HOUSMAIL No HM#095 -- THE SPEED OF LIGHT 10 August 2002
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
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