The effects of light speed on the Geologic Timeline

[D3nt]

I was walking around campus the other day, and came across a posting for a discussion on how the speed of light has not been constant over time. The poster continued to state how the debate would talk about the effect on the Geologic Timeline, and may prove Creationists right. I am not writing this to spark a heated debate between the proponents of each; instead, my question is remarkably simple -- at least, I hope it is. I was unable to make the discussion, so I was wondering:

 

Why does the speed of light affect the Geologic Timeline? When delving through the layers of rock, or analyzing the rate of decomposition in a substance like carbon, you are not to my knowledge using the universal constant. Therefore, if it was not constant, why would that alter the Geologic Timeline? Time is relative, but it is not the Earth moving at relativistic speeds. It just seems to me that a fluctuating "c" would have no effect on the Geologic Timeline. Can anyone provide any further insight into this phenomena?

 

Dent

[GAHD]

Unless C was related to carbon isotope decay rates, which would throw our whole benchmarking system out of whack if C is not constant, it wouldn't.

[HydrogenBond]

The speed of light is constant and has always been constant. One possbile area that could the affect timeline is connected to the original expansion. Much of the very beginning occurred when there were only time dilated references due to the bending of space/time by extreme gravity. We measure time from our earth reference, which did not exist in the beginning.

 

In other words, if one sat on the big bang, the first second may have taken millions of years on our reference (hypothetically). Since our reference did not yet exist, the first hypothetical millions years did not occur, only one second actually occurred, since that was the only valid reference at that time in history. I am not sure how much it would matter. The earth reference is only 5billion years, humanoid reference is 200, 000 years and human civilization reference is on 7-8K years.

[D3nt]

The speed of light is constant and has always been constant.

 

 

I do not necessarily disagree with you. However, when I read the poster, I naturally checked online to see if there truly had been some recent discovery. I'll attach a few links, but there is, it seems, a growing circle of those who argue that light has not always been constant. Keep in mind that this is being debated, and is not necessarily true; but it is interesting to consider its ramifications if it were.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6092

 

http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1/cdecay/

 

http://janda.org/c10/statisticsnews/cosmiclawschanging.htm

 

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0809_cdk_davies.asp

 

Light may or may not be constant. For now, however, I don't really see any compelling reason to change my mind on the nature of c, but who knows what additional research will uncover?

 

Dent

[Southtown]

The biggest reason a decaying C would support creation is because starlight is supposed to take billions of years to reach earth.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ15.html#wp1621525

 

The radio-isotope issue is actually comical. If the earth were created only a few thousand years ago, C-14 would start to build at that point. A carbon date from this time period would then be interpreted as an age equivalent to the maximum life span of that isotope, or over 70k years.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ2.html#wp1303390

 

“It now appears that the C14 decay rate in living organisms is about 30 per cent less than its production rate in the upper atmosphere.” — William D. Stansfield, Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977), p. 83.

[Southtown]

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6092

“A varying speed of light contradicts Einstein's theory of relativity, and would undermine much of traditional physics.” — Eugenie Samuel Reich, Speed of light may have changed recently, June 2004, New Scientist

 

I thought Einstein said the speed of light was the same for all inertial observers. How would this undermine what we know? Maybe it's the key for combining large and small...

[ughaibu]

HydrogenBond: Looking at it from inside the process, is it possible that the big bang would be infinitely long ago and unattainable?