Recently captured deep space images from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal the POSSIBILITY that light may not have been as well-behaved in the earliest days of the universe as it is today. To put it simply, light may have been lying to us about the age of the Universe, and if this is true, then instead of a 13-odd billion year old cosmos, it may in fact be 26-odd billion years old instead. Why does this matter? Well — if true — then theoretical band-aids such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy are simply no longer needed… and that’s a big deal.
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Bill don’t use cold fusion as a scientific reference point. Only 160 teams failed out of 10000 with 9000+ succeeding by 1999. Its not disproven it just got shut down by those that don’t want their grant streams to end. Its unreliable but we can fix that with a simple work around. I’m on the wrong side of the planet to actually do any work but I have worked with people in the field online. We have theories: aneutronic fusion processes, weak nuclear forces combined with quantum mechanical mechanisms enabling coulomb barrier tunneling. The same tunneling is used in computer… Read more »
This is no surprise to creationists and still very wrong. There are so many unstated assumptions in cosmology that this data while helpful proves nothing. Does the universe have a center and an edge? Are we at the center? Quantized red shift implied that we are at the center. Is the permittivity of space uniform or variable? If a photon travels on an uninterrupted path from a star to the earth and the speed of light (and inversely the speed of time) changes what happens to that photon? If the speed of time varied in a star system out there… Read more »
Let’s not forget that E = mc² is not the whole story. It ignores all energy associated with motion. So if we are observing a relativistic particle or a slow-moving black hole (or some other massive object), the momentum term must be considered:
E = √(m²c⁴ + p²c²).
Too often, the commonly-accepted models are too simple.
For all who are wondering about the billions of years versus 6000 years debate “raging” in the comments below, take a listen to Glenn Beck’s conversation with Hugh Ross:
https://youtu.be/OSwE8LQSzpM?si=WbhFv5HYRS9t5_UF
Then reread Genesis, Job and Psalms with enlightened eyes. If you are still unwilling to consider the possibilities with an eternal Creator, then carry on, as will the rest of us. Otherwise, the conversations may get very interesting and non-confrontational for all involved.
Let me toss a downer of an idea into this discussion. I refer you to a book titled “The End of Physics,” author David Lindley (hopefully not the late multi instrumentalist musician David Lindley). He makes the point, which becomes obvious as soon as someone points it out, that much, or nearly all of quantum physics simply isn’t testable; there exists no test tube and bunsen burner that will get us any closer to proving Einstein’s theory of the nature of gravity, for instance. Given this point, then it is not simply calculation of the age of the universe that… Read more »
I don’t have a problem with earnest players swimming in ignorance. It’s when they insist on their ignorance as being fact, deny that there is even the possibility of their own ignorance, and then act like anyone who has a grasp of the scientific method is an enemy of science and a complete puddin’ head — That I start to have a problem with them. If they started the conversation with “We think but we can’t be certain because …” instead of “We’re certain of two things. We’re right because it’s impossible for us to be wrong and you’re just… Read more »
“Fascinating!” —Spock
Thank you for sharing this, gentlemen! My reaction was the same as Steve’s. “Finally!”
I’m not an astrophysicist enough to argue the prevailing wisdom, but I have long had a problem with the concepts of dark matter and energy that are completely undetectable but they “have to be there.”
We’ll see how this develops in the scientific community!
Scott your not even going to challenge this with God’s account of creation in Genesis?! It’s very clear He created the universe in 6 days
Surely God is outside of time? A “day” to God is not necessarily 24 hours as we know them. “A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone;”
According to Genesis, God didn’t create the sun and moon until the “fourth day”. If one is to take the Bible as the canonical authority then until the “fourth day” what we know as a day wasn’t even possible. No sunrise, no sunset, no dawn, no dusk, no night no day without the sun. No 24 hour rotation of the Earth’s surface under the rays of the sun means no day in the commonly accepted context. Yet on the “first day” when God created light (Genesis 1:3-5), God calls the light “day” and the darkness “night”. Being as he hadn’t… Read more »
The word “day” in the Hebrew can have multiple meanings. 1) Day, as in day vs night.2) day and night cycle. Which may not necessarily be 24 hrs. What if the earth at the beginning of creation rotated much more slowly? 3) Indeterminate period of time. As in our saying “back in the day” In context, it seems to be #2, but could be #3 and even if #2, as I said, how long was the day? God could easily have done it in 7 picoseconds. Or less. Or taken 7 billion years. Doesn’t really matter. He did it. That’s… Read more »
First a quote that I came up with, “God makes things simple. It takes man to complicate them”. This agrees with the idea that an elegant solution tends to be more likely to be correct. Einstein’s formula is entirely misunderstood and misused. If you replace the variables with the mass of a bullet, and the speed that it is travelling at, you can calculate the energy on impact. Notice? C IS NOT THE SPEED OF LIGHT. It is the assumption that C is the speed of light that leads to the ridiculous notion that it is impossible to go faster… Read more »
There is much controversy on the topic of Creation. There are some very limited views that deny facts in favor of a strict, literal interpretation of the description of Creation in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). This is my view … God created the physical universe. His means for doing that are beyond the capacity for comprehension inherent in the couple pounds of material inhabiting the human skull. Knowing this, I choose not to limit God with my interpretations. Even so, there is much we can understand. Most of science is at root an effort to… Read more »
Here’s my take on the issue. This is a response I wrote to another forum a couple of years ago: <I think that you can see Creation Theory and Big Bang theory on the same page. The key is to look at Genesis as allegory. The best analogy I can come up with would be computer commands and instruction sets. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” This pretty well describes the situation pre-Big Bang by most accounts. <new project:… Read more »
I pretty much see things the same way but I still maintain that while it’s an interesting speculation it’s irrelevant to anything important to us at this time. I’m hesitant to publicly conflate Biblical allegory with scientific observation. This for the same reason that if I held the belief that the universe were only 6,000 years old I would probably not publicly insist on that view either. Except in a non-secular venue of course. This is not a non-secular venue and I’m acutely aware of what I say in here thereby. The topic is interesting, in fact it’s fascinating. But… Read more »
One measure of wisdom is the ability to simply say, “I don’t know”. People who cannot say that have some severe issues.
This is very true. There are things that can be known with a certainty. It is where there is certainty contrary to facts that the problem arises. That’s when you get into Dunning-Kruger territory. Which does not apply to matters of Faith. Faith is fine too but at the end of the day Faith is a matter of personal choice. Faith is certainty of the unprovable. That’s what makes it Faith. A person might believe Heaven exists but that cannot be proven and that lack of proof is not due to insufficient effort. Lots of people have tried lots of… Read more »
God is not a trickster.
No but He has a sense of humor.
We should be very thankful for that sense of humor too. It’s cause for hope, because I don’t know about you but I do some awfully funny (as in weird) things sometimes. Like nick-naming one of my Aussie step-daughters “Platypus Nose”. She and her two sisters are stunningly pretty so she hated that and the little song I made up for her …
(To the tune of “Basketball Jones”)
“Platypus Nose, oh Platypus Nose!
Nothing ever grows,
Where a platypus goes …
…
…
Poop.”
And we all need more joy and fun in our lives. Just because this is not heaven on earth doesn’t mean we need to be miserable. Life should be enjoyed. Not in the YOLO sense that leads to doing anything that feels good, but in the snese of doing things that bring Joy into the world for you and others. I sing with our symphony and at church. Not because I am a great singer, but because working at it gives me joy. Performing with the symphony (appropriately we are working on Beethoven’s 9th, Ode to Joy) gives other people… Read more »
Amen, Brother. I used to sing in the High School and church choirs when I was young. My voice is ruined. I don’t sound like RFK Jr. but it’s bad enough that I’ll never sing in front of another human being again. That’s out of respect for them not vanity on my part. RFK Jr.’s voice is raspy and shallow. Mine sounds like a bucket of gravel being crushed under bowling balls that were pushed down a hill by stampeding crocodiles running from machinegun fire. I can make steel ring with my voice but there’s nothing pretty about that. I… Read more »
Hah. What do you get when a horny duck’s only recourse is a willing beaver?
Im including my reply to Mark Tyma here so you find it easier. The word “day” in the Hebrew can have multiple meanings. 1) Day, as in day vs night.2) day and night cycle. Which may not necessarily be 24 hrs. What if the earth at the beginning of creation rotated much more slowly? 3) Indeterminate period of time. As in our saying “back in the day” In context, it seems to be #2, but could be #3 and even if #2, as I said, how long was the day? God could easily have done it in 7 picoseconds. Or… Read more »
GMTA, scroll up the page and see what I said to Davy Packer. Just now. As you were writing this reply to me. Same concept, different approach.
I posted my Comment to Mark before I read any of your posts and thought you’d like it. I also almost put your point in about a “Day” being reliant on the sun existing in the first place. I centered on the word “day” not necessarily being a 24 day in its meaning.
GMTA indeed.
And if you think like I do (and we seem to a lot) I worry about the state of your mind😏😉
After all, I’m a demented happy goofball. 😁
I really enjoy reading you!
Maxwell’s equations are simple? So says the man who admits that he cannot do math. Oh wait … that was Steve who admitted that. Regardless, nothing about Maxwell’s equations is simple.
I prefer to use Maxwell’s other contribution to science.
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.
<Bang, bang, Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon his head…>
I hope that fulfills everyone’s earworm requirement for the day….
(ain’t I a stinker?)
Yup. It does. It reminds me of another ear worm my mother taught my sister and me decades ago … <We’re the villains. The dirty, nasty villains. We leave a trail of blood where ere we go … oooh. Chief delight is run around at night, and hit little kids on the head … ’til dead.> I know it’s morbid, but it stuck in my child mind. I always thought it was funny that my sweet mother willingly shared such things with us. Plus, my sister and I liked to pretend to be the villain, and bonked each other’s head.… Read more »
To be fair, David, the form of the equations is relatively simple (as far as actual math goes).
Deriving those equations from observation was ridiculously hard.
Understanding those equations is very hard.
Using those equations in practice is hard.
But the equations themselves look very simple.
Oh, I get all that. My point was based upon my understanding of the bulk of your short reply. This is a perfect case where looks are deceiving.