I doubt that these authors claim that light per se is the 'cosmic clock',
because such a claim is quite misleading. A better way to put the
situation is that the processes that *make or produce* light waves can be
thought of as clocks. The light wave after it is made just reveals the
time kept by the processes that made the light. The light is just sort
of the illuminated dial of the 'clock' processes that made the light. As
the wavelength & frequency of a light wave changes from place to place
due to local geometric distortions of spacetime the local frequency
(red)shift factor indicates the difference in the relevant rates of time
as measured by the 'light production' process/clock and time as kept
by a local observer (once the Doppler effects, the effects of the
expansion of space, and the effects of gravitational fields are properly
separated out and individually accounted for).
>Since sunlight waves reach earth stretching longer by 2.12 parts in a
>million relative to similar light waves generated on earth, the rate at
>which they reach us is lowered by 2.12 parts/million. For every million
>earth seconds, the sunās clock loses 2.12 seconds relative to our clock
>here on this planet. And this is 2.12 parts/million equal 67 seconds/yr
>which is the exact amount predicted by the laws of relativity (sunās
>surface gravity is 30 times greater than earthās. This means than in one
>earth-year, a sun-based clock would tick one year minus 67 seconds).
All the numbers here seem to be quite correct. *But* the parenthetical
statement above is irrelevant to the discussion. It's true that the
Sun's surface gravity is about 30 x that of Earth, but the surface
gravity is completely irrelevant to the problem (i.e. the relative
gravitational time dilation on the Sun's surface compared to that on the
Earth). Rather than the surface gravity, the most relevant quantity is
the difference in *gravitational potential* between the solar surface and
the Earth.
>Now, there are so many places where we could place a clock that ticked so
>slow, that 15+ billion earth years would pass while it recorded only 6 24
>hour periods. So to get an equality between six Genesis days and 15+
>billion earth years is not a problem.
About this I would echo what Glenn said below:
>Sure, just above an event horizon for a black hole would do the trick. The
>only problem was that the bible is not talking about a black hole, but
>about earth history. You can also get a clock to slowdown if you change
>the gear ratios. But so what. The Bible isn't talking about clocks, but
>evenings and mornings. This is about as ad hoc solution to the problem of
>the 6 days as I have seen.
I would also point out that this ad hoc solution is very arbitrarily
finely-tuned. Consider a typical 3 solar mass (non-rotating) black hole
Such a hole has a Schwarzschild radius of about 8.9 km but the location
where the time dilation factor is the necessary (6 day)/(15 x 10^9 yr) =
1.095 x 10^(-12) corresponds to a radius which is merely * 19 nm * above
the event horizon (in proper radial distance). If you picked any other
distance above the event horizon you could get just about any time
dilation factor you wished for. Just changing the location of this
arbitrary observation point a tiny bit would wildly change the time
dilation factor. There is no natural (or even mildly compelling) reason
to claim that the time scale described in Gen. 1 should correspond to
that found at 19 nm above the event horizon of a 3 solar mass black hole.
>So if you'll ask me: was the universe created in six days, I'll answer yes.
>
>Or if you'll ask me: is the universe 15+ billion years old, I'll answer yes.
Apparently Dario should be willing to answer 'yes' to just about any
other time interval for creation as well (from infinitesimally above zero
to over 15 x 10^9 yr).
>I'll send you the page numbers, don't worry about it. So, what am I
>doing incorrectly. Professor G. Schroeder was the one who came up the
>numbers and calculations. If there are errors in what I wrote, what are
>they?
The numbers are fine, but the reference to surface gravity is a red
herring though.
David Bowman
dbowman@georgetowncollege.edu