Star Light, Star Bright
The following article examines Kent Hovind's Science FAQ, "If the earth [sic] is only 6,000 years old, how do we see stars billions of light years away?" (2004)
UPDATE
(Aug 05) Hovind (or his staff) have completely removed the offending
article from the website. This critique will remain because Hovind's
claims are still circulating within thousands of DVDs and videos.
Hovind's original text is bold.
This is one of the most commonly asked questions and deserves a good answer.
I'm not sure if it's significant but an earlier edition (2001) of Hovind's FAQ claimed the reply was "an honest answer".
Below is first a short answer then a more thorough answer. There are three things we need to consider when answering the starlight question.
1. Scientists cannot measure distances beyond 100 light years accurately.
Hovind should know this is false. Even if Hovind is only relying on pure parallax measurements, the limit of modern measurements is around 1,600 light years.
The essence of Hovind's argument is that trigonometry is the only true measurement of stellar distances. Any indirect methods, like Cepheid variables, are invalid according to Hovind. Hovind's argument is to hobble one method and ignore the rest. See also the ABC's of Distances
Hovind's argument is essentially pointless. Nowhere does Hovind ever deny the almost incomprehensible size of the visible Universe. Even if the distance to stars could never be measured it is irrelevant to the speed of light.
2. No one knows what light is or that it always travels the same speed throughout all time, space and matter.
What is light? Light is "electromagnetic radiation capable of inducing visual sensation, with wavelengths between about 400 and 800 nm" (Chambers Science & Technology Dictionary 1990). Electromagnetic radiation is one of the foundation forces of the universe. If you start altering the behavior properties of light, ergo, you are changing the very nature of the Universe. The speed of light (in a vacuum) is known as a constant for good reason. In fact, it was Einstein's work on Relativity which showed the maximum speed of light is a constant and it is time that is relative.
Through all time? Changing the maximum speed of light would also affect the maximum speed of the entire electromagnetic spectrum (which also travels at a maximum of 300,000 km/s). Additionally, if you start altering the maximum speed of light then you are changing the relationship between matter and energy.
E = mc^2
E = energy m = mass c = maximum speed of light
There is no evidence that this relationship has ever changed in any significant
manner. (See further below for a possible exception relating to the earliest
moments of the Universe.)
Through all space? Evidence to suggest any problems preventing light from traveling through a stellar vacuum - zero.
Through all matter? Light slows when traveling through any material but this does not help Hovind. He has to show that light can travel unaided faster than 300,000 km/s. Hovind needs to change the maximum speed.
3. The creation was finished or mature when God made it. Adam was full-grown, the trees had fruit on them, the starlight was visible, etc.
How would you falsify this claim? This is a old theological argument; yes, the mainstream science is correct but it is all just an illusion created by God (which raises some questions about the honesty of God). Light has energy potential, hence solar panels on calculators. Creating extra light (energy) would not serve any purpose. Personally, I couldn't think of a more interesting proof of a young Universe as a wall of black at 6,000 light years
Let me elaborate on these 3 points.
[Deleted Hovind's explanation of how parallax works and his suggestion "see the book Starlight and Time by Russell Humphry [sic]"]
Second, the speed of light may not be a constant. It does vary in different media (hence the rainbow effect of light going through a prism) and may vary in different places in space.
No one has ever suggest light always travels at a constant speed. Hovind doesn't need to change the speed of light, he needs to change the maximum speed of light.
The entire idea behind the black hole theory is that light can be attracted by gravity and be unable to escape the great pull of these imaginary black holes.
First, light is not attracted by gravity because light has no mass. Gravity bends space thereby bending the path traveled by light.
Second, light is trapped by a black hole because the escape velocity of a black hole (gradient of curved space) is greater than the maximum speed of light.
No one knows what light is let alone that its velocity has been the same all through time and space.
Already resolved above.
Since atomic clocks use the wavelength of the Cesium 133 atom as a standard of time, if the speed of light is decaying, the clock would be changing at the same rate and therefore not be noticed.
Let's recap some high school physics. The relationship between velocity, frequency and wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum (which includes light) is expressed as:
Velocity = wavelength x frequency
We can rearrange this to show;
wavelength = velocity/frequency or frequency = velocity/wavelength.
If the speed of light in a vacuum was changing we would witness a change of either frequency or wavelength or both. This change would be witnessed throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum, affecting televisions, radio's, sunlight and even atomic clocks.
One type of atomic clock uses cesium (Cs 133) as a reference point. This type of clock uses a process which occurs at the exact frequency of 9,192,631,770 Hertz. If the speed of light had changed then there would be a change of either the frequency or the wavelengths of this process. No such observation has been made. Conclusion, Hovind's argument is bogus.
On February 18, 1999, Houston Chronicle ran an article on page 10A about a Danish Physicist, Dr. Hau working at Harvard, being able to slow down light by cooling it. They cool it to fifty-billionths of a degree above absolute zero -459.67. The light was slowed down to 38 MPH!
In Dallas Morning News on 2-28-2000 the article says they have now slowed it to 1 MPH!
Scientists Bring Light To Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It On Its Way By James Glanz www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/science/18LIGH 1-18-01
What Hovind doesn't mention is this light was traveling through a Bose-Einstein condensate. These are not standard field conditions!
See also New Scientist, July 24, 1999 pp. 28-32 and Science News, June 9, 1984, p.359 for more on gravity effecting [sic] light.
Gravity affects
the path of light, not its speed.
"Eureka! Scientists break speed of light", Jonathan Leake, Science Editor, Sunday Times [UK] June 4, 2000. UNITED STATES SCIENTISTS claim they have broken the ultimate speed barrier: the speed of light. In research carried out in the United States, particle physicists have shown that light pulses can be accelerated to up to 300 times their normal velocity of 186,000 miles per second.
The work was carried out by Dr Lijun Wang, of the NEC research institute in Princeton, who transmitted a pulse of light towards a chamber filled with specially treated cesium gas. See also: New York Times May, 30, 2000 www.nytimes.com
What Hovind doesn't mention is the light itself isn't going faster but the transmission of the light (yes, very confusing). "Despite exceeding the vacuum speed of light, the experiment is not at odds with Einstein's theory of relativity and is explainable by existing physical theory." [press release]
Unless the Universe is made of "specially treated cesium gas" this interesting example of physics is irrelevant to Hovind's argument.
During the last 300 years, at least 164 separate measurements of the speed of light have been published. Sixteen different measurement techniques were used.
"THE SPEED OF LIGHT HAS APPARENTLY DECREASED SO RAPIDLY THAT EXPERMENTAL [sic] ERROR CANNOT EXPLAIN IT!"
Astronomer Barry Setterfield The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time 1987
Barry Setterfield did not write those words, Walt Brown did;
"[Setterfield's] results show that the speed of light has apparently decreased so rapidly that experimental error cannot explain it!" (Brown 1995)
Setterfield showed no evidence of rapid decrease in the speed of light. His "theory" has become one of the most discredited arguments ever put forward. See The Decay of c-decay for more details. Even the Institute for Creation Research has debunked him - Impact No. 179. And to settle the argument, The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light.
"NO PHYSICAL LAW PREVENTS ANYTHING FROM EXCEEDING THE SPEED OF LIGHT. IN TWO PUBLISHED EXPERIMENTS, THE SPEED OF LIGHT WAS APPARENTLY EXCEEDED BY AS MUCH AS A FACTOR OF 100!"
1. "Thirty Six Nanoseconds Faster Than Light" Electronics and Wireless World 1988 pp 1162-1165
2. "Faster Than Light?" Radio-Electronics pp 55-58.
Also - "New Scientist" April 1, 1995; pp 26-29 "Faster Than What" Newsweek June 19, 1995 p 67-69
I suspect the first sentence of all caps is a complete fabrication because the second sentence are the words of Walt Brown, complete with exclamation mark.
"6 . In two published experiments, the speed of light was apparently exceeded by as much as a factor of 100!." (Brown 1995)
I will go further and accuse Hovind of copying these "citations" directly from Brown without reading the original documents.
The first article was written by Alexis Guy Obolensky. Judging by his web site, he is definitely on the fringe of science. Electronics and Wireless World is not a formal science publication (source). I can not find any details of the actual article.
The second article is described by Walt Brown in this way;
"..... a theoretical derivation and a simple experiment that permitted electrical signals to greatly exceed the speed of light. This derivation follows directly from Maxwell's equations. The special conditions involved extremely thin electrical conductors with very low capacitance and inductance." Brown 1995
This is not evidence of slowing light nor of light itself going faster under normal conditions.
The third article mentioned is Hovind referencing a New Scientist by copying the citation directly from Walt Brown. The original article is Brown, J. 1995, Faster than the speed of light, New Scientist magazine, vol. 146 issue 1971, p26. The article is about quantum tunneling and how properties of quantum mechanics can violate the maximum speed of light. This article has nothing to do with decaying light speeds.
"The speed of light was ten billion times faster at time zero!"
Dr. V.S. Troitskii, Cosmologist at the Radio-physical Research Institute in Gorky. "Physical Constants and the Evolution of the Universe" Astrophysics and Space Science , Vol. 139, No. 2, December 1987 pp 389-411.
Troitskii did not say those words. Those were, again, written by Walt Brown (complete with exclamation mark).
"[Troitskii] concluded, independently of Setterfield, that the speed of light was 10 billion times faster at time zero! " (Brown 1995)
Here is a copy of the original paper.
Hovind is trying to quote someone (Troitskii) who is modeling an alternative interpretation of the Big Bang model. If Troitskii happens to be correct then the Big Bang likely occurred and the Universe is extremely old, etc. That is, if Troitskii is correct, Hovind is wrong and if Troitskii is wrong, Hovind is still wrong.
"A shocking possibility is that the speed of light might change in time during the life of the universe."Dr. Joao Magueijo of Imperial College London www.Sunday-times.co.uk 12-24-2000
Magueijo proposes a different model to the standard Big Bang model. His work is still hypothetical but does not contradict the "evolution" of the Universe.
The only way Hovind (or should that be Walt Brown?) could logically use Magueijo is if Hovind actually supported a form of the Big Bang model; which we know he doesn't.
The atomic clock. In 1956, following several years of work, two astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) and two astronomers at the National Physical Laboratory (Teddington, England) determined the relationship between the frequency of the Cesium [sic] atom (the standard of time) and the rotation of the Earth at a particular epoch. As a result, they defined the second of atomic time as the length of time required for 9 192 631 770 cycles of the Cesium [sic] atom at zero magnetic field. The second thus defined was equivalent to the second defined by the fraction 1 / 31 556 925.9747 of the year 1900.
I've no idea why Hovind included this trivia. In fact, as explained above, the consistency of the operating frequency of cesium based atomic clocks disproved one of his arguments.
Third, the creation account states that God made light before He made the sun [sic], moon [sic], or stars. The rest of creation was mature, so starlight was probably mature at creation as well. I would ask the question, How [sic] old was Adam when God made him? Obviously he was zero years old. But how old did he look? He was a full-grown man. The trees were full-grown with fruit on them the first day they were made. The creation had to be that way; it would not work otherwise. Stars and their light were made at the same time. The God that I worship is not limited by anything involving time, space or matter.
Not only does this scenario cause theological problems it falls into some serious paradoxes. For example, the light from a supernova 1,000,000 light years away would take one million years to reach Earth. However, if the Universe is only 6,000 years old and light was created to give the appearance of age, the star that went supernova did not exist because nothing existed more than 6,000 years ago. A star which does not exist cannot go supernova. Hence, the event being witnessed is just an illusion of an event which did not occur. The burst of gamma radiation which will eventually reach Earth, also comes from an event which did not happen.
Shortly after writing the above paragraph I found Walt Brown (Hovind's favorite source) had reached the same conclusion (Brown 1995).
Finally, I would also like to point out that the evolutionists have no answer to the basic questions like; Where did the original matter space and energy come from for the stars? I suspect God built the universe so we would say "Wow!" When we see the stars we should be reminded of the glory of God not evolution. See Psalms 8.
What has that comment got to do with distances to stars? Absolutely nothing. Stellar distances are such a problem for a young Earth that Hovind is throwing up as many distractions as he can think of.
Carl Marychurch 2005