Starlight and Time

[dad1]

Does science know what time, specifically time in the distant universe is? If you claim it does, then be prepared to support that claim.

If science does not know that time exists out there in a way we know it here, then one implication is that no distances are knowable to distant stars.

Why? Because distances depend on the uniform existence of time. If time (in this example 4 billion light years from earth) did not exist the same as time near earth, then what might take a billion years (of time as we know it here) for light to travel a certain distance in space might, for all we know, take minutes weeks or seconds of time as it exists out THERE!

So what methods does science have to measure time there? I am not aware of any. Movements observed at a great distance and observed from OUR time and space would not qualify. Such observations would only tell us how much time as seen here it would take if time were the same there.

How this relates to religion is that a six day creation thousands of years ago cannot be questioned using cosmology if it really did not take light that reaches us on earth and area a lot of time to get here.

[dad1]

I made no such claim. See the comma between physical constants and time, which separates them in a list.

I see, so you do not claim time is a physiical constant. OK. The OP did not mention physical laws or constants, so where did you dredge those up from?

This is where you're wrong. We DO have observations from "out there" via photons that travel across space to us from "there." There is a great deal of information in these photons that you are ignoring.

The problem is you do not. You observe the light here. You infer all else.

Why are they wrong?

Why are distance to stars right? It depends on time existing uniformly. So you are wrong if you claim you know. That's why. When you do not know, you cannot offer exact numbers and claims as if you did know.

You've made that claim, but so far you haven't presented anything to support it other than biblical references, or a long shot guess that somehow time could be "different" beyond the Voyager probe distances.

How could it be or not be? WE don't know, so do not claim one or the other as science.

Why would it be different?

It doesn't matter why since science does not know. Getting into why gets deep into belief territory. That is like saying 'why is there anything unknown'?

If you have no idea then the distances we derive to stars could just as easily be much longer than we think, or much shorter. You seem to think the distances are too long, but have no reason (apart from compatibility with biblical stories) for believing that ... ie. no science reasons.

Whatever. It is anybody's guess. Science doesn't know. That is the point. If you want to get philosophical we could look for reasons.

None if it is far enough away, as all are but one (the sun).

Did you not insinuate that that Alpha Centuri affected our climate?

We also know that there is a rough minimum size for a main sequence star to form and remain stable via nuclear fusion at its core balancing gravitational collapse.

No. That is pure theory based on beliefs. That is the way we try to explain stars using natural laws and forces and things we are familiar with. No one has ever been out there. The actual distance to and size of stars is not known at all. The workings of stars is not known. They theories involve timeframes that have never been seen, only theorized. How could we check if they say a star was there for millions of years before it explodes? It is like a circular inbred religion.

This is in the ballpark of around 8% of the sun's diameter, which is 830,000 miles. So about 66,000 miles in diameter for a small star (I believe the smallest diameter main sequence star we've seen directly is 2MASS J0523-1403 at 8.6% of the sun's diameter).

Again, pure belief based conjecture using fishbowl rules and ideas.

This is not from any time or distance measurements ... just from the physics of how stars work.

They may work on something other than just physics. We do not know. You project fishbowl concepts into the unknown.

For something this size to appear as a tiny dot in a large telescope (it is not visible to the naked eye) it has to be a certain distance away, and that distance is far beyond where the Voyager spacecraft have travelled. Just another example of how we know stars are very far away, and very big.

I doubt it is that size, that is circular reasoning and wholly belief based. If a star worked in other ways we are not familiar with, then no one says they need to be a certain size. Since you can't tell and do not know ANY distances to stars out there, you are just voicing belief based ideas. I do not believe you.

So random guessing is better than applying proper science.

Why be pretentious? When we don't know it is best to just admit it. Why do you feel you must guess? There is no proper science for the unknown. We wait for you to show us proper science to know that time exists the same as on earth in deep space!

[dad1]

The speed of light in a material does vary, and we quantify this using the index of refraction, n. This is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum, to the (slower) speed of light in the material. For typical glass n ~ 1.5, so the speed of light would be 2/3 of the value in a vacuum. But interstellar space is very nearly a vacuum, so c (speed of light in vacuum) is used for distant objects.

All vacuums you ever saw or tested are here in the fishbowl. You cannot speak about some vacuum in deep space. All vacuums here are IN our time and space. That tells us nothing of how light behaves in a different time.

Because absorption (or emission) of the light happened "there", which is the whole point.

Maybe. But since you see it only after it gets here, you can't really say that. You can say that it contains traces that tell us hydrogen exists in the light. So we deduce there is also hydrogen at the source. So what? How hydrogen behaves and even exists in a different space and time we don't really know. How it may or may not have been affected getting to earth where we see it we do not know. What else also may be out there in the star that left no traces we do not know. How the light changes once it arrives in our fishbowl we do not know. Etc.

That light then travels here through the vacuum of space (the photons that actually make it here and are not scattered or absorbed in between). If an H atom in the corona of a star 100 million light years away emits photons in a specific line pattern (based on the energy level distribution of the atom, as usual)

That won't wok. Energy is a feature of the time and space it exists IN!

and the lucky photons make it to a telescope on Earth, we'll see a redshifted version of the spectrum to know the H atoms were emitted from far away.

That tells us nothing about time out there either. Also if time itself and space itself were different out there, then all meanings for wavelengths (time dependent) and shifting of light are out the window!

We measure the spectrum "here", but the photons came from "there." What could possibly transform these photons between there and hear to cause only a redshift in the spectrum, but no change in the spacing of the spectral lines? Do you know anything about spectroscopy?

The change could be after they started to exist here (arrived) Since we have only been here and observed here, we would have no way of knowing things change when they get here! (forget any possible changes anywhere else)

This is a silly argument. I wasn't alive 100 million years ago to see dinosaurs (nor was any human), but we know they existed from their fossils (regardless of how old you think they are).

Humans existed since we were created and the fossils (if not some sort of ape fossil that confuses science) are not the age you claim. As explained that is another thread.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to dad1 in post #52]

Did you not insinuate that that Alpha Centuri affected our climate?

No. I asked:

"What would happen to temperatures on Earth if alpha centauri were not as far away as we think it is and was much closer?"

You didn't answer and instead twisted the question to say I insunuated that alpha centauri affected our climate.

That tells us nothing about time out there either. Also if time itself and space itself were different out there, then all meanings for wavelengths (time dependent) and shifting of light are out the window!

OK ... you just keep repeating the same flawed argument that space and time beyond anywhere we've been or sent spacecraft to could somehow be "different" and that we have no idea if that is the case, or not. And you have zero support for this argument other than just typing it over and over and claiming it must be true. So it is not surprising that you also think dinosaurs are fake inventions of anti-creationists, or I'd assume that any other scientific observation that is at odds with a ~6000 year old Earth must be wrong simply because it contradicts the biblical creation story. Your only defense so far as been "the bible says so."

You probably should have posted the OP in another section besides Science and Religion. Your basis for its argument is as nonscientific as it gets and completely ignores all scientific studies on the subject by dismissing everything as "we don't know", even when we do. I doubt you've convinced anyone that you're right, but it was an opportunity to get a dig in on evil science.

[dad1]

No. I asked:

"What would happen to temperatures on Earth if alpha centauri were not as far away as we think it is and was much closer?"

Well, rearranging creation is not a great idea. There are all sorts of nightmare scenarios.

OK ... you just keep repeating the same flawed argument that space and time beyond anywhere we've been or sent spacecraft to could somehow be "different" and that we have no idea if that is the case, or not.

There is nothing flawed about simple facts. The simple fact is that science does not indeed know what time itself is like in the far universe. Period.

And you have zero support for this argument

The support is your fail to produce support that shows science knows what time and space out there are like. Sorry, looking at incoming light in your bedroom does not qualify at all.

So it is not surprising that you also think dinosaurs are fake inventions of anti-creationists,

Why would dinos be fake? I never suggested any such idiocy. Your dates are fake news.

or I'd assume that any other scientific observation that is at odds with a ~6000 year old Earth must be wrong simply because it contradicts the biblical creation story.

This thread deals with the starlight time issue, that the religious zealots of so called science try to use for their belief set.

Your only defense so far as been "the bible says so."

It is not I that have anything here to defend. That would be you.

You probably should have posted the OP in another section besides Science and Religion.

You should probably realize that science does use beliefs when claiming things about stars and times. There is no way that this can be ignored or that you can pretend is not a part of science. As much as you would love to because of your tremendous fail here so far.

Your basis for its argument is as nonscientific as it gets

The basis for the argument of science that distances are what they are is as unscientific as it gets. That is what the thread is about. Your quest is to show us that it is known and science, and you can't do that.

and completely ignores all scientific studies on the subject by dismissing everything as "we don't know",

What a fantasy and delusion. There ARE NO studies on time in the far universe science is totally incapable of dealing with that. Yet they have modeled the universe as if it were a certain way. If you did know we would see you post the goods. So far you have danced around piddling in puddles and picking daisies in left field.

[Diagoras]

Science doesn't know.

Correction: you don’t know.

The actual distance to and size of stars is not known at all. The workings of stars is not known.

By you.

They may work on something other than just physics. We do not know.

<bolding mine>

You don’t know.

And, let’s not allow this gem to slide… “They may work on something other than just physics.”

Whatever could that be, I wonder? Are you going to offer any more information? Perhaps the semiconductors in my computer work by something other than physics too?

I doubt it is that size

Because you have an alternate theory to share, perhaps?

I do not believe you.

Clearly.

There is no proper science for the unknown.

Because we should only do ‘proper science’ on things we know…

We wait for you to show us proper science

You can lead a horse to water….

[Inquirer]

Your question implies that the thousands, or millions, of individuals whose expertise is in cosmology and physics and other related areas of study have somehow been wrong in their conclusions

In general, that's effectively the implication of and assumption behind just about every internet creationist's position. They truly believe they know more about the fossil record than paleontologists, more about genetics than geneticists, more about cosmology than cosmologists, more about physics than physicists, more about biology than biologists, more about taxonomy than taxonomists, more about evolution than evolutionary biologists, more about geology than geologists.....

So either they are among the most widely knowledgeable people in the world, or the most self-delusional.

Except brunumb was incorrect to claim "Your question implies that the thousands, or millions, of individuals whose expertise is in cosmology and physics and other related areas of study have somehow been wrong in their conclusions".

That's just another example of an argument from authority except it isn't even that, it is an imagined discrepancy, nothing to do with real working cosmologists, how does he or you for that matter, know what a million astronomers or cosmologists think, utterly ludicrous argument as usual.

No cosmologist I've ever met regards the cosmological principle as anything other than a reasonable working assumption.

If you'd been paying more attention you'd see that I cited this article.

Astronomers Cast Doubt on the Cosmological Principle.

e.g.

The survey collected articles which had observed gamma ray bursts of structures with sizes of gigaparsecs, which does not support the averaging put forth by the cosmological principle. “These results are at a strong contradiction with the cosmological principle, which requires a transition scale of homogeneity below the gigaparsec scale,” says Mészáros.

Stop pretending that science is some kind of fanatical, dogmatic, intolerance of ideas; it isn't Jose, people are free to speculate any way they want to - all that matters is that their conclusions do not run contrary to observation which as you can see in this is precisely what's been observed with respect to the cosmological principle - which are after all, just assumptions.

Time after time, many of the "scientism" devotees here in this forum reveal themselves to be the Spanish Inquisition all over again, lacking in the most basic appreciation of the subject's foundations.

[Inquirer]

Here's something for people to consider, this goes right to the heart of the issue:

Oldest human or just another ape? Row erupts over 7m-year-old fossil.

The row, kindled by a paper in Nature, last week led scientists to denounce opponents while others accused rivals of building theories on “less than five minutes’ observation” .

The dispute is rancorous even for palaeontology, a field noted for the bitterness of its controversies over the interpretation of ancient skulls and bones.

It took Macchiarelli and Bergeret more than a decade to get their conclusions published. Attempts to present their findings at the Anthropological Society of Paris were blocked, they say, while Macchiarelli was accused of scientific misconduct by his opponents.

This is the reality, controversy, arguments and bitterness, people are people - science is not mathematics, it relies on interpretation as I've explained to Jose umpteen times. Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation...don't ever forget it!

[Tcg]

Time after time, many of the "scientism" devotees here in this forum reveal themselves to be the Spanish Inquisition all over again, lacking in the most basic appreciation of the subject's foundations.

You're comparing discussions on this forum to the Spanish Inquisition? That'd be like suggesting atheists are theists. Oh wait...


Tcg

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #57]

This is the reality, controversy, arguments and bitterness, people are people - science is not mathematics, it relies on interpretation as I've explained to Jose umpteen times. Interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation, interpretation...don't ever forget it!

The primary reason you seem to repeat this over and over is that it allows a ready response to anything you don't believe, as if all interpretations are equally valid and legitimate. Just say you have a different "interpretation" and that is sufficient to cast doubt on the consensus even if there is agreement by a huge majority of scientists based on overwhelming evidence.

It is no different than dad1's argument that we can't know anything about time or space (or physics) beyond distances we have not yet physically visited with a probe, or ourselves, and supporting that by absolutely nothing but personal opinion. Fortunately, science does not work on such flimsy and useless principles, and "interpretations" that are nonsense are usually discarded because they so clearly are just that.

[dad1]

Correction: you don’t know.

Correction: neither you nor science knows. Period. That is why you cannot show that it does.

They may work on something other than just physics. We do not know.

<bolding mine>

You don’t know.

One way to show you know is post the proof. Instead we see some shrill parroting nonsense. Remember that it is not I that claimed to know. That would be science.

Whatever could that be, I wonder? Are you going to offer any more information? Perhaps the semiconductors in my computer work by something other than physics too?

You are here in the fishbowl and time and space and laws are a certain way. That is not in question here. Try to focus.

I doubt it is that size

Because you have an alternate theory to share, perhaps?

[/quote]

If you have information that time is the same then share it. No alternates to 'you have no clue whatsoever' are needed!

There is no proper science for the unknown.

Because we should only do ‘proper science’ on things we know…

Is that you tacitly admitting you can't involve science because it doe not know and cannot cover it?

We wait for you to show us proper science

You can lead a horse to water….

Or you can pretend you posted water and that other posters simply won't drink the imaginary water. Would it be too much to ask that you be honest and actually address the topic and offer actual evidence and support? Pretending you did grows wearisome after awhile.