Because Galaxies Are Billions of Light-Years Away, Isn't the Universe
Billions of Years Old? 6
Light, launched from a fast-moving train, will travel at the same
speed in all directions. This strange property of light led to the
more extensive theory of relativity (15).
The Hubble Space Telescope, searching for evolving galaxies in
December 1995, focused for 10 continuous days on a tiny patch of sky,
so small when viewed from Earth that a grain of sand held at arm's
length would cover that area. That tiny patch of sky is called Hubble
Deep Field North. Most objects in it are not isolated stars, but
galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Of the 3,000 galaxies
photographed that emitted enough light to measure their redshifts,
which presumably measure distance, all seemed surprisingly mature.
In the universe, time could flow according to either atomic time or
orbital time. Under which standard would E=mc2 be a true statement?
Mass-energy would be conserved under both; in other words, the energy
or mass of an isolated system would not depend on how fast time
passed. Obviously, E=mc2 would be absolutely true in atomic time where
c is constant, but not in orbital time where c appears to decrease.
Today, E=mc2 will be approximately correct even in orbital time.
Nuclear reactions convert mass to energy. Unfortunately, the
extremely small mass lost and large energy produced cannot be measured
precisely enough to test whether E=mc2 is absolutely true in orbital
time. Even if mass and energy were precisely measured, this formula
has embedded in it an experimentally-derived, unit-conversion factor
that requires a time measurement by some clock. Which type of clock
should be used: an orbital clock or an atomic clock? Again, we can see
that E=mc2 is "clock dependent."
If c has decreased (using the orbital time standard), neither
length, electrical charge, nor temperature standards would change.
Therefore, chemical and nuclear reactions would not change. However,
the speed of chemical and nuclear reactions would change, because the
vibrational frequencies of atoms and nuclei would change. Also,
radioactive decay rates, which depend on the vibrational frequency of
the nucleus, would decrease if c decreased.
15. Another question concerns Einstein's well-known formula, E=mc2,
which supposedly gives the energy (E) released when a nuclear reaction
annihilates a mass (m). If the speed of light (c) decreases, then one
might think that either E must decrease or m must increase. Not
necessarily.
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ15.html#wp1621525
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