Changes

This hypothosis sounds awkwardly non-falsifyable. It is proposed that light used to travel faster than it does today, but conveniently stoped slowing down before measurement became possible. How can it be determined either way? Also, this would not be a slight slowdown... its going to require light travel a lot faster. The most distant objects known are ten billion light-years away<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1432321.stm</ref>. So, even assuming light slowed from its super-speed to todays speed in a single instant as soon as civilisation emerged, thats going to require it used to travel about 1.67 million times as fast as today to achieve the 6000-year target figure. Im not a physicist, but I dont think thats even remotely possible. A little variation, perhaps, but a factor that huge... it would require adjusting too many other figures to keep the formulae valid. Permiativity of free space, planks constant, a lot of very fundamental things. -- Suricou

This hypothosis sounds awkwardly non-falsifyable. It is proposed that light used to travel faster than it does today, but conveniently stoped slowing down before measurement became possible. How can it be determined either way? Also, this would not be a slight slowdown... its going to require light travel a lot faster. The most distant objects known are ten billion light-years away<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1432321.stm</ref>. So, even assuming light slowed from its super-speed to todays speed in a single instant as soon as civilisation emerged, thats going to require it used to travel about 1.67 million times as fast as today to achieve the 6000-year target figure. Im not a physicist, but I dont think thats even remotely possible. A little variation, perhaps, but a factor that huge... it would require adjusting too many other figures to keep the formulae valid. Permiativity of free space, planks constant, a lot of very fundamental things. -- Suricou

:The basic problem with any variable-c model is that the entire observational record is exactly consistent with constant c. So we're left with two types of model; the one Terry mentions, where c changed in an unobservable way in the distant past, and the one Daniel mentions, where c is different in other parts of the Universe, but these differences manage to leave every observation we make exactly as we would expect if no such change had happened. That essentially leaves us with two different ways of saying "sure, the Universe ''looks'' old, but because of an unobservable, untestable effect, it really isn't."  Which may be ''true'', but it'll never be good science. May as well propose that we all live in the Matrix and be done with it. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:30, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

:The basic problem with any variable-c model is that the entire observational record is exactly consistent with constant c. So we're left with two types of model; the one Terry mentions, where c changed in an unobservable way in the distant past, and the one Daniel mentions, where c is different in other parts of the Universe, but these differences manage to leave every observation we make exactly as we would expect if no such change had happened. That essentially leaves us with two different ways of saying "sure, the Universe ''looks'' old, but because of an unobservable, untestable effect, it really isn't."  Which may be ''true'', but it'll never be good science. May as well propose that we all live in the Matrix and be done with it. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 05:30, 19 March 2007 (EDT)