the world is as the creationists would have us believe and see how royaly fucked things would be.
(as an aside there is a lot of math I have left out. I am goning to be throwing numbers around but dont think Im pulling them out of my ass)
We assume the age of the universe is 6000 years. Therefore light would have to traverse a 13.6 billion light year gap in 6000 years. We have that today the speed of light is 3.0x10^8 m/s and we assume that the original speed has been deteriorating exponentialy (ie. c(t)= Coe^-t). We cannot solve this exactly due to having to make the assumption that the speed of light has not varied noticibly since maxwell first determined it roughly 150 years ago. However, we can put a good lower bound at 3.404 X10^14 m/s.
Freekin 3.404x10^14 m/s! Thats a little over a million times faster than the speed of light we see today.
So?
First, We all remember than E=mc^2. So that difference of a million up there, it just got squared. All atomic reactions make use of this idea of matter transfering into energy. And we happen to be quite close to a very large souce of atomic reactions.
The Sun
Not really the sun, any star will do. Since there happen to be about 100 billion in our galaxy you can have your pick. All these stars generate power by the same means, Hydrogen fusion (until they run out, but we dont need to consider that). Every time 4 H nuclei combine to form one He nucleus 4.3x10-12 joules of energy are released. If the speed of light were as the fundies claim this would turn into a whopping 11 joules. thats means 2500000000000 times more energy would be released per atom of helium created.
That has dire implecations to a stars life. You see, they are in a constant state of blowing up and imploding at the same time, but in a stable star both forces are equal. Well, the creationists say, We need bigger stars so the force of gravity can keep up with the force blowing the stars up. Hell this could even explain Polulation III stars! The problem with that is that larger stars use their fuel faster, and no ammount of added material will even the forces out.
What That means is that no stars will be able to form. Which doesent look like the universe we see at all.
But lets just assume they could.
Stars give off light. They give off light because they are hot (the hotterr the star the higher frequency the light). With the speed of light increased a million times they would be REALLY hot. so the frequency of light they emit would be REALLY high.
If youve ever got a sunburn or cancer I dont have to tell you what high energy photons can do. But the sun is a pussy compared to what these radiative beasts would be. In fact the whole galaxy would be bathed in gamma ray radiation (you know, the stuff that comes out of nuclear bombs) making life across the universe impossible.
In conclusion I would like to say that I typed way more than I was planning on. Also, because of the above, the speed of light could never have been as high as it would have had to be 6000 years ago for the creationist viewpoint to be viable. Stellar radiation would fry any life upon contact not to mention that stars could not form in the first place. Therefore, anytime someone brings up this argument you may refer these ideas to them and not have to dismiss their comments offhand.
This is all culminating from being very bored and arguing for 2 hours about the same subject.