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HOUSMAIL
HM095
10 August 2002 THE SPEED OF
LIGHT On
Thursday this week, a brief item in the Melbourne "Herald Sun",
reported two events, which will be of interest to "Young Earth
Creationists". The
first was that an astronomer at the University of NSW had discovered a
"12-billion-year-old stream of light", which had properties
contradicting the commonly accepted "laws of physics". (How they
"knew" it was that old is another question!) The
second was the theory proposed by Paul Davies, a prominent Australian
Physicist from the Macquarie University, that the discovery might indicate
that the speed of light had formerly been MUCH faster than the present
300,000 km per second -- perhaps even NEARLY INFINITE -- in the first split
second of creation. If
true, it would create a "scientific revolution" nullifying much of
Einstein's THEORY of relativity! It
is of course, ONLY A THEORY! However, even Einstein himself said that his
THEORY was based on unprovable ASSUMPTIONS. That is the nature of ALL
theories. They are SPECULATIONS developed to "explain" a set of
observed data. Although
Prof. Davies has not taken it this far, it offers exciting future
possibilities of a VERY simple explanation for the puzzling questions which
arise from what astronomers claim is the observed size of the universe! Q. If the creation (including the stars) is only a few thousand
years old, how is it possible: *
That light from stars
billions of light years away, can already have reached the earth in that
short time? *
And how could the
stars have been visible on earth the same day they were created? A. The question assumes that light has always travelled at its
existing speed! BUT perhaps it originally travelled MUCH faster! If
it were true that light was travelling at near infinite speed shortly after
the creation of the stars, it would have taken only a FEW SECONDS to reach
the earth! And
if it had AFTERWARDS decreased to its present speed, the stars would now
appear to be much, much older than they actually are! IS
THE NEW THEORY TRUE? Who
can tell? "Were you there"? (Job 38:4) "I speak of things too wonderful for
me". (Job 42:3) But this I do know: "All
flesh is grass". Theories come, and
change, and go away, as fast as the scientists who invent them. Wherever the
final "scientific truth" lies, it cannot change the basic TRUTH
believed by those who share the "Faith of Abraham". They
already KNOW that the first few chapters of Genesis are just as historically
true, and just as important to the Gospel of the Kingdom, as the Abrahamic Promises
contained in later chapters! Allon |