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A Changing Speed of Light?

A proposal by creationist Barry Setterfield to solve the problem of seeing galaxies billions of light years away in a 6000 year old universe was that the speed of light was much higher in the not-so-distant past.
Issues on Barry Setterfield's Claims of a Recently Decaying Speed of Light, 2nd Edition (DRAFT)
by W.T. Bridgman
(June 10, 2006, 1.99MB, 76 pages: SHA1=8513f5fa98e49a303b5ae9df2a47930cd3b55722)
My analysis of the implications of a rapidly changing speed of light. Creationists advocating that the speed of light has changed rapidly in recent history seem to avoid dealing with these problems, even though it takes no more than basic calculus to demonstrate it. This is presented as a PDF file to present the full mathematics of the problem.

"Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield"
by G.P. Jellison and W.T. Bridgman
(June 17, 2007, 740KB, 43 pages: SHA1=20b1c0b293606c8d56de5f6094210b58d682b0db)
(Typos corrected, June 23, 2007) Physicist Gerard Jellison expands on Bridgman's c-decay analysis to include details on Setterfield's claims of variability in other physical constants. He also conducts a detailed examination of several of Setterfield's mathematical analyses and exposes numerous mathematical errors.

"Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield"
by G.P. Jellison and W.T. Bridgman
(September 7, 2007, 448KB, 46 pages: SHA1=3cf2737c445ffab3a2813bcfad91a7e0f0d5b1a9)
Some revisions to the previous version but most of the changes are in appendix D.

"Analysis of the Variable Lightspeed (c-Decay) Theory of Barry Setterfield"
by G.P. Jellison and W.T. Bridgman
(October 7, 2007, 452KB, 47 pages: SHA1=8ba5719279597eaf5103d56e774ab38b0295c232)
Discussion of some recent updates on Setterfield's site.

"Critique of Some New Setterfield Material"
by G.P. Jellison
(August 11, 2009, 76KB, 11 pages: SHA1=5f3262da8f2482b5dce0260e0d64aa17820b40db)
Discussion of more recent updates on Setterfield's site, including some of Setterfield's adoption of aspects of the Electric Universe claims.

A Quick Reference to the Problems with Setterfield's c-Decay Claims
Here's a short reference to the problems inherent in Barry Setterfield's c-Decay claims.

Presentation Graphics
Graphics from the document suitable for printing.

Sample Data
CSV Data files (suitable for spreadsheet importing): Setterfield A, Setterfield B, Setterfield C, Setterfield D (under development), Setterfield E (under development).

Under Development for the Next Edition
Items that didn't make it in the last big release but hopefully will make it into the next.

Barry Setterfield's Web Site
This is Setterfield's primary web site for distributing his work.

Lambert Dolphin's Web Site
This site is apparently used as a posting location for some of Barry Setterfield's analysis. "ON THE CONSTANCY OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT".

The Talk.Origins c-Decay FAQ
This link presents an evaluation of Setterfield's original data analysis.

Kari Tikkanen's Web Site
Kari Tikkanen presents an analysis of binary star observations along the lines of those in the paper I present above.

Sverker Johansson's Web Site
This portion of Sverker's HUGE page of articles by subject contains a number of references about possible changes in physical constants.

VSL Cosmologies
A Varying Speed of Light (VSL) is one of the proposed models to explain some problems in the earliest moments of the Big Bang. It is not the same as Barry Setterfield's c-decay theory.

ICR Impact Articles Related to c-Decay
Even the ICR had problems with Setterfield's analysis methods. However, they still don't address the problems described above. See Impact #179.


Issues on Barry Setterfield's Claims of a Recently Decaying Speed of Light (First Edition)
by W.T. Bridgman
(August 22, 2001, 272KB: SHA1=ddf6a7a4ec9545161773ad4179dbd4d90811b22b)


Last Modified: Tue Nov 24 23:41:15 2009