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