Tag: expansion of space

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astronomy Cosmology Creation/evolution Physics

Scripture and a static universe biblical creation cosmogony

2007_0507Image0132In regards to concepts relating to the Universe being static, that is, it is not expanding as is most commonly believed, I received the following email comment from a friend. His comments are in green text below.
I am curious what you think about Job 37:18:
 “Can you, like him, spread [Hebrew: רָקַע raqa`] out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?”
I have been looking at the equations for small bending of a thin plate under distributed load and they look the same as the GR equations in the case of weak fields if you treat the load on the plate as the gravitating mass and treat mechanical strain as the gravitational potential scaled by c-2. 
So, could raqia be a thin plate rather than a membrane? A plate supports load due to resistance to bending, while a membrane supports load due to tension and the edges. In contrast, plate does not need such tension. The only challenge is that plates aren’t easy to roll like a tent curtain, but Job 37:18 suggests that bending a hard thing isn’t a problem for God.
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Cosmology Physics

Is the Universe expanding?

I am often asked this question: Is the Universe expanding?

690958main_p1237a1Previously I have challenged the notion expansion of space or expansion of the Universe as an interpretation of cosmic redshifts. The whole notion is integrally linked with the standard big bang model for the origin and history of the Universe. Also I have written that the interpretation of cosmological redshifts, as resulting from expansion of space, is just another big bang fudge factor. Quite obviously if the Universe is not expanding then there was no big bang. Hence the expanding universe must be vigorously defended by those who hold to such beliefs.

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Cosmology Creation/evolution hermeneutics Physics

Faulkner’s miraculous translation of light model would leave evidence

Critique of Faulkner’s proposal for a solution to the biblical creationist light-travel-time problem. Article first published by Answers Research Journal 7 (2014):459–460. PDF available here. Dr Faulkner’s response and PDF available here.

In 2013 D.R. Faulkner proposed what he says is a new solution1 to the biblical creationist starlight-travel-time problem. That can be simply put this way: If the universe is so large, for which little doubt amongst biblical creationists, and we know the universe is only about 6000 years old, then how do we see distant light sources more than 6000 light-years away? Even more so, how did Adam on Day 6 see astronomical objects more than 2 light-days away, which includes all stars except for the sun?

Faulkner’s proposal, for which the author himself admittedly provides little substantive description, from what I can gather, has two key features:

  1. God miraculous accelerated (the author writes “shoot”) light across the cosmos so that we are seeing real events from the distant sources in real time;  “…, light from the astronomical bodies was miraculously made to “shoot” its way to the earth at an abnormally accelerated rate ….”;2  and
  2. the mechanism for the latter has something to do with God stretching out the heavens (like has been referred to in biblical verses including Isaiah 40:22); “In my view the intervening space was stretched to bring the light rapidly to earth. Soon after this event, probably still on Day Four, space assumed the properties that it appears to have today.”3
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astronomy Cosmology Creation/evolution Physics

Expansion of space – a Dark Science

 Abstract: “Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and He that formed you from the womb, I am the LORD that makes all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreads abroad the earth by Myself;” (Isaiah 44:24 KJVER) Scriptural texts like this have been used by biblical creationists to justify God creating an expanding cosmos. Aside from arguing that the scriptures do indeed describe cosmological expansion, I contend that expansion of space is of itself not tenable as a mechanism for the expansion of the Universe, as often cited with the famous rubber balloon analogy. Relativity theory, properly applied, tells us that detection of the expansion of space by any local measurement is not possible. And if the æther is the substance of the Universe that has supposedly expanded, with the galaxies embedded therein, then it is fundamentally undetectable. This assigns cosmology firmly to the realms of philosophy and metaphysics.  Article first published by Answers Research Journal 7 (2014):453–458. PDF available here.

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Categories
Cosmology History Physics

Big Bang Fudge Factors

Hubble-universe
Alleged history of the Universe (from wikipedia)

The big bang model, used to describe the observations made in the universe, according to its advocates, now precisely has determined the history of the Universe. See left graphic. Yet to do so it is filled with unproveable fudge factors. That may sound like an exaggerated claim but it seems to be the state of cosmology today. (This article was edited and updated from my article ‘Cosmology is not even astrophysics,’ originally published 3 December 2008, creation.com.)

This situation has come about because of the unverifiable starting assumptions are inherently wrong! Some brave physicists have had the temerity to challenge the ruling paradigm—the standard big bang ΛCDM inflation cosmology.1 One of those is Prof. Richard Lieu, astrophysicist, of the Department of Physics, University of Alabama, who wrote:2

‘Cosmology is not even astrophysics: all the principal assumptions in this field are unverified (or unverifiable) in the laboratory … .’ [emphasis added]

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