String Theory and a Young Universe

ERIC B
At the center of the old earth-young earth debate, is the fact that the
secular scientists reject any instantaneous change or creation in the
universe. So for it to reach the state it is in today, it must have evolved
for billions of years. Light moves at only a certain speed, and with the
apparent rate of expansion, it appears to be billions of light years across,
so it cannot be younger than that. The earth appears to have been shaped in
millions of years, evidenced by fossil dating, layers of ground and other
topographical formations. And what about carnivorous animals being designed
to eat flesh, when the Genesis account says that all were vegetarians until
the flood, and everything in general being seemingly created in the state of
decay. Life is about survival, and a perfect universe would have a totally
different orientation and meaning of life. Young earth Creationists responded
with "appearance of age" theories, or they tried to claim that the dating
really proved thousands of years, flood geology, etc. Some even claimed light
once moved faster, but then slowed down due to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics.
But it just didn't seem realistic, and then some Christians adopted an
"old-earth" creationism that relies on "day-age" and/or "gap" theories of
interpretation of Genesis. But all of these theories had problems and did not
convince the other side. I was stuck believing the universe seemed to be old,
but the gap and day age theories seemed to be too much of a stretch. Another
theory claimed that the 7 days were figurative poetry, (evidenced by
statements such as "and God divided the darkness from light and called the
light 'day'..." but this too was too shaky. The 7 days are treated as literal
elsewhere in scripture.
On reading about string theory, I ran across an idea I would use in my page:
http://members.aol.com/etb700/revelation.html

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In string theory, the universe consists of the 3 dimensions of space
and one of time that we are all familiar with, PLUS up to 22 additional space
dimensions that have shrunk up like rolling a 2-D sheet into a 1-D line. (For
a total of 26-D space-time). This arrangement (called an orbifold) might not
be the perfect lowest energy state, however, just like a bed sheet wants to
curl up rather than stay stretched out. So if this is true, a tiny bubble
might appear in our universe, in which all the laws of nature are different,
and matter would dissolve and reform. It would expand outward at the speed of
light, engulfing the entire universe. (It could be out there now, heading
toward us. We'd never know until it hit us. And from the viewpoint of earth,
it "comes down out of heaven!"). See Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku, Oxford
University Press. 1994, p.211, 212). To the scientist, this is random, but we
know that God is in control of it! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This I was using to show how all of the natural laws in the universe could
change in an instant in secular scientific theory, so that should no longer
be a barrier to them accepting the possibility of a new Heavens and New
Earth. (Non-Christians would generally think that God ending this present
universe and starting a new one for us earthlings is arrogant and a "waste"
of the rest of the universe). But in this new theory of theirs, it could wind
up being so "wasted" anyway.
Just recently, it occurred to me that such a drastic change could have
occurred already-- that the original set of laws were different, but not too
different to destroy (dissolve and reform) the earth and stars. Light may
have moved at infinite speed, meaning everything is really closer than it
appears, and the slowing down of light (stretching out the photon
rays/increasing the wavelength) is what accounts for the "red-shift" that we
interpret as "expansion".
Of course, once again, rather than some purely random act of nature, it would
be a result of the Fall. But still, we can use the idea to further prove to
the secular scientists that their dating of the universe is not as sure or
set in stone as they think.
Deeper into String theory, they are now saying that strings themselves are
actually "shards" of space and time (flat space, gravity and energy and
matter strings are differentiated by their vibration), and that "between"
them, or beneath their length (10 to the -35 power centimeters) you are no
longer in space or time, but in a "primeval realm". (Brian Greene The Elegant
Universe, Vintage Books, 1999, p.376-380
This proves that there is something beyond this material universe.
What does everyone think of this idea?

Eric B

[Administrator: edited to simple URL link]

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: Administrator ]

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

Your comments included the following:
Just recently, it occurred to me that such a drastic change could have occurred already-- that the original set of laws were different, but not too different to destroy (dissolve and reform) the earth and stars. Light may have moved at infinite speed, meaning everything is really closer than it
appears, and the slowing down of light (stretching out the photon rays/increasing the wavelength) is what accounts for he "red-shift" that we interpret as "expansion".

Well, the red shift we observe is a smooth, steady progressive redshift working outwards from our galaxy in all directions. A shift just like this would be expected if light slows down over the eons, but if we interpret the amount of red shift we see in the galaxies as representing a slow down of light instead of expansion of the universe, the amount of slowing down represented is not enough to convert a universe from billions of years old down to a mere ten thousand years or less. The universe would still be billions of years old in spite of the time saved by speeding the light up by the few factors involved. Compare, instead, Barry Setterfield's speculations. In his advocation of faster light rescuing the young universe theory, light speeds faster than present light speed by factors of millions and more are proposed, all the while leaving the universe a fit place for Adam and Eve to walk around, blithly unaware of that huge change in the laws of physics. And what about the Andromedean Galaxy? That galaxy is directly measured to be more than two million light years away. Light from that galaxy is BLUE SHIFTED, which is usually interpreted to mean it is moving towards us. You are not going to find evidence in that finding for the galaxy's light to have been traveling any less than the two million years + before it gets to our eyes. Or would you claim, instead that light has speeded up since being generated out there?


Deeper into String theory, they are now saying that strings themselves are
actually "shards" of space and time (flat space, gravity and energy and
matter strings are differentiated by their vibration), and that "between"
them, or beneath their length (10 to the -35 power centimeters) you are no
longer in space or time, but in a "primeval realm". (Brian Greene The Elegant
Universe, Vintage Books, 1999, p.376-380
This proves that there is something beyond this material universe.

String theory itself is a promising candidate for the future of cosmology but it is way premature to speak of anything from string theory as being proved! It is not nearly on such a sound footing as other well established scientific theories, such as, for example, biological evolution. I don't mind a little informed speculation. What if all that dark matter, unseen by us, is really the unseen spiritual world? Put THAT in your speculation tester and give it a rating!

 

ERIC B
(response to Paul of Eugene)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Well, the red shift we observe is a smooth, steady progressive redshift working outwards from our galaxy in all directions. A shift just like this would be expected if light slows down over the eons, but if we interpret the amount of red shift we see in the galaxies as representing a slow down of light instead of expansion of the universe, the amount of slowing down represented is not enough to convert a universe from billions of years old down to a mere ten thousand years or less. The universe would still be billions of years old in spite of the time saved by speeding the light up by the few factors involved.
And what about the Andromedean Galaxy? That galaxy is directly measured to be more than two million light years away. Light from that galaxy is BLUE SHIFTED, which is usually interpreted to mean it is moving towards us. You are not going to find evidence in that finding for the galaxy's light to have been traveling any less than the two million years + before it gets to our eyes. Or would you claim, instead that light has speeded up since being generated out there?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But the changes that could occur with such an orbifold shift would be so drastic, that light could change rapidly, and then change again. Rmember, all the laws of the universe could be affected under this scenario. As for Andromeda's blue shift, it could be just that it is moving closer to us. Just as some redshifted objects could still be moving away from us too.


<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>String theory itself is a promising candidate for the future of cosmology but it is way premature to speak of anything from string theory as being proved! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I meant, theoretically "proved". In other words, if scientists are going to seriously propose this, they have to admit that there is definitely a higher realm that we cannot observe, and fits the technical (not graphic) descriptions of what we call "heaven".


<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What if all that dark matter, unseen by us, is really the unseen spiritual world? Put THAT in your speculation tester and give it a rating! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

interesting idea, but I would say that makes the spiritual real too much apart of our own (it blocks light and adds to the mass of the universe. How can a spiritual realm have physical mass?!). No, the realm beyind the strings better fits the definition of God's realm. One theory for the dark matter is that is may be matter partially in another dimension. (Such as a parallel three dimensional space that is very close to ours--think of sheets of paper as two dimensional spaces, and making an imprint or mark on one that carries over to the next sheet). This is palatable, because a higher space dimension would also be a material world similar to ours, and matter in it might be able to have some effect in our space.

 

HELEN
Just wanted to mention something here. There is real question about the
'fact' that the redshift measurements show smooth transitions. Please
see some or all of these links -- and I purposely left out all written
by Tifft, Setterfield, or Dolphin!
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~thompson/extrag.html -- gives some of the
history

http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw68.html www.nrao.edu/library/preprints/97075.ps

"At least five major classes of observations exist which tend to
undermine the Doppler-effect assumption: (1) Laboratory measurements of
spectral noninvariance;
(2) Astonomical redshifts that can be correlated with large-scale mass
distributions; (3) General comparisons between Doppler-redshift
(expanding universe)
cosmologies and cosmologies based on other redshift phenomena, such as
`tired light,' showing the inferiority of the Doppler hypothesis; (4)
Observations of redshift
differences between objects thought to be at the same distance; and (5)
Observations of quantized redshift."—*W.R. Corliss, Stars, Galaxies,
Cosmos (1985), p.
148. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-ma8.htm

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf080/sf080a04.htm
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf050/sf050p07.htm


In 1976, W. Tifft claimed that galaxies in the Coma cluster had
velocities which were integer multiples of 72 km s-1. Studying HI
emission from galaxies, the quantum was later revised to 36 km s-1.
These claims were greeted with skepticism. More recently, Napier and
Guthrie (1996) studied spiral galaxies in the local supercluster and
obtained a redshift peak at 37.5 km s-1 for their initial sample of 97
galaxies, and again for an additional sample of 117 more galaxies. No
good explanation for how this effect could occur has been put forward. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/QuantizedRedshift.html


And, secondly, Paul, I think you vastly misunderstand Barry's material
to have made the statements you made. The laws of physics never
changed. If you want to ask about his stuff, maybe we could start a
thread on that or bring up the old one?

Helen

 

PAUL OF EUGENE
responding to Helen:

Thank you for the interesting links. I must admit I'm puzzled by this quote you provided from Corliss:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"At least five major classes of observations exist which tend to
undermine the Doppler-effect assumption: (1) Laboratory measurements of
spectral noninvariance;
(2) Astonomical redshifts that can be correlated with large-scale mass
distributions; (3) General comparisons between Doppler-redshift
(expanding universe)
cosmologies and cosmologies based on other redshift phenomena, such as
`tired light,' showing the inferiority of the Doppler hypothesis; (4)
Observations of redshift
differences between objects thought to be at the same distance; and (5)
Observations of quantized redshift."—*W.R. Corliss, Stars, Galaxies,
Cosmos (1985), p. 148. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-ma8.htm <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not familiar with the first one at all. What is he talking about? Because of course, in a stationary laboratory, one would not observe doppler affects. On the other hand, every time a policeman uses a radar gun, he is depending on doppler affects to nail those speeders.

This quote you found, however, is something we can at least work on understanding!
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In 1976, W. Tifft claimed that galaxies in the Coma cluster had
velocities which were integer multiples of 72 km s-1. Studying HI
emission from galaxies, the quantum was later revised to 36 km s-1.
These claims were greeted with skepticism. More recently, Napier and
Guthrie (1996) studied spiral galaxies in the local supercluster and
obtained a redshift peak at 37.5 km s-1 for their initial sample of 97
galaxies, and again for an additional sample of 117 more galaxies. No
good explanation for how this effect could occur has been put forward. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/QuantizedRedshift.html <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I did a little calculation myself. Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. I figure that implies the earth is moving around the sun at over a thousand miles per second, over 1700 kilometers per second, just based on the size of the circle we travel and the time it takes. (one year, 365 days.) This speed, which must be a common speed for the galaxies to reach and exceed relative to each other as they mutually orbit each other in their clusters, utterly swamps the 37.5 km/sec quantum red shift finding. The random variation in orbital speeds of the galaxies would surely induce doppler affects of random amounts towards the red or blue ends of the spectrum that would overwhelm any observation of a true quantization of the redshift factor in those amounts. This should render a quantization of that amount undetectable. It is very possible for an individual observer to allow an unknown bias to influence their findings. I predict the quantum red shift affect will be found to have its origin in the instrumentation used. Somewhere in the chain of calulations used to find that quantization there was a detection instrument that is digital in nature and hence artifically quantized the results or there was a variable that is determined to fewer signifigant figures than the rest of the data and spuriously quantized the results. I base this prediction on the strangely small range for the supposed detection of this affect. But I'll be delighted to be proven wrong, because that would be a fascinating new discovery, if it can be consistently duplicated in more observatories! And a spectacularly disconcerting fact like that can only be ignored for so long. It will be either confirmed or rejected.