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Speed of Light and the Age of the Universe

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Any tests you dream of do not matter. What matters is you can't test your way out of a paper bag.

Yes, actually, you can *if* that paper bag gets some sort of information from outside. And, we *do* get information from the rest of the universe. We get it in the form of light, radio, neutrinos, gravity waves, etc. We can use that information from outside of the bag, and processes inside of the bag, to learn about what happens outside.

If it was created then, you have no clue where to stop or start. Any possibility that is was is ruled out and labelled last thursdayism. Got it.

No, if it was created *with all memories, all fossils, all light, everything as it would have been if those things were old*, then we can reject as a variant of Last Thursdayism.
 

dad

Undefeated
By the evidence the universe is expanding at a predictable rate, the time/space nature of our universe is predictably uniform.
Not time. The concept of time/space is applied to the distant universe, and that does not define time nor tell us what it is like. You simply assume that one observation point in the universe represents the rest. Redshift in deep space cannot be interpreted only by looking at the shifting of light on earth and area. What causes light to behave a certain way in the solar system area, may not be what causes light to shift elsewhere. Then there is the question of how much time is involved in anything, including expansion, if that were the case. then there is the question of when the shifted light started. If it started at creation, then it would not have been red shifted very long! Etc etc.
When we look out in deep space we uniformly look back in time based on Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

We do see some lensing effects. The cause and extent is not really known, and what else also could be affecting/bending light out there we don't know. How much time anything out there takes while doing anything at all we do not know. The uniformity is in your head mostly.
 

dad

Undefeated
Well, that depends where you are. Close to a compact object like a neutron star or black hole, it shows dilation as predicted by relativity.
But since those things could be the size of tennis balls for all we know, whatever effects they cause cannot be measured! Or maybe they are ten times the size...etc ..who knows? No distance is known unless we know time exists out there as here.

Also the way we determine these things is far to limited to make broad claims.

Example

"the iron line is broadened asymmetrically by the gas’s extreme velocity, which smears and distorts the line because of the Doppler effect and beaming effects predicted by Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The warping of space-time by the neutron star’s powerful gravity, an effect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, shifts the neutron star’s iron line to longer wavelengths."

Space-time Distorts Near Neutron Stars As Einstein Predicted


They admit not knowing what the core of these 'stars' are like also. They basically are making way way way too much from not only limited observations, but far more limited observations than they realized! (not knowing actual sizes or distances).

The problem is that there are two types of time: coordinate time and proper time. Coordinate time is arbitrary and can have any parametrization we want.
In other words you decide what time is to represent on a graph you draw.

Proper time is what someone/something actually experiences.
That is more like what real time is.
Remember that time duration is *defined* via physical processes
Remember that time exists even if you had no physical clock to measure it. Clocks are not time, they mark time. If Mars disappeared we would not be able to say how much time an orbit took for the planet any more. But time would still be here!

. We measure time by counting off periodic phenomena. If we see a certain number of wavelengths of some light, that *is* a second.
How you measure time does not determine what time is. Your measurements determine how you perceive it.
So, when you ask what is time like 'out there in space', all we need to do is compare the vibrations of light there to those here.
False!

If time were different out there, then by the time we see the light fro any star, it's light will be vibrating HERE!

And the cool thing is that the light can travel from there to here. That allows us to correlate what happened there and what happens here.
If there was no time twixt here and there travelling would not involve time as we know it though!
And what we find is that time there is very much like time here,
What you find is that not only is it like here, it IS HERE!


at least for the last 13 billion years.[/QUOTE]
 

dad

Undefeated
Yes, actually, you can *if* that paper bag gets some sort of information from outside. And, we *do* get information from the rest of the universe. We get it in the form of light, radio, neutrinos, gravity waves, etc.
We sure do, and we get it when IT gets HERE!
We can use that information from outside of the bag, and processes inside of the bag, to learn about what happens outside.
No, you just thought you could.

No, if it was created *with all memories, all fossils, all light, everything as it would have been if those things were old*, then we can reject as a variant of Last Thursdayism.
Foolishness. There are no fossils of early man (Adam and Noah's day). Probably in that different former nature man returned to dust too fast to be able to leave remains. As for memories, I have the actual historical and Scriptural records of life. It is science that trashes such memories of man, all in the name of it's imagined superior belief system. Well, it's about time they get trashed. What goes around comes around.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Not time. The concept of time/space is applied to the distant universe, and that does not define time nor tell us what it is like. You simply assume that one observation point in the universe represents the rest. Redshift in deep space cannot be interpreted only by looking at the shifting of light on earth and area. What causes light to behave a certain way in the solar system area, may not be what causes light to shift elsewhere. Then there is the question of how much time is involved in anything, including expansion, if that were the case. then there is the question of when the shifted light started. If it started at creation, then it would not have been red shifted very long! Etc etc.


We do see some lensing effects. The cause and extent is not really known, and what else also could be affecting/bending light out there we don't know. How much time anything out there takes while doing anything at all we do not know. The uniformity is in your head mostly.

Gravity, you are appealing too much to an 'appeal of vague ignorance' as to what causes what. Yes there are unanswered questins, but your going too far with vagueness.
 

dad

Undefeated
Gravity, you are appealing too much to an 'appeal of vague ignorance' as to what causes what. Yes there are unanswered questins, but your going too far with vagueness.
Gravity depends on mass and to get that we need distances in the universe. It is not vagueness I go with, but factual limitations in knowledge and abilities of science. There are many unknowns. One cannot be concise about the unknown unless one is making stuff up!
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Gravity depends on mass and to get that we need distances in the universe.

No, gravity does not need distances. We need to measure distances, and we do that by triangulation.

It is not vagueness I go with, but factual limitations in knowledge and abilities of science. There are many unknowns. One cannot be concise about the unknown unless one is making stuff up!

It is obvious as the sky is Carolina blue on a clear day at noon that there are 'factual limitations in knowledge and abilities of science. There are many unknowns.' No one in science any such conciseness of unknown, but it remains that you creating a high 'fog index' of the vagueness of knowns and 'arguing from ignorance' to justify whatever.
 

dad

Undefeated
No, gravity does not need distances. We need to measure distances, and we do that by triangulation.
False. You do that by pretending that there is no time in the solar system, and grabbing a huge swath of space and time here, and using that as JUST space. No way that can be done. You are simply trying to equate the time and space in the fishbowl with time out in deep space by virtue of drawing a line as if they were equal! That is not distance. That is religion.

It is obvious as the sky is Carolina blue on a clear day at noon that there are 'factual limitations in knowledge and abilities of science. There are many unknowns.' No one in science any such conciseness of unknown, but it remains that you creating a high 'fog index' of the vagueness of knowns and 'arguing from ignorance' to justify whatever.
Actually, you just can't admit you are in a fog, and want to pawn off your fishbowl radar findings as universal maps of the universe!
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
False. You do that by pretending that there is no time in the solar system,

Odd response, and needs explanation. Time/space exists throughout our universe, and, of course in our solar system


. . . and grabbing a huge swath of space and time here, and using that as JUST space. No way that can be done. You are simply trying to equate the time and space in the fishbowl with time out in deep space by virtue of drawing a line as if they were equal! That is not distance. That is religion.

Actually, you just can't admit you are in a fog, and want to pawn off your fishbowl radar findings as universal maps of the universe!

From: How are astronomical distances determined?

How are astronomical distances determined?
Kenneth R. Lang, a professor of astronomy, gives us the lowdown:
The distance to a planet can be estimated by measuring the angular separation of the planet when observed simultaneously from two widely separated locations. This angle is known as parallax, from the Greek parallaxis, for the “value of an angle.” If both the parallax and the separation between the two observers are known, then the distance of the planet can be determined by triangulation. It is based on the geometric fact that if you know the length of one side of a triangle and the angles of the two corners, all the other dimensions can be calculated.

The parallax technique of estimating a planet’s distance is similar to the way your eyes infer how far away things are. To see the effect, hold a finger up in front of your nose, and look at your finger with one eye open and the other closed, and then with the open eye closed and the closed one open. Any background object near to one side of your finger seems to move to the other side, making a parallax shift. When this is repeated with your finger held farther away, the angular shift is smaller. In other words, the more distant an object, the smaller the parallax shift, and vice versa.

Significant improvements in the precision of measuring planetary distances came in the late 1960s by bouncing pulsed radio waves off Venus and timing the echo. The round-trip travel time—about 276 seconds when Venus is closest to the Earth—was measured using accurate atomic clocks, and a precise distance to Venus was then obtained by multiplying half the round-trip time by the speed of light. The distance of Venus from the Sun is equal to one half of the difference between the Earth and Venus when it is closest and furthest away from us, on the other side of the Sun.

Once the Venus-Sun distance is known, we can infer the distance of any other planet from the Sun using Kepler’s third law, which relates the orbital periods and orbital distances of the planets. The mean distance between the Earth and the Sun, known as the astronomical unit, is 149.6 million kilometers. At this distance it takes 499 seconds, or about 8.3 minutes, for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth, moving at the velocity of light, 299,792 kilometers per second.

Triangles and Stars
To triangulate the distances of the nearest stars, other than the Sun, astronomers measured their parallax when viewed across the widest possible baseline, from opposite sides of the Earth’s annual orbit, or from a separation of twice the astronomical unit. The measurement involves careful scrutiny of two stars that appear close together in the sky, a bright one that is relatively nearby and the other fainter one that is much further away.

The annual parallax of the nearest star can then be determined by comparing its position to that of the distant one for a year or more. During the course of the year, the nearby star will seem to sway to and fro, in a sort of cosmic minuet that mirrors the Earth’s orbital motion. The nearer the star, the larger the annual parallax sway.

The first star whose distance was reliably determined in this way was 61 Cygni, whose annual parallax of just 0.31 seconds of arc was announced by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel in 1838. The measurement indicated that 61 Cygni is about 700 thousand times further away than the Sun. Traveling at the speed of light, it takes 11.4 years to cross the distance from 61 Cygni to Earth.

Within a century of Bessel’s result, the annual parallax of about 2,000 nearby stars had been determined using long exposures on photographic plates, and the number tripled in succeeding decades. The closest star, known as Proxima Centauri, is 4.22 light years away. And many of the brightest stars are hundreds of light years away, so you can walk outside at night and see stars whose light was emitted before your parents were born.

Distant stars with parallaxes smaller than 0.05 seconds of arc cannot be measured with Earth-based telescopes because of atmospheric distortion that limits their angular resolution. However, instruments aboard the HIPPARCOS satellite, which orbited the Earth above its atmosphere in the 1990s, pinpointed the position of more than 100,000 stars with an astonishing precision of 0.001 seconds of arc, determining the parallax and distance of many of them out to a few hundred light-years.

pr1-2.jpg

M104, the so-called Sombrero Galaxy, which is 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light years from Earth. Photo: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).


Distant Galaxies

The distances to exceptionally bright stars, known as the Cepheid variable stars after their prototype, have been determined out to millions of light years. When observing Cepheids that were grouped together at roughly the same distance, Henrietta Leavitt found in 1912 that their variation periods are proportional to their intrinsic brightness, or absolute luminosity.

And once the distance of a nearby Cepheid had been established by another method, say by its annual parallax, then the period-luminosity relation could be calibrated and used to infer the distances of all the other Cepheids. Just measure the variation period, which provides its absolute luminosity, and compare that to the observed apparent luminosity. Since the luminosity falls off with the square of the distance, the comparison provides a measure of the distance.

In 1925 Edwin Hubble used Cepheid variables in nearby spiral nebulae to show that they are remote galaxies located outside the Milky Way, at distances of about one million light-years. The Milky Way no longer contained everything there is, and the universe was opened wide up. It was no longer limited to the things our unaided eyes can focus on, and our stellar system became just one of myriad galaxies that stretch as far as the largest telescopes can see—and even beyond.

After using Cepheid variable stars to infer the distances of just a few nearby spiral nebulae, Hubble estimated the distances of several other galaxies by assuming that their brightest stars are intrinsically as bright as the most luminous stars in the Milky Way. The method is analogous to judging the distance of an approaching car at night from the brightness of its headlights; the lights of closer cars are brighter.

By 1929, Hubble had approximate distance measurements for just 24 spirals, and he compared these distances to their radial velocities, inferred by other astronomers using the Doppler effect. The comparison indicated that the more distant a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us.

The connection between velocity and distance, which applies to all of the most distant galaxies, is now known as Hubble’s law, and the ratio of the velocity of recession of any galaxy and its distance from us is now called Hubble’s constant, a fundamental measure of the universe. Modern estimates, using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe Cepheids out to about 65 million light-years, indicate Hubble’s constant has a value of about 70 kilometers per second per Megaparsec, abbreviated Mpc, where one Mpc is equivalent to 3.26 million light-years. Galaxies are typically separated by a few Mpc, or about 10 million light-years, which is about 100 galaxy diameters. So the universe is largely empty space as far as galaxies are concerned.

The age of the observable universe, the time since its expansion began with the Big Bang, is given by the reciprocal of Hubble’s constant, establishing an age of about 14 billion years. This means that some galaxies are so remote that they emitted the light we see today more than 10 billion years ago. These objects are seen as they were then and not as they might be now.

Distances to remote galaxies, where Cepheids cannot be resolved, are determined using a succession of methods known as the cosmic distance ladder. Objects of known absolute luminosity, or standard candles, are used to infer distances from apparent luminosities, and different standard candles are used over various ranges of distance, or rungs on the ladder.

An exploding star, known as supernova, is an example of a standard candle used for distances of billions of light-years; it briefly shines with the light of an entire galaxy containing one hundred billion non-exploding stars like the Sun. Recent comparisons of supernovae explosions in nearby and very remote galaxies indicate that the universe is not expanding at a uniform rate, but instead is speeding up as time goes on, propelled by a mysterious dark energy that we know virtually nothing about. And since there is also about 10 times more dark, invisible matter in the universe than visible matter, our current ignorance over the unknown state of the cosmos is staggering.
 
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dad

Undefeated
Odd response, and needs explanation. Time/space exists throughout our universe, and, of course in our solar system
The issue is whether it exists the exact same.
This angle is known as parallax, from the Greek parallaxis, for the “value of an angle.” If both the parallax and the separation between the two observers are known, then the distance of the planet can be determined by triangulation. It is based on the geometric fact that if you know the length of one side of a triangle and the angles of the two corners, all the other dimensions can be calculated.
In other words you are taking a fishbowl measured line and trying to make that equal with the far universe as far as time and space goes.
Yes parallax works IN the solar system and earth. Here...time exists and space exists a certain way that is uniform!


Significant improvements in the precision of measuring planetary distances came in the late 1960s by bouncing pulsed radio waves off Venus and timing the echo. The round-trip travel time—about 276 seconds when Venus is closest to the Earth
Irrelevant, Venus is in the solar system area.

Triangles and Stars
To triangulate the distances of the nearest stars, other than the Sun, astronomers measured their parallax when viewed across the widest possible baseline, from opposite sides of the Earth’s annual orbit, or from a separation of twice the astronomical unit.

In other words using a baseline from the fishbowl and trying to make that equal to time and space far far far far away! Total exercise of faith.
Distant Galaxies
The distances to exceptionally bright stars, known as the Cepheid variable stars after their prototype, have been determined out to millions of light years. When observing Cepheids that were grouped together at roughly the same distance, Henrietta Leavitt found in 1912 that their variation periods are proportional to their intrinsic brightness, or absolute luminosity.
So, using parallax again, and the TIME involved in variations of brightness, they calculate distance. Too bad they have no clue what time is actually like out there!

And once the distance of a nearby Cepheid had been established by another method, say by its annual parallax, then the period-luminosity relation could be calibrated and used to infer the distances of all the other Cepheids. Just measure the variation period, which provides its absolute luminosity, and compare that to the observed apparent luminosity. Since the luminosity falls off with the square of the distance, the comparison provides a measure of the distance.
An exploding star, known as supernova, is an example of a standard candle used for distances of billions of light-years; it briefly shines with the light of an entire galaxy containing one hundred billion non-exploding stars like the Sun.
No distances are known and therefore no sizes. A so called galaxy could fit in your nose, or be bigger than we dream...etc.

Recent comparisons of supernovae explosions in nearby and very remote galaxies indicate that the universe is not expanding at a uniform rate, but instead is speeding up as time goes on, propelled by a mysterious dark energy that we know virtually nothing about.
Invented dark stuff to try and explain the unknown. As for expansion, that is based on explaining shifted light in earth terms! In reality time might affect light or other things, and the so called expansion might be a crock.

And since there is also about 10 times more dark, invisible matter in the universe than visible matter, our current ignorance over the unknown state of the cosmos is staggering.
Just because you need there to be this invented dark stuff does not mean it actually exists!
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
The issue is whether it exists the exact same.
In other words you are taking a fishbowl measured line and trying to make that equal with the far universe as far as time and space goes.
Yes parallax works IN the solar system and earth. Here...time exists and space exists a certain way that is uniform!


Irrelevant, Venus is in the solar system area.



In other words using a baseline from the fishbowl and trying to make that equal to time and space far far far far away! Total exercise of faith.
So, using parallax again, and the TIME involved in variations of brightness, they calculate distance. Too bad they have no clue what time is actually like out there!

And once the distance of a nearby Cepheid had been established by another method, say by its annual parallax, then the period-luminosity relation could be calibrated and used to infer the distances of all the other Cepheids. Just measure the variation period, which provides its absolute luminosity, and compare that to the observed apparent luminosity. Since the luminosity falls off with the square of the distance, the comparison provides a measure of the distance.
No distances are known and therefore no sizes. A so called galaxy could fit in your nose, or be bigger than we dream...etc.

Invented dark stuff to try and explain the unknown. As for expansion, that is based on explaining shifted light in earth terms! In reality time might affect light or other things, and the so called expansion might be a crock.

Just because you need there to be this invented dark stuff does not mean it actually exists!

A very unfortunate creative and misguided imagination on your part, and not science. Sounds like the rational of geocentric believers.
 

Dr. GS Hurd

Member
You cannot really debate with a YEC because sooner or later they will fall back to unfalsifiable claims, e.g. "god made that fossil evidence to test your faith.".

When any Christian creationists make that claim I ask them why they are denying their Bible?

James 1:13. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

And for Christians, and Jews;

Psalm 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge. (New American Standard Bible)

Psalm 85:11 reads, “Truth springs from the earth; and righteousness looks down from heaven.” The Hebrew word translated here as “truth,” emet, basically means “certainty and dependability.”
 

Dr. GS Hurd

Member
But, of course, the speed of light isn't independent of anything else. If you change it, you have to change the fine structure constant, and thereby the strength of the electric force, which then changes the stability of atoms. Such changes would be clearly visible in the spectra of distant stars.

In fact, the fine structure constant has been tested, and it is constant at lest for the last ~6 billion years;
Stones and Bones: Are Constants Constant?
 

dad

Undefeated
A very unfortunate creative and misguided imagination on your part, and not science. Sounds like the rational of geocentric believers.
It may rock your boat, but the fact remains that they do assume space and time to be the same and no distance is any better than that premise...which is of course unknown!
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
It may rock your boat, but the fact remains that they do assume space and time to be the same and no distance is any better than that premise...which is of course unknown!
Of course, not true, and no boat to rock when what you propose has no relationship to science.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Time must be the same at all points or distances can't be known by science. You are unable to grasp that or defend your faith.

Again . . .

A very unfortunate creative and misguided imagination on your part, and not science. Sounds like the rational of geocentric believers.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Time must be the same at all points or distances can't be known by science. You are unable to grasp that or defend your faith.
Pass the Ranch please. Word salad from those with no scientific knowledge always needs a bit more dressing.
 
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