Setterfield Revisited and Refocused

I post here for those who, although not physicists, nevertheless have some general competence and can comfortably follow a physics/mathematics discussion at the sophomore undergraduate level. Doubtless there are many posters to Baptist Board who are so qualified, while others, with effort, may also appreciate what I write. That there are some who cannot understand is also undoubtedly true. I cannot be everything for everyone. I suppose that most of the people who don't understand what I write just ignore me, and that's OK. The technical level of these discussions, however, has been deliberately kept quite low.

I write my scientific criticisms in the forum of my choice. I see no reason to e-mail Barry Setterfield with my criticisms of him. His response would doubtless be of a quality similar to the original writing. Since I think very little of his scientific writing I do not anticipate much value in his response.

The very point of my criticisms is that he isn't just wrong, but that his work is utterly without merrit, and I have sought to demostrate that the the general mathematically-competent (at about a college sophomore level for a physics or math or engineering major) reader. Setterfield is free to engage in discussion or not, although insofar as he is a physicist he ought to answer criticisms of his work as he finds them. Of course he is no more obliged to answer me at this forum than am I to e-mail him with my criticisms.

(Some of) my objections to Setterfield's work have now been brought to his attention. Let hi answer them in a forum of his choice if he can.

 

I really enjoy Mark's posts and hope that he'll continue to post here - it is a pity that Barry doesn't respond to more of his posts.

 

Oh, Mark's perfectly welcome to post here! But Barry is finishing some corrections to his paper on mass, is getting ready to escort our daughter to New Zealand for a semester or two of school there, and is also getting ready for a series of invited lectures in Australia in August -- after which he will be back. Then we have a speaking engagement in Idaho in September, in Ohio in Oct/Nov, and some other eastern state the weekend after.

In the meantime we are getting a house ready to sell, looking for land on which to build, caring for a retarded son, and living life off the screen. Barry makes it a point to answer those who email him with questions. He figures those are the folk who are really serious rather than trying to impress another group on folk on a forum.

Just can't understand why he doesn't have time for the stuff here....lazy fellow, he....

 

no one said he was lazy!

Mark, in my opinion, has demonstrated some fairly serious weaknesses in Barry's theory - I would imagine that Barry would want to address them. I am very much looking forward to Mark (and others) comments regarding Barrys upcoming paper.

Out of interest Helen, which journals have requested Barry to write for them? also is there a Settlefield school of thought in physics? once Barry stops working who will be carrying on his research?

 

From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html

 

A few notes:

If Mark’s objections are serious, then they need to be answered on a permanent and serious basis. That is what Barry’s “Discussions” page is about.
http://www.setterfield.org/discussionindex.htm

That is what the email is for – to present the argument privately to Barry allowing him to question the person for clarification and when all is clear, to post a proper response right there on his webpage, with the original (corrected by the author if need be) question(s). It is not a matter of a private email exchange.

Here on Baptist Board, the material is supposed to be for the layman Christian. Mark’s objections are not layman oriented. They are technical and deserve complete and thoughtful replies. We have asked Mark repeatedly to use the avenue available to him and to all so that the material from him and Barry’s responses can be put on the discussion section of Barry’s website.

I think if you look at his website
www.setterfield.org
you will find criticisms are NOT ignored!

Now, as far as the more technical questions from UTEOTW, they are going to have to wait for a bit. Today is our youngest daughter’s 19th birthday and I’ll be up to fix dinner for the family soon. Tomorrow a physicist is bringing over a grad student so they can all discuss Barry’s material and they will be staying overnight – and probably up talking all night – and not leave until Saturday. Saturday afternoon another guest is coming. Sunday is church and, hopefully, a nap. Next Saturday Barry and Bianca (our 19 year old) are leaving for New Zealand where she will be going to school for awhile. From there Barry goes on to Australia to check on his sister in Adelaide and then give a series of lectures in Sydney. He will be home mid-August. That is probably the earliest he will be able to get to anything here on BB again, with our apologies.

One of the things I can do is prepare some of this for the webpage so that he can respond that way and then we will not have to respond to some things over and over again, which we find ourselves doing on a forum. I do know that he has responded a number of times to the ‘slowing’ argument. Check here:
http://www.setterfield.org/AstronomicalDiscussion.htm#slow
and the material on supernovas above it.


To Colorado FB – Aardsma’s material was faulty from the start. Trevor and Barry’s use of statistics was quite ably defended by a professional statistician and a professional physicist:
http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkgal.html and http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkalan.html. Those papers have NEVER been refuted.

In addition, the TO article has been answered by Barry here:
http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_bs_02.asp

You will find additional material regarding the handling of the data here:
http://www.setterfield.org/data.htm

 

Helen writes:

Whether, when and where Barry Setterfield answers me is entirely up to Barry Setterfield. He is free to answer when and where he wants. If he intends to answer he will irrespective of what I do.

There's nothing stopping Barry Setterfield from replying to me on his web page if he so shooses, or anywhere else.

I, however, have written my recent responses to Setterfield here. I shall not e-mail Barry Setterfiel to ask him a question to be answered. I have no question for Barry Setterfield. What I have described in this thread are defficiencies in his work. I am not asking questions about his work. I am just pointing out that his work is wrong and dem onstrating why.

Barry Setterfield is aware of my criticisms of his work. or at least is aware where they can be found. Let him respond if he can. For him or his wife/spokesperson to insist that objections to Setterfield's work be presented to him as questions in a forum of his choice is to do science in bad fait. I shall not play that game, but will instead continue to publish the many and manifest defficiencies of Setterfield's work where and when I see fit.

 

Well, we have the webmaster's permission and now yours, so when time permits, the material from you and his responses will go up on the web. Question: do you want your name included or left out?

 

Helen wrote:

Permission for what? No one needs permission to respond substantively to anything I (or anyone else) has written. And I didn't give permission for quotation beyond standard fair use under the Copyrighbt Act.

Of course you can argue that given the nature of this forum I have already implicitly perm itted you to copy all or part of my post(s) on this forum; but what Barry Setterfield does on his web site is governed by conventional copyright considerations. In other words, you can use my material published on the web in the same (lawful) way that you might use a research paper, a magazine artical, or a bedtime story you might read. You don't get to quote in full, but quotations of a part are not necessarily forbidden. (If you and Barry Setterfield find this a bit vauge, then you should remember that every other scholar in the country deals with the same problem, and you have no less responsibility to adhere to copyright laws than any other scholar.)

I should think that you would adhere to standard scholarly standards in referencing the author and source of whatever you reference. You might write something of the form: "M. D. Kluyge has objected..." Of course when you do so your own scholarly reputation is on the line that you have accurately reflected what the objections are.

 

Yes. Speed of rotation is probably proportional to c in Setterfield's theory. I say "probably" because he hasn't developed the theory sufficiently to be sure, but the most logical development does have speed of rotation proportional to c.

. . .


Of course this has to apply to the earth's rotation rate as well. When measured in dynamical time it has to be proportional to c in dynamical time. Therefore according to Setterfield theory there were very many many many more days in a year in the past! That's a part of his model that he never talks about. (Remember that the frequency of the earth's revolution about the sun is gravitationally controlled, and is not proportional to c!) </font>[/QUOTE]Setterfield wants to map the last 8000 years of earth's annual revolutions around the sun including the 365 rotations per annual revolution into the entire 13 billion years of the history of the universe. It is my prediction he will persist in this pattern regardless of the logical concerns it will bring to normal scientists, such as yourself. His primary motivation is to construct a cosmology that makes his version of the literal interpretation of Genesis possible.

Therefore, in spite of the additional difficulties you point out for his theory if rotations don't change with the speed of light changes, he'll say they don't change. He'll keep 365 days for the year, instead. We all await with eager anticipation seeing the mental gymnastic feats he will perform to make this possible.

This makes the remark about pulsars very relevant indeed, because as UTEDTW pointed out, the flashing of pulsars is simply due to their physical rotation. If earthly rotation dynamics are the same as pulsar related dynamics, we should observe the changes in the speed of light directly in the rate of the pulsar rotation rates.

Setterfield theory not only violates relativity AND conservation of energy AND (I predict) conservation of angular momentum, it also violates all observational tests!

 

I was reading one of the "New" question/answer dialogs from Setterfield's web site http://www.setterfield.org/other.htm#lightandsub.The questioner wanted to know why, when light is absorbed by an atom it is reradiated in a random direction, while light absorbed by virtual particles is reradiated in its incident direction. Setterfield talks around the answer without getting there. He observes (correctly) with Jenkins & White that classically light absorbed and reradiated is reradiated such that the outgoing wavelets interfere destructively in every direction except that of the incident light. Trouble is that Jenkins & White refer to nonresonant absorption (so this does not apply to atoms' absorbing and re=emitting photons creating a dark-line spectrum, as the questioner asked.) Further, Jenkins & White are taling classically.

But the reason that light absorbed and reemitted by virtual particles in vacuum has fixed direction is that linear momentum is conserved. A photon's linear momentum is equal to h/lambda in the direction that it travels. So if its wavelenggh or direction were to change due to its interaction with virtual particles, then its momentum would necessarily change. However, destroyed virtual particles cannot carry momentum, hence the emitted photon's momentum must equal that of the absorbed photon.

With resonant absorption and re-emission by an atom, on the other hand, it is total momentum of photon plus atom that is conserved, so the emitted photon need not travel in the same direction as the absorbed photon. The atom can recoil.

All that talk about the virtual particles traveling a distance short compared to the photon wavelength may be true, but it doesn't answer the question posed.

Conservatin of momentum was the answer needed for full credit.

 

A "Spanish physicist" has reviewed Setterfield's paper at http://www.setterfield.org/criticalreview.htm. I shall not go through all six of his criticisms here, nor do I agree with all six. HIs last criticism, however, together with Setterfield's response, calls for further comment.

The Spanish physicist writes:

Setterfield responds:

Who is right? In fact, neither. As we shall see below the Reviewer, in determining that alpha varied as c in Setterfield's model, assumed that in Setterfield's model electrical charge was conserved. It is easy to show that it is not. As I shall show below in Setterfield's model electrical charge varies directly with c, so alpha varies inversely with c. Both the reviewer and Setterfield were wrong.

The fine structure constant alpha = e^2/(2*pi*epsilon*h*c), where h is Planck's constant, c the speed of light, -e the charge of the electron and epsilon the permitivity of free space. Since Setterfield has written that the product h*c is constant in his model (although h and c each vary with time) it follows that the time-dependence of alpha is carried in its e^2/epsilon term.

Since Setterfield has written that epsilon varies inversely with c, it would follow that alpha is proportional to c if the electronic charge, -e, were constant. The Spanish physicist Reviewer evidently thought that e was constant in Setterfield's model. That would not be a bad physical assumption except that it is contradicted by the version of Maxwell's Equations that Setterfield has chosen to use.

Let us consider conservation of electrical charge using Setterfield's version of Maxwell's Equations. Our treatment will closely parallel that used in standard (constant c) electrodynamics to derive the equation of continuity for electrical currents and charges.

The two relevant Maxwell Equations are, according to Setterfield in Section 3.4 of his paper:

epsilon * div E = rho (M1)

curl H = J + epsilon (d E/d t) (M2).

These are different from what Setterfield has written because he wrote the equations for charge and current-free vacuum. Remember that Setterfield allows epsilon to be time (but not space) dependent. Here rho is the charge density and J the current density. Since I cannot type a partial derivative sign here I have used "d" to denote partial differentiation. Please do not confuse this with its standard meaning of total differentiation.

Now we proceed in the standard way. We take the divergence of (M2). Since the divergence of a curl of a vector is identically zero we have:

0 = div J + epsilon div (d E/d t) (MK1).

But because div and d/dt are just plain differential operators, it follows that they commute, so we have:

0 = div J + epsilon (d(div E)/d t) (MK2).

Substituting Equation (M1) into (MK2) we obtain:

0 = div J + epsilon (d(rho/epsilon)/d t) (MK3).

This is the equation of continuity for charge and current density in Setterfield's model. Compare it to its counterpart from standard electrodynamics (constant epsilon) where one finds

0 = div J + d(rho)/dt, which is what Equation (MK3) reduces to if epsilon is time-independent.

Equation (MK3) is called the equation of continuity because of the following consideration:

Integrate Equation (MK3) over some finite (fixed) volume of space.

0 = Integral_V(dV div J/epsilon) Integral_V(dV (d((rho/epsilon)/d t)) (MK4).

The second integral, that of rho/epsilon over V, is just the total charge Q in volume V divided by epsilon.

The first integral may be transformed by means of the Divergence Theorem to an integral over the surface of V of the outward normal component of J/epsilon. The latter, physically, is just the total rate of net current passing outward through the surface of volume V divided by epsilon per unit time.

0 = Integral_S(dS.J/epsilon) + d(Q/epsilon)/dt MK5).

Thus we see that the rate of increase of (charge (Q) divided by epsilon) within a fixed volume is equal to the total current flowing into that volume through its surface divided by epsilon.

If there is no current flowing through the surface of the volume, Equation (MK5), implies that Q/epsilon is constant within that volume. In other words, absent current, Q is proportional to epsilon.

This holds for any charge Q (absent currents) in Setterfield's theory, including the electronic charge -e. We can imagine a volume containing just one electron with no electrical current going in or out of that volume. Then we have that e/epsilon is constant, or e is proportional to epsilon in Setterfield's theory.

Since epsilon is proportional to 1/c in Setterfield's theory, e is also inversely proportional to c. Therefore e^2/epsilon is also proportional to 1/c, and therefore alpha varies as 1/c.

This means that when ca was 10^10 times its present value sometime during early creation week, alpha was the same factor smaller than its present value of ~1/137. Obviously this is not in agreement with experiment, which shows alpha changing by at most only a vew parts in 10^5 back to a billion or so atomic years ago.

Setterfield has said that the change in alpha for his model is not more than that allowed by experiment back to z = 1.7 (a few parts in 10^5), but we have derived a different relationship, that alpha varies inveresly as c, from Setterfield's own model.

Which should you believe? Should you believe what Setterfield says about Setterfield's model or what may be derived from Setterfield's model.

All scientists immediately know the answer. What counts is what may be derived from Setterfield's model. What Setterfield has to say is of no special significance. Indeed, were there an infinite number of Setterfield clones, each swearing in an infinite number of courtrooms an infinite number of times on an infinite stack of Bibles that his model has alpha varying only slightly, all of that testimony would be easily outweighed by a single, simple derivation from his model of what his model actually predicts.

Setterfield's model predicts that alpha varies inversely with c. The Spanish physicist Reviewer was mistaken when he said that alpha varied with c, but he had the right idea. Setterfield did not, and does not.

 

On his web site, Setterfield reprints some comments by various supporters in regard to his theory on the changing speed of light. I quote here from the comments of James P. Dawson as reproduced on Setterfield's web site, followed by my own comments:

"Another problem that the evolutionist has is the radioactive decay of the elements. Uranium 238 decays in a very specific, mathematical way until it becomes lead. We show this in Figure 5 . The pathway of its decay is first to uranium 234, then thorium, radium, radon and so forth, until it becomes lead 206. The number 206 refers to the atomic weight of the lead molecule."
............................................
There are two mistakes here in the last sentence. One is that the number 206 does not refer to the atomic weight of "the lead molecule". Rather, the number 206 is the MASS NUMBER of the lead ATOM. The lead 206 atom does have an atomic weight, but it is not 206. Rather 206 is defined as the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus and is the well known MASS NUMBER. And it is not a molecule because it is not bonded to any other element.

What does the mistake show? It simply shows that the author of those remarks does not know the science as well as he should if he is to comment expertly on Setterfield's hypothesis.

 

Mr. James P. Dawson is hopelessly confused as he tries to discuss radiometric dating methods on Setterfield's web site:

"Carbon 14 (Cl4) is the measure of time because of its known radioactive decay properties. Its use in dating, however, requires that a knowledge of the original mixture be known, or one that compared to a known standard. But what is the standard? One does not exist. They suggested the "Genesis rock" or Moon dust, as a standard, because it has lain undisturbed on the lunar surface for eons of time, but even with this material, one does not how or when it was formed."
................................................

The blunder in the above statement is that moon dust has NEVER been proposed or used as a standard for C-14 dating, as it has nothing whatsoever to do with C-14 dating. Mr. Setterfield, where did you find this guy?

Mr. Dawson continues his mistakes with the following statement:

"Today, if we were to wait for 2 Kg of Uranium 238 to decay into1 Kg of Lead 208 with 1 Kg of the original Uranium still present, we would have to wait 42 billion years."

The correct answer is about 4.5 billion years, rather than 42 billion years. Mr. Dawson shows major misunderstanding of radioactive decay and dating methods.

[ July 12, 2003, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: Peter101 ]

 

It would appear that creationists are not interested in presenting a defense or clarification of their own writings. One would think that the Setterfield's would at least defend the writings of those who look favorably on their work. But apparently not. Maybe no one wants to be associated with error.

 

I think that perhaps galactic rotation rates are the easiest thing for the interested layman to grasp of all the gravitationally controlled motions we can observe at cosmological distances. Here is a link to some rock solid evidence for galactic rotation that I have prepared:

http://www.epud.net/~richmond/science/grotate/grotate.htm

I trust that the reader will find this graphic evidence interesting, and even compelling. To reiterate what has been stated before, the rotation rate is steady under the theory that light speed is steady throughout the deep time history of the universe. Any theory that uses faster light speed to bring galaxies to view within an orbital time frame corresponding to only 6000 to 8000 or so earthly orbits around the sun would necessarily imply galactic orbital rates at a much smaller percentage amount, rates so low they could not be discerned in the spectrographic images. All such theories are ruled out by the observation you can now make with your own eyes.