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Starlight and Time: Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe

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The thrust of Humphreys' book is to come up with a modified cosmology that allows for a very young earth within a very old universe. His proposal is that gravitational time dilation accounts for this vast difference in ages between the earth and the universe. At the core of this proposal is a requirement for a great difference in gravitational force between that experienced at the earth and that experienced in the rest of the universe. This is due to the huge time dilation effect Humphreys requires. For he says that in one 24-hour day of Earth time, the distant stars age billions of years (page 126 of [1]). This requires a time dilation in the order of 10 raised to the 11th power. On it's very face this argument presents a serious problem. If we assume the gravitational force is normal in the rest of the universe, then the force at the earth is so high as to crush everything including the earth itself. If we assume the gravitational force is normal at the earth, then a high repulsive force is required in the rest of the universe, virtually eliminating any possibility that matter coalesces to form stars, planets, galaxies, etc. Put simply, the observable universe does not fit with Humphreys theory.

This is further borne out in the mathematics. Humphreys' theory relies heavily on a very large cosmological constant (which actually varies with time according to Humphreys, see pages 91 and 124 of [1]) for the rapid expansion of the universe during the first few days on earth. There are two main problems with this line of reasoning. One, a very large cosmological constant precludes Newton's theory of gravitation being approximately true. This is clearly shown in Humphreys' own references. Einstein himself (page 186 of [2]) qualifies the introduction of the constant by saying "This field equation, with lambda (mathematical symbol for the cosmological constant) sufficiently small, is in any case also compatible with the facts of experience derived from the solar system." In Weinberg's words (page 155 of [3]) this constant "must be very small so as not to interfere with successes of Newton's theory of gravitation." Two, Humphreys requires that this constant vary (see pages 91, 124, and 126 of [1]) in direct conflict with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. For Einstein says (page 186 of [2]) in his original paper that the field equation may be expanded by adding the fundamental tensor "multiplied by a universal constant" so as not to destroy the "general covariance." Rindler states (page 200 of [4]) it most clearly when he says "within the Newtonian formalism, the coefficients A and B could be functions of time -- for example, they could be linked to the density of an expanding universe. In Einstein's theory, on the other hand, lambda (mathematical symbol for the cosmological constant) has no freedom but to be an absolute constant of nature."

In summary, Humphreys' own references contradict his theory and rather than being consistent with General Relativity, Humphreys' theory stands in direct conflict with it. Without major modifications, Humphreys' theory is destined to join the growing list of young-earth cosmological theories that have all failed to pass "scientific muster."

Michael Glidewell, Ph.D.

References

[1] D. R. Humphreys, Starlight and Time, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 1994.

[2] A. Einstein, et. al., The Principle of Relativity, Dover Publications, NY, 1952.

[3] S. Weinberg, Gravitation and Cosmology, Wiley and Sons, NY, 1972.

[4] W. Rindler, Essential Relativity, 2nd Ed, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1977.

Starlight and Time proposes to solve the "light travel time problem" by postulating the existence of past gravitational time dilation in a bounded universe. This time dilation would, it is proposed, cause clocks to run slower on Earth than in distant galaxies, allowing light to travel billions of light years from distant galaxies during the passage of only a few thousand years on Earth. This is a very creative idea, but close examination of the physics shows that it does not work. Humphreys' time dilation proposal could work if the universe were static (that is, neither expanding nor contracting), but the universe is, in fact, dynamic --- it is expanding. More distant galaxies are receding from Earth more rapidly than nearby galaxies. This differential motion produces a differential time dilation effect ("moving clocks run slower") which exactly counterbalances the gravitational time dilation effect so that all clocks in the universe, whether on Earth or on distant galaxies, run at the same rate as the universe expands. There is no differential ageing of the outer parts of a bounded expanding universe compared with the center. This identity of the time-keeping properties of clocks on Earth and on distant galaxies is easily established by calculation of the relevant clock rates with respect to the expansion of the universe from the spacetime metric. Humphreys neglects to perform these calculations and ends up misleading himself and his readers. Starlight and Time was made public in 1994 as an attempt to reconcile "young-earth" recent creation theology with the evidences of astronomy that the universe is very large and very old. The theory has since attracted critical analysis which shows it to be false. The first of these analyses was published in Bible Science News, 9/95. A second analysis was published in the 6/97 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly. Still other analyses have been submitted to a number of Creationist organizations. Readers who are not familiar with General Relativity theory should not trustingly accept the conclusions of this book. It is flawed by a number of serious misunderstandings of relativity theory. Readers interested in the details of these flaws may consult the above-mentioned references. In fact, there are a number straightforward theorems which can be derived from Relativity theory which show that 1) If Humphreys' model of the universe is correct, then there can be no visible objects further away than about 6000 light years and 2) the redshifts of distant objects should be rapidly decreasing at the present time. Both of these predictions are found to be seriously in error. 1) The most distant observed objects are about 10 billion light years away (a distance estimate which Humphreys explicitly affirms). The upper limit on the distance of visible objects in Humphreys' model is only about one fourth of the distance to the Milkly Way, clearly an impossible prediction. 2) The observed upper limits on redshift changes in extragalactic objects is millions of times smaller than the rate of change predicted by Humphreys' model. These two predictions are consequences of any young-universe relativistic model, regardless of the precise details. Consequently, this entire class of model of the universe is ruled out by the observed properties of the universe.

I've been discussing this book with my Cosmology professor. I have to admit that this book is not universally accepted in the scientific arena, and there are obvious reasons for that--Humphreys attempts to prove that cosmological data can fit the Biblical interpretation of a young universe made only 6,000 years ago. However, it has to be admitted that Humphreys presents some things to at least seriously consider.

The goal of the book is the help resolve the apparent contradiction of starlight and a young universe. If light can only travel at a set speed, then how can we see stars made only 6,000 years ago when it should take a lot longer for us to see them?

Humphreys proposed that the theory of general relativity can allow for time dilation to slow down earth time in relation to the rest of creation, so that while the earth might have been created in six literal earth days, the universe was expanding for thousands of years. Time dilation is supported by Einstein's theory of general relativity. According to the theory of relativity, time slows down as objects approach the speed of light.

Regardless of whether or not the speed of light can change, as proposed by Barry Setterfield, Russell Humphrey's main objection to the Big Bang theory is that it is based on certain presuppositions, like whether the universe is bounded, which is fair to say.

Other scientists argue that the Big Bang cosmology predicts that clock rates change only about 10% to the furthest galaxies. However, the young-universe models do not follow the standard Big Bang(black hole) predictions to begin with. The question may not be "How much has the speed of light changed?" but "How fast has time changed?" Also, at the point of singularity, it is impossible to say whether or not the same laws of physics would apply.

The book has been under a lot of discussion, and suggests an interesting idea, though time will tell if the theory can hold. It should be noted that the author has worked for Sandia National Laboratories in nuclear physics, geophysics, pulsed power research, theoretical atomic and nuclear physics, and the Particle Beam Fusion Project. My cosmology professor's complaint was that if the speed of light changed and time slowed down, then that might present problems with atomic structure, but it seems as though this author should know a lot about that from working in atomic and nuclear physics, considering the author's credentials.

I can think of a few Bible verses that could support his application of General Relativity to creation. My only complaint was that I prefer not to interpret Genesis as saying that the earth is at the center of the universe, as Humphrey's idea suggests--though he does admit that his interpretation of how Creation might have unfolded is purely speculation.

Anyway, his ideas on GR certainly leaves room for other possibilities. The book is a quick reading that definitely gives the reader some interesting things to think about.

Humphreys tells us some interesting results of general relativity and the Big Bang theory. His description of conventional theory is mostly correct, and may motivate the interested reader to go on and study astrophysics further. However, this is the only good part of his book.

Astronomy provides the most obvious proof of an old universe: Astronomers have discovered a universe billions of light-years across, full of galaxies and galaxy clusters, and even larger structures. If the universe were only 6000 years old, we would not see anything farther than 6000 light-years away -- a small section of our galaxy and an infinitessimal point of the universe.

Humphreys attempts to use general relativity to explain how the earth could be only six thousand years old, at the same time that the rest of the universe is old enough for its light to reach us. According to general relativity, the deeper you are in a gravity well, the slower time goes. Humphreys theory is that God created the universe as a white hole. During the fourth day of creation, the white hole was next to (or inside) the earth, so only one day passed by on earth while thousands to billions of years passed by in the rest of the universe.

Unfortunately, Humphreys uses the white hole in his theory only to slow down time on the earth, and does not consider *any* other physical consequenses of a white hole adjacent or inside the earth. What would be the gravitational effect on the earth, other planets, the sun, other stars, our galaxy, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies? Humphreys wrote on page 9 that our galaxy is "a very typical galaxy." Would a typical galaxy have an object many orders of magnitde more massive than the rest of the galaxy, near the edge?

A white hole shrinks by spewing matter out. Would the earth survive the blast from the white hole, much hotter and much closer than the sun? Would the sun and the rest of the solar system survive? How fast does the matter emerge from the hole? Where did the matter go, and why don't we see it?

Humphreys makes other mistakes. Some would be recognized only by those who've learned general relativity. Others should be recognized by one who has passed college freshman physics. He made at least one elementary mistake in nuclear physics, Humphreys' immediate field of research (pp. 33 and 75).

He attempts to match his white hole theory with the Bible, but his "straight-forward" reading of the first chapter of Genesis is as pathological as anything that I've seen, including Hugh Ross's "literal" reading.

I suppose I should be happy, in a way, at the fights between the young-earth creationists and the "progressive" or old-earth creationists. The fights divert energy from their fight against evolution and science, may help discredit both young-earth and old-earth creationists, and possibly give us a laugh as well: "2 + 2 = 17!" "No, 5!" "17!" "5!" Unfortunately, truth is a casualty as well.

My pastor (a great guy) gave this to me when I expressed my skepticism about literal creationism because of the starlight problem. I found this to be a depressing act of desperation. If this is the best that the creationists can come up with - bad science, muddled thinking, and outrageous science fantasy scenarios that can never be tested, it is a very sad commentary on creationists. As far as intellectual integrity goes, this book is disgusting.

1. Humphreys himself admits that astrophysics and cosmology are not his fields of physics, and that (due to its lack of application to his own field) he had neglected the general theory of relativity since graduate school. Commenting on his study of Setterfield's unsuccessful attempt to explain distant starlight by changes to the speed of light, Humphreys wrote:

"The monograph [by Barry Setterfield] revived my interest in Einstein's general theory of relativity, which I had neglected since graduate school. Physicists like me often use Einstein's special theory of relativity dealing with the effects of high speeds and have found it indispensable. Few of us have occasion to use general relativity, which deals with effects of gravity and acceleration not easily attainable in the laboratory. But it is an essential tool for astrophysics and cosmology."
(...)

2. Those who know and understand the general theory of relativity and who are experts in the physics addressed by "Starlight and Time" have found unrepairable errors and fundamental misunderstandings in the ideas of this book, and have published refutations.
(...)

3. In a more recent defense called "New Vistas of Spacetime Rebut the Critics", Humphreys quietly abandons key ideas that were presented in the book "Starlight and Time". Under scrutiny, even Humphreys does not stand by key points of the theory of the original book! His attempts at revision are also fatally flawed.
(...)

It is sad to see that this book is still sold. Humphreys is outside of his field and those who understand this subject well have consistently found his understanding to be incorrect.

The problem is not that he is controversial. The primary problem is that he does not understand the theory that he is incorrectly trying to use, and even some who are committed to the young earth position have acknowledged this. (...)

The absurdities necessary to sustain a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) worldview are literally cosmological in scope as "Starlight and Time" painfully attests. Forcibly mating biblically induced fundamentalist dogma and magical thinking with General Relativity and Cosmology is an act of intellectual and scientific rape - but contemporary YECs never have let their sense of morals prevent them from doing what is 'right.'

"Starlight and Time" purports to show how light could travel billions of light years from distant astronomical objects during the passage of only a few thousand years of Earth time. Even YECs admit that the universe is vast - beyond any biblical cosmology however burlesque their exegetical exertions - but dogmatically refuse to cede that the earth is old - a paradox of their own making, a single snowflake in the blizzard of ignorance that typifies so-called 'creation science.'

The author, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, posits an alternative cosmology to solve the light travel time problem and assuage febrile creationist sensibilities. Although Humphreys is a physicist, he is untrained in General Relativity or Cosmology, and it shows. His white hole cosmology has been reviewed and found universally wanting by the reality-based scientific community and old earth creationists! Even YEC stalwarts, who routinely swallow shallow sacro-scientific swill, entertain substantial doubts, although leading purveyors of misinformation such as Answers in Genesis (AiG) and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) continue to disingenuously pimp "Starlight and Time" - even while they subtly admit that it is ultimately flawed.

Humphreys jettisons the cosmological principle in favor of a non-uniform universe that takes the shape of a sphere with a finite radius. In this metaphysical morass only charitably described as a model 'god' stretches a primordial black hole, located at the center of the sphere, and by so doing magically converts it into a white hole with bizarre time dilation consequences. Essentially Humphrey's model enshrines numerous misconceptions about what the Big Bang actually says about the origin of the universe.

He then attempts to determine the physical consequences by applying General Relativity to the resulting matter distribution, and claims that gravitational time dilation causes time to pass more quickly the further you are from the center of the universe. By placing the earth close to the center of the cosmos, Humphreys claims to solve a fundamental problem for Young Earth Creationists - reconciling the numerous lines of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old (+/- 200 million years) universe with their biblical claim that the earth was only created some 6,000 to 12,000 years ago.

The gospel-motivated gerrymandering of General Relativity hawked in "Starlight and Time" places the earth and a white hole, the inverse of a black hole (white holes emit matter and energy, black holes voraciously ingest matter) at the center of the universe. Humphreys traipses over the inconvenient fact that X-ray and energetic particle emissions from a nearby white hole would incinerate the earth, but happily for the planet no observational evidence of a nearby white hole has been discovered - another laughable lacuna. Other problems stem from a bizarre misapplication of time dilation; for time to pass more quickly in the distant reaches of space earth would need to be close to a black hole, not a white hole. Humphreys later tried to revive his moribund model by positing a time dilation effect inside the white hole, but this approach was equally unphysical. His faith-based fantasies also fail to explain astronomical observations ranging from the cosmic microwave background radiation and its anisotropy to light element abundance. Amateur-hour apologetic astrophysics ala Humphreys fails to correlate with reality and can be safely discarded.

Humphreys' findings are, to borrow a phrase from the Nobel Prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, "not even wrong." Humphreys later publication "New Vistas of Spacetime Rebut the Critics" orphans his original arguments by inventing fresh fallacies to replace his former fantasies - an unfortunate pattern that permeates all of his work.

Ultimately Humphreys is wrestling with a preposterous hypothesis. His failure is spectacular and totally expected. Any YEC universe consistent with General Relativity must display extraordinarily rapid decreases in the observed redshifts of distant galaxies and cannot contain visible objects which are more than a few thousand light years away!

The redshift anomalies predicted are not observed and objects billions and billions of light years away are routinely surveyed and cataloged. General Relativity and the Big Bang as utilized by reality-based mainstream science trumps the hermit hermeneutics endemic to the 'genesis is an incontrovertible history of the universe' claque of credulous YECs.

If you enjoy convoluted and elastic reasoning as an art form, or wish to build a library of classic YEC calumnies and conceits by all means purchase "Starlight and Time" - it is a tendentious treasure. By any other metrics the demon haunted universe is brain dead and so is this book.

For a reality-based look at the cosmos try The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe by Steven Weinberg or Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes by Alex Vilenkin.

How can we see light from stars billions away if the Bible says that creation occurred in six consecutive normal days?

Dr Russell Humphreys, a nuclear physicist working with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, provides a fascinating answer. He has developed a new cosmology which uses the same theoretical foundation as all modern cosmologies including the 'big-bang': Einstein's theory of general relativity. Dr Humphreys changes one assumption in the 'big bang' cosmology, and that is that matter in the universe is unbounded, that is, all space is completely filled with matter. This is *not* how non-experts normally imagine the cosmos. The 'big bang' is based on another assumption called the *cosmological principle*, which states that an observer's view of the universe depends neither on the direction in which he looks nor on his location. He replaces those assumptions with another -- a universe whose matter is bounded, that is, matter surrounded by empty space for some distance beyond the matter. That is how non-experts normally imagine the cosmos, but *not* how expert 'big bang' cosmologists picture it.

The importance of General relativity is that it teaches us that time is not the same everywhere in this universe, but instead can run at very different rates. Indeed, Einstein's theory of general relativity indicates that the rate at which time passes depends on the strength of the surrounding gravitational field. With certain initial conditions at the Creation, a literal day or two could have passed on the Earth while from 'the light's point of view', it had millions or even billions of years to get here. So the entire universe was created in six ordinary Earth-rotation days, 6,000 years ago by earth clocks. Such things are possible as a consequence of general relativity, which simply is a description of the universe as valid as we are able to currently determine.

So far, his cosmological model has withstood all sceptical attacks to date -- he has firmly refuted Rossite attacks in the CEN Technical Journal, and the attacks and his answers are posted on the Answers in Genesis site. Many of these bibliosceptics don't even realise the unproven *philosophical assumption* behind the 'big bang', and fail to realise that it's equally physically valid to use Dr Humphreys' alternative assumption.

Dr Humphreys' book is written at a layman's level, but has a technical appendix. Dr Humphreys is humble enough not to believe that his model is necessarily the final word, but that Christians should base their faith on the Bible, which is the final Word of One who was there and knows everything.

There is a humorous side to this book and its VHS counterpart. Dr. Humphreys stands there holding a Bible (on VHS), published by "Through the Bible Radio Network" with notes by Dr. J. Vernon McGee. (The cover and logo on the Bible are clearly visible in the video.) In the notes on Genesis Dr. McGee clearly states (refering to Genesis) " . . . the first 11 chapters cover a minimum of 2000 years. It could easily be a thousand times longer." That's a direct quote! And that is from a leading Christian Bible scholar, evangelical, creationist, and teacher. . . heard 'round the world and translated into many languages. I have heard Dr. McGee many times (in person) and he clearly thought that the universe could easily be "trillions" of years old, without any problem with the Bible's teaching. McGee said God is not limited . . . He can take as long as He wishes. McGee was a Greek and Hebrew scholar. The book, "Starlight and Time" is pathetic with nothing to offer except, maybe, amusement as to how far a "young earther" will go to "twist" a view to fit observed facts and the Truth of the Bible (as he mis-understands it).

This book is very typical of creationist garbage. The statements it makes are not testable, thus, they cannot be theories (as defined in the scientific sense). The ideas presented have never been submitted to a scholarly journal for review of the scientists that could truly understand them. Thus, it appears that Starlight and Time is just another case of a creationist trying to hide his work from those that can truly understand the flaws, until he has a large enough cult following to have it supported no matter what the evidence against it.In addition, the ideas presented in this book have already been debunked (and made available FREE on the web, unlike this book, at http://www.trueorigin.org/rh_connpage1.pdf).

And for those that may feel inclined to fall prey to the rehashed and flawed arguments that have been presented in other reviews, I suggest you visit talkorigins.org and see how those poorly made statements have been debunked as well.