Tuesday, September 8, 2009

To Creationists



Isn’t it just so glamorous to show that the Earth had begun 6000 years ago using Einstein’s theory of Relativity? And the brazen use of calculus- the limit was so difficult to comprehend wasn’t it?
Let’s deconstruct his argument one by one, shall we?
1)The MOST BASIC ASSUMPTION IN RELATIVITY- THE BASIS OF THE ENTIRE THEORY- is that time is not absolute. You went wrong when you said that time was absolute. That is why it is called relativity!!!

2)Yes, we can see stars that are more than 6000 light years away- what is a light year? It is the distance light covers in a vacuum in one year. The speed of light in a vacuum is constant- not in any other media- and this is why we have refraction- any high school text will tell you that the relative speeds of light in different media with a common boundary are given by Snell’s law- look it up JD777.

3)You keep on mentioning that time is absolute- it isn’t by relativity- it has also been proven by many experiments- take a pair of atomic clocks and then take one in a flight around the world and leave one behind- there will be a difference in the time they show- it was even shown for public television, in the Christmas lectures 99 in the UK. Try and find that experiment on youtube, if you can.

4)The Earth has not been around for the entire duration of the Universe. It has been there for around a third of that time. The age of the universe has been found accurately using the COBE explorer that mapped the cosmic background radiation of the universe, which will be a few degrees above absolute zero. Dating of meteorites has shown the age of the solar system to be around 4568.8 +- 10 mya. And if you don’t like dating, like so many creationists, then forget about nuclear radiation from the nuclear waste that are kept in lead containers from the power plants that provide you (or at least someone else, if not you) with electricity, or the horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs- the fallout is what I meant, not just the blast. If you think that Ar-Ar dating or K-Ar dating methods are wrong, then you can go and live with a flask of radium for the rest of your lives- which will be rather short then. The rates of decay are constant- it’s been tested in every possible condition in the lab, high/low pressure, temperature, diverse chemical environments and many, many more. The half life has always been constant! So your point that the Earth has been there forever is FALSE!

5)Ah, yes everyone loves a bit of calculus to show that they know something that you don’t! Let’s take a look at what you have written in the first line:

t’ = 1/g
lim g->0 t’ =∞ .

Are you mad?
What the fuck is g? How the fuck is that equation right, when clearly the dimensions are totally wrong. The dimension of a quantity is the unit we ascribe to it. For example, if you weigh, say 170 pounds, the pounds is a dimension- it is a unit of mass that we use to measure your mass. It can also be said that you weigh around 83 kilograms – also a dimension with a different unit of mass measurement. Pounds, stone, kilograms all measure the same thing- mass. Similarly, we have miles per hour, kilometres per hour, meters per second- they all measure velocity or speed (Creationist alert- I know they are not the same- I am a Mechanical Engineer). So relationships can be ascribed using three units or more- we choose mass, time, length and temperature as the units that we base our systems on- it can also be any units that we choose- if you have a problem with them speak to your National Board of Standards. If relativity were so easy (and erroneous!) then high school kids can make predictions about the universe with gay abandon- put some effort into your mathematics and physics, sir, before judging them and drawing conclusions from them- Learn Tensor Calculus, Topology and Probability theory before you attempt Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. To tell where you have gone wrong, you have equated a force with time- MAJOR ERROR!!!! And moreover, what the fuck is g? The gravitational force? Or the gravitational constant on the Earth? Or the universal gravitational constant, G (which may not be a constant at all!)? Even the dimensions of the constants are all wrong in that equation- find the constants and then see their dimensions!

6)You also keep saying that gravity in a black hole is infinitely large- this is only partly true- because it so, only once we enter the Event Horizon- the distance wherein the effects of the gravitational field of the black hole are so powerful, that even light cannot escape. There are many several radii of a black hole depending on the rotation of the black hole- the simplest radius is the Schwarzschild Radius. AND TIME IS RELATIVE!!! It is only infinite for the poor chap who falls inside the black hole- not anyone else outside of it- for them, their time goes on as usual- affected by their own velocities of course! And please be more concise with your relation; it is not ct=d, it is this:

∆s^2 = c^2∆t^2 -∆x^2 -∆y^2 -∆z^2
Your equation assumes absolute time- wrong again!

There are so many effects of this relation that you need a text book on general relativity and special relativity to know it all- try Hobson, Efstathiou and Lasenby- General Relativity: An introduction to Physicists. It’s highly technical, so don’t bother anyways!

7)If light travels infinitely fast, between galaxies, then wouldn’t everything happen infinitely fast in between the galaxies and because of that wouldn’t the universe end and wouldn’t Judgement Day come sooner for a person in a spaceship? Or even for the two Voyagers, may I add? And moreover, with your equation, with t->∞, wouldn’t light have a speed of zero?? So much so for the constancy of the speed of light in vacuum!!! And if you assumed at the very beginning of the video that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, how can light travel infinitely fast in vacuum?

8)And finally you said that the time in space is 2 million times that observed on earth. Are you a dolt? Firstly, time can only be relative to an observer!!! Note that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference! And by your “calculations”, that is not so! And more over, if time measured in space tends to infinity, then your factor is not two million times, it bloody infinity! Do the math- but of course you can't!
What an odious cretin this fellow is!

5 comments:

  1. you lost me completely! i seriously dont understand your idea of this post. could you clarify?

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  2. Did you see the video link? I am assuming that you didn't- the entire post is about that video. Let me provide a basic background. Many conservatives in the US and in many parts of the world are taking to evangelistic christianity in a big way. They refute evolution, the big bang, nuclear physics and geology and they usse half baked arguments to say that science is wrong- the most damaging part is that they want genesis as in the bible to be taught in their schools. The video is an attempt by one of the more popular creationists, until he disappeared to "God knows where" **sarcasm**, to prove mathematically that the Earth cannot be older than 6000 years. I want the post to do two things- I want people to be made aware that such tosh is available and the second is that I want them to go vocal against the said tosh. Hope that clarifies my position here! Cheers!

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  3. Secondly, I had to get this out. He disabled comments on the video and ratings. I could not point it out there- I know there are folks from the States reading this- I just want them to spread the word...

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  4. PS- found out that you are a grad student in the US- you would know all about the bible belt folks!

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  5. oops, the video never showed up when i logged on my uni computer. strange.

    by the way,i never take these evangelists seriously.

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