Shift on Red Shift

[busterdog]

I really wasn't "eyeballing" the data. I looked through many pages of seemingly random graphs and picked two that looked particularly relevant to our discussion.

One showed that measurements of the speed of light were changing in the past but have apparently stopped changing (in direct correlation to our measurement accuracy). The other showed that halflives seem to have been changing (our measurements of them) but not all in the same direction.

Are these not important points that deserve response? Or is it your intention to throw out the work of a scientist that you don't understand and then refuse to back up his conclusions when somebody finds a problem with the data?

No, I don't there is really much response to give. "Convenience" really bespeaks "eyeballing." This is a complex matter with lots of issues. You pick a suspicious trend without analyzing the data and ignored reams of information. If you have data that proves something wrong, that would be more useful for discussion.

You talk about throwing out 200 years of science. Well, no one is disputing that this work is "edgy." To some that means nutty to some it means innovative. But, dealing with such unusual thinking is usually much harder to refute than conventional views. That is certainly "inconvenient." But, convenience does not change the task if you are going to assume it.

Semelweis was also called a nut because he was dealing with germs no one had yet seen. While the analogy is not perfect, I think there are assumptions that we really have seen the stuff that Setterfield is talkign about. Thus, he is called a nut. But, that just doesn't seem to be the case. Science needs puzzling quantities like quarks, singularities and quantum holes to deal with phenomena that are probably not understood any better than ghosts. You can model it, but do you understand it? There are huge fights about the nature of "dark matter" and string theory. Yes, it take genius to model and examine these issues. But, we are talking about the fundamentals of the cosmos and people can't agree on what's real and what isn't. I don't think the Semelweis analogy is farfetched at all. That is a circumstance which bears a little more reserve.

The 200 years of science that you wish to protect has already hit a number of very considerable walls.

 

[busterdog]

As I said, I did read through the pages on your website, and I read a number of your emails and responses as well.

I do understand both redshift and zero point energy from a standard scientific perspective and although I can't claim to have spent decades researching it, my last 6 years in physics could probably qualify as "serious" about knowing this stuff.

So you ARE claiming that that the speed of light changed in very old (and imprecise) measurments, but that this fact is now impossible to verify because it has stopped changing?

You seem to throw up your hands and say that since scientists have measured c using atomic methods since the 1970s there's no way to get data since then. Have you seriously not ATTEMPTED to measure the speed of light in a way that you would accept as accurate?

Since you claim that current measurements are inaccurate, it seems that it would be simple to show a discrepancy between YOUR measurement of c and current atomic measurements of c.

Van Flandern found anamolies with some pretty precise equipment 25 years ago. These anamolies pointed to measureable changes in physical "constants." Why don't you just prove that wrong. Alan Montgomery's verification of the "Old" data was also put before you in a link above. Prove that wrong.

You argument is based entirely on suspicion of "convenience" at the moment.

 

[HSetterfield]

So you ARE claiming that that the speed of light changed in very old (and imprecise) measurments, but that this fact is now impossible to verify because it has stopped changing?

You seem to throw up your hands and say that since scientists have measured c using atomic methods since the 1970s there's no way to get data since then. Have you seriously not ATTEMPTED to measure the speed of light in a way that you would accept as accurate?

Since you claim that current measurements are inaccurate, it seems that it would be simple to show a discrepancy between YOUR measurement of c and current atomic measurements of c.

Those old 'imprecise' measurements showed changes far greater that the error bars acknowledged by those doing the testing. The Pulkova Observatory, for instance, using the same equipment over a number of years, and often the same scientists working, observed a consistent drop in c.

In the meantime, if YOU want to measure c by one of the older methods and you have the money to do it and to get the right equipment built, I encourage you to go for it. If you want to know what equipment there was, please check here:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html -- read all four parts to get an idea of what you are asking from us.

However, since hc is always a constant, the measurements of h increasing or decreasing would be quite as good as measuring c directly, for as one goes up the other must go down in direct inverse proportion. So please, if you doubt c, check h in your physics journals. That will do as well.

 

[Deamiter]

Van Flandern found anamolies with some pretty precise equipment 25 years ago. These anamolies pointed to measureable changes in physical "constants." Why don't you just prove that wrong. Alan Montgomery's verification of the "Old" data was also put before you in a link above. Prove that wrong.

You argument is based entirely on suspicion of "convenience" at the moment.

Not at all! I looked at Alan Montgomery's paper around two years ago last time I looked into this issue and was amazed by this line:

Our basic approach has been to include the maximum number of legitimate experimental measurements of c (by recognized measurement methods) in order to maximize the credibility of the statistics while minimizing any distortions due to poor data points. Our combined master data set, Table 1, compiled from the above-mentioned sources yielded 193 data points. To be excluded from this master set are values of c for which the original observations are missing or unknown, duplicate values from various reworked observations, dubious values from the earliest measurements of a given method where technique was still poor, values from poor methods, and outliers.

So in order to get the most accurate data possible, they've thrown out about a third of the data points for various reasons (including any "outliers" that strongly disagree with the curve, but for no apparent reason).

I'm not alone in rejecting such an analysis based on creative selection of data points. That along with the claimed inability of scientists to verify the change in c is why Setterfield is largely ignored in the scientific community.

I looked into Setterfield's response to criticism, and found that much of it is simply indignantly complaining about the criticism's tone rather than dealing with objections.

Anyway, there are reasons besides vast scientific conspiracy that lead to this hypothesis being rejected decades ago, and I see little change in methods or conclusions. Similarly, the oft-expressed motive of justifying a 6000-7000 year old universe raises questions to a scientist about whether they are looking for truth, or simply picking data that conveniently fits with their interpretation of scripture.

 

[Deamiter]

Here's a great site that shows something very different than a changing speed of light in the past hundred years or so:
http://www.magicdave.com/ron/ron_ebert.htm

 

[HSetterfield]

Deamiter, suggest you check what the observers themselves determined about their data:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html

In the meantime, here is the information on the data:
http://host380.ipowerweb.com/~setterfi/data.htm

When one is considering a data group, it is statistically necessary to exclude OBVIOUS outliers and duplicate measurements.

This quote from part of our history page might help a bit:

Between 1880 and 1941 there were over 50 articles in the journal Nature alone addressing the topic of the decline in the actual measured values of lightspeed ( c). For example in 1931, after listing the four most recent determinations of c, De Bray commented in Nature "If the velocity of light is constant, how is it that, invariably, new determinations give values which are lower than the last one obtained ...? There are twenty-two coincidences in favour of a decrease of the velocity of light, while there is not a single one against it" (his emphasis). The interest was world-wide, and included the French, English, American, German and Russians. In addition, these discussions included some consideration of the fate of the newly developing concept of relativity if c were not a constant.
The whole discussion was brought to a close in August of 1941 by Professor R. T. Birge in an article dealing with the changing values of the atomic constants "With special reference to the speed of light" as the title stated. Birge's first paragraph raised many questions. In part it read: "This article is being written upon request, and at this time upon request.... Any belief in a change in the physical constants of nature is contrary to the spirit of science" (his emphasis) [Reports on Progress in Physics (Vol. 8, pp.90-100, 1941)]. Although this article effectively closed the whole discussion, the data trend continued. This was documented in our 1987 Report.
Please see Table A in the 1987 Report. These statistics were illustrating the fact that, in a situation where c was measured as changing, it was nonetheless true that at a given date (1882), three different methods of measuring c obtained the same result to within 5 km/s. In other words, these methods were giving consistent results. This is an important point. It was picked up by Newcomb in 1886 when he stated in Nature that the results obtained around 1740 by the two methods employed then gave consistent results, but those results gave a value for c that was about 1% higher than in his own day. Later, in 1941, history repeated itself. In that year Birge commented on the results that were obtained in the mid-1800’s by the variety of methods employed then. He acknowledged that "these older results are entirely consistent among themselves, but their average is nearly 100 km/s greater than that given by the eight more recent results." What cannot be denied is that there was a systematic drop in the values of c obtained by all methods. Even Dorsey, who was totally opposed to any variation in c was forced to concede this point. He stated "As is well known to those acquainted with the several determinations of the velocity of light, the definitive values successively reported…have, in general, decreased monotonously from Cornu’s 300.4 megametres per second in 1874 to Anderson’s 299.776 in 1940…"
...From 1882 to 1883, Professor Simon Newcomb measured the speed of light in a series of definitive experiments. At this same time Albert Michelson had independently performed a series of experiments to determine the speed of light as well. In that same year, Nyren had determined the speed of light by the aberration method. The value obtained by these three experiments was 299854 +/-5 kilometers per second. In other words, they were in agreement to within 5 km/s. In 1886, Professor Simon Newcomb admitted that the definitive values accepted in the early 1700's were 1% higher than in his own day. [Nature, 13 May, 1886, pp 29-32]

Interestingly, history repeated itself. In 1941, Professor R.T. Birge, in looking over the most recently obtained values for the speed of light, commented that the measured values of c from the 1880's "are entirely consistent among themselves, but their average is nearly 100 km/s greater than the eight most recent values." [Report on Progress in Physics, vol. 8. pp 90-101, 1941] So the difference was noticeable.

You may not like the results. Birge certainly didn't. But at least he was honest enough, until 1941 when that strange statement introduced an article of his, to be honest about what was being seen.

Now, you said a lot of Barry's responses had to do with some kind of "complaining about the criticism's tone rather than dealing with objections." Excuse me, but that is not true at all. Anyone looking at the Discussion page can see that he has been extraordinarily careful to document and explain everything possible. Why are you trying to damage his character here in that way?

At least that accusation is easily refuted by simply directing people to the discussion page:
http://host380.ipowerweb.com/~setterfi/discussionindex.htm

Now, if you have anything substantive to offer in terms of exactly where he has mismanaged data or what physics he has been wrong regarding, please speak up. But up until now you have simply been speaking in the sort of broad generalities that don't mean much.

Thank you.

Helen Setterfield

 

[HSetterfield]

Here's a great site that shows something very different than a changing speed of light in the past hundred years or so:
http://www.magicdave.com/ron/ron_ebert.htm

Good gravy! If he has to go back to Barry's 1981 preliminary material to criticize him, he is not doing a very good job of knowing what is going on here! The Aardsma article, which he also referenced, was known to be faulty from the beginning. The graph in it, showing the speed of light 'constant' was using very crude divisions to hide the changes. It was along the lines of measuring flower petals by miles. They would all measure the same on a graph of miles.

If you want to see THE definitive research on the speed of light experiments and what the researchers themselves thought of them as well as how they were analyzed later by others, again, read here:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html

It's all there, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

 

[shernren]

Which fundamental dimensionless constants does Setterfield theory predict have been changing? It is actually quite meaningless to talk about the speed of light changing without a reference to dimensionless constants, especially since both meter and second have been redefined many times. For example, in relativity calculations, it is common convention to simply set c = 1 so that space and time are treated on equal footings.

For additional reference:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~dzuba/varyc.html
http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0208/0208093.pdf

 

[Servant222]

O.K.- please explain to a neophyte like me, who doesn't have a lot of time to work through all the papers, previous posts, etc. the following:

1. Does Barry Setterfield's analysis really suggest that the speed of light is decreasing, or are the changes due to the fact that we have more precise measurements today?

2. If the speed of light really is decreasing, then is the decrease so significant that it would allow the Universe to be far younger than presently postulated? Based on the time it has taken for electromagnetic radiation from deep space to reach us, NASA presently estimates that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old. There would have to be a several order of magnitude decrease in the speed of light to account for a 6000 year old Universe.

 

[busterdog]

O.K.- please explain to a neophyte like me, who doesn't have a lot of time to work through all the papers, previous posts, etc. the following:

1. Does Barry Setterfield's analysis really suggest that the speed of light is decreasing, or are the changes due to the fact that we have more precise measurements today?

2. If the speed of light really is decreasing, then is the decrease so significant that it would allow the Universe to be far younger than presently postulated? Based on the time it has taken for electromagnetic radiation from deep space to reach us, NASA presently estimates that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old. There would have to be a several order of magnitude decrease in the speed of light to account for a 6000 year old Universe.

1. As compared with the time measured by earth orbits (years), atomic time and the speed of light have greatly reduced. A statistical study of the original study validated its methods, even though it analyzed measured speeds for the last several hundred years.

2. Yes, the universe is much younger. The transit time for light from distant stars is a big problem for YEC is the speed of light is constant.

However, if you just use this light to created that 14.3B year figure, you need to overlook the anamlous quantized shifts in the light as it arrives here and you need to "balance" your equantions by a creating a rather fluid concept known as "dark matter." So the use of "ancient" light to age date the universe is hardly a straight line calculation, even if the speed of light has not changed.

 

[busterdog]

There are two ways to do this:

1. Find an "anamoly", like the "convenience" of the change in light speed being nearly (but not) zero today. Then hammer at that until you pick another one and then hammer at that.

2. Find something you agree with, something innovative and perhaps see whether it makes sense for Setterfield to diverge from that point.

It is hard to believe that the critics can find nothing of value in this work. That is suspicious in and of itself.

There is no prize for being right here, so why sweat it? At least part of this is fellowship and fun.

Obviously the truth of the Bible in Gen. 1 is important, but I believe the victory is by the work of the HS. I don't think genius is going to carry the day in a debate about these issues.

The quantized red shift data seems to be established. What about that?

The slowing of atomic clocks seems to be established. Einstein may have had another explanation. Either way, there are some curiousities here.

 

[Servant222]

There is no prize for being right here, so why sweat it? At least part of this is fellowship and fun.

Obviously the truth of the Bible in Gen. 1 is important, but I believe the victory is by the work of the HS. I don't think genius is going to carry the day in a debate about these issues.

There WILL eventually be an answer, we WILL eventually know the truth.

But if we are to convince others to follow Christ, then we need to always ensure that our faith is credible. Conflicts on origins seem to occur when science and religion conflict- religion here referring to our human intrepretation of what the Bible says. I would suggest that much evil and misintrepretation has been justified in the name of religion.

However, I have no doubt that when the truth is known, there will be no conflict between science and what the Bible teaches. That is why these discussions should always involve respectful fellowship- and be fun!

 

[busterdog]

There WILL eventually be an answer, we WILL eventually know the truth.

But if we are to convince others to follow Christ, then we need to always ensure that our faith is credible. Conflicts on origins seem to occur when science and religion conflict- religion here referring to our human intrepretation of what the Bible says. I would suggest that much evil and misintrepretation has been justified in the name of religion.

However, I have no doubt that when the truth is known, there will be no conflict between science and what the Bible teaches. That is why these discussions should always involve respectful fellowship- and be fun!

The Lord miraculously provided a genius-neutral way to salvation. What else could the Lord have done that he has not done to remove the issue of salvation from the ability of men to dispute it or to make it a question of strength of intellect, will or other ability?

These other issues, not being salvation issues, are really important, but different from the first. Yes, damage can be done by distortion. But, these issues are less simple.

But, at the same time, even for this fight, our weapons are not carnal, but mighty for the pulling down of strongholds. The truth will come out. To the extent that it comes out here and now, it will be by the Holy Spirit, not by "our strength."

Though I believe in six days of creation, there is enough mystery in the way that would have been done for me that I am ready to be found wrong and corrected on a great deal of what I believe.


2Cr 10:3
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 2Cr 10:4
(For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds 2Cr 10:5
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

 

[shernren]

1. As compared with the time measured by earth orbits (years), atomic time and the speed of light have greatly reduced. A statistical study of the original study validated its methods, even though it analyzed measured speeds for the last several hundred years.

2. Yes, the universe is much younger. The transit time for light from distant stars is a big problem for YEC is the speed of light is constant.

However, if you just use this light to created that 14.3B year figure, you need to overlook the anamlous quantized shifts in the light as it arrives here and you need to "balance" your equantions by a creating a rather fluid concept known as "dark matter." So the use of "ancient" light to age date the universe is hardly a straight line calculation, even if the speed of light has not changed.

Regarding redshift quantization, all the new data we have on redshifts suggests that there simply is no periodicity:

In 2002, Hawkins et al. found no evidence for a redshift quantization in the 2dF survey and found using Napier's own guidelines for testing redshift periodicity that none, in fact, could be detected in the sample:
Given that there are almost eight times as many data points in this sample as in the previous analysis by Burbidge & Napier (2001), we must conclude that the previous detection of a periodic signal arose from the combination of noise and the effects of the window function.[18] In 2005, Tang and Zhang:
".. used the publicly available data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 2dF QSO redshift survey to test the hypothesis that QSOs are ejected from active galaxies with periodic noncosmological redshifts. For two different intrinsic redshift models, [..] and find there is no evidence for a periodicity at the predicted frequency in log(1+z), or at any other frequency. "[19] They also outlined previous research on the subject, noting that:
"The above an intrinsic redshift hypothesis, if true, will have far-reaching consequences for cosmology and the nature of QSOs. Most of those previous studies on the Karlsson formula used rather small samples (except for Arp et al. 2005), and have been suspected that the claimed peaks were due to artifacts associated with selection effects (Basu 2005). To avoid such a heterogeneous selection manner as well as personal prejudice, Hawkins et al. (2002) tested the periodicity in log(1 + zqso) with 2dF redshift survey data with 67291 nearby galaxies and 10410 QSOs; it was found that there is no periodicity in log(1 + zqso). However, Napier & Burbidge (2003) argued that in order to use the 2dF sample to properly test the original hypothesis, it is necessary to establish for each pair that the galaxy is at least a late-type active spiral system. Arp et al. (2005) also re-examined the 2dF sample and claimed that they found that the redshifts of brighter QSOs in the QSO density contours fit very exactly the long standing Karlsson formula and confirm the existence of preferred values in the distribution of quasar redshifts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift_quantization

Also, historically speaking, dark matter played more importance in galactic kinematics (i.e. explaining the velocity-radius relationship in galaxies) than in explaining the "cosmic microwave background". As far as I know, dark matter isn't actually required to analyze the CMB, but it shows up when you try to introduce theoretical conclusions from CMB into the Big Bang. And dark matter can be directly observed and measured through the phenomenon of gravitational lensing.

 

[Deamiter]

Exactly how many outliers did you omit? I understand from Alan Montgomery's paper that he omitted 5 and used a total of 120 out of 193 points. He also noted that Setterfield used only 57.

So... you cut the number of data points to only 1/3 to fit a good curve?

At the page I cited, I certainly wasn't trying to criticize any work from 1981... I was pointing out that there are data that are much more widely accepted which do not appear to be changing as you claim:

Date / Experimenter / Method / Speed (m/s) / Uncertainty

(± m/s)

1862 Foucault Rotating mirror 298,000,000 500,000
1876 Cornu Toothed wheel 299,990,000 200,000
1880 Michelson Rotating mirror 299,910,000 50,000
1883 Newcomb Rotating mirror 299,860,000 30,000
1883 Michelson Rotating mirror 299,853,000 60,000
1926 Michelson Rotating mirror 299,796,000 4000
1928 Karolus Kerr Cell 299,778,000 10,000
1932 Michelson Rotating mirror 299,774,000 11,000
1941 Anderson Kerr Cell 299,776,000 14,000
1950 Bergstrand Geodimeter 299,792,700 250
1950 Essen Microwave cavity 299,792,500 3000
1951 Aslakson Shoran radar 299,794,200 1900
1952 Froome Microwave interferometer 299,792,600 700
1954 Florman Microwave interferometer 299,795,100 1900
1957 Bergstrand Geodimeter 299,792,850 160
1958 Froome Microwave interferometer 299,792,500 100
1965 Kolibayev Geodimeter 299,792,600 60
1967 Grosse Geodimeter 299,792,500 50
1972 Evenson Laser 299,792,457.4 1.1
1974 Blaney Laser 299,792,459.0 0.6
1976 Woods Laser 299,792,458.8 0.2
1977 Monchalin Laser 299,792,457.6 .73

 

[HSetterfield]

shernren, periodicities are entirely different from redshift quantizations.

Deamiter, please, again, I refer you to the history of the speed of light experiments so you can see ALL the data and what the experimenters themselves did with it. Ignore the 1987 paper if you like and look at the raw data yourself:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html

Keep in mind, also, please, that Alan Montgomery is a professional statistician in Canada.

For what happened with the data and their responses to questions here:
http://host380.ipowerweb.com/~setterfi/data.htm

This should stop some of your criticisms....I hope....

 

[Deamiter]

shernren, periodicities are entirely different from redshift quantizations.

Deamiter, please, again, I refer you to the history of the speed of light experiments so you can see ALL the data and what the experimenters themselves did with it. Ignore the 1987 paper if you like and look at the raw data yourself:
http://www.setterfield.org/cx1.html

Keep in mind, also, please, that Alan Montgomery is a professional statistician in Canada.

For what happened with the data and their responses to questions here:
http://host380.ipowerweb.com/~setterfi/data.htm

This should stop some of your criticisms....I hope....

One can always hope eh? I do apologize for my hostility -- as soon as you answered, I realized I'd been treating you unfairly in response to busterdog.

I do honestly find it troubling that you've found no way to test the theory besides using data from dozens and hundreds of years ago. It's no doubt worth looking at closer because of the overall trend, but what would really convince me (as a bit of a lay-scientist in this field as I'm focusing on optics) is if one could construct an experiment that could disprove your theory.

Looking more carefully (and pulling from one of the comments on your site) it becomes apparent to me that the earlier measurements (particularly those in the 1700-1800s) had MUCH greater error than your proposed change in c.

It seems that you have taken a set of data with large errors, found a function that best fits the data, and then thrown out a good 2/3 of the points that don't fit your function!

I remember well the day I "proved" that the halflife of some quickly decaying isotope was actually oscillating by quite miraculously fitting a sine wave to our measured data. I even got a high confidence of around .93 with 30 data points and a good 3/4 of a period. I'm sure I could have gotten a much higher confidence if I too had removed 10 outliers!

Montgomery did not respond to this criticism (instead focusing on a silly mistake in units) so I'll ask you. Given that signals with high error can often be fit with very high correlation, and given that your function DOES go to zero just as the measurement errors go to zero, how can you verify that you're NOT simply fitting an arbitrary function to a noisy signal?

What would the correlation be if you didn't throw out data points that didn't fit your proposed function?

Forgive me if I'm asking questions that have already been answered. I looked through as much of your site as I could (it's not particularly easy to navigate) and only found a rejection of the one question -- not an actual answer.

 

[HSetterfield]

Again, if you read the history of light speed research experiments you will find
1. that the measured changes exceed the error bars
2. that even those who did not want to admit the speed of light showed change had to admit it
3. that the data Barry and Trevor used in the 1987 paper was the data selected by other physicists as being the most reliable

Please do your homework. You are a layman in this area and the work and research is sitting there waiting for you to look at.

the data page which I linked has all your objections responded to by the men who worked with the data.

By the way, the function does not go to zero...

 

[shernren]

shernren, periodicities are entirely different from redshift quantizations.

Periodicity is a subset of quantization; are you suggesting that there is aperiodic quantization in redshift data, and are you able to back that up?

 

[shernren]

This is a graph from Alan's data, with "today's c-value" in red and error bars:

And I still haven't got my question answered. A "change in the speed of light" is essentially meaningless, what I want to know is what is the dimensionless constant which is allegedly changing?