Talk:C-decay

VSOL[edit]

Is this concept different from the one mentioned in Variable speed of light? If it's not, this article could probably be merged into that one. Even if they are slightly different, this article might be best as a section of that article. Thoughts? --ParkerHiggins ^{( talk contribs )} 07:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the tardy reply (like, really tardy). VSOL "worked" during the inflationary period of the universe. During this time physics was somewhat different than it was today, and the very idea of "speed of light" is a bit questionable. It's also worth recalling that this period only 10-33 seconds. More importantly, this all took place before the visible universe existed. That means that the visible universe we see today is a result of, well, the visible universe we see today (see particle horizon). Every measurement we have taken demonstrates that the speed of light has remained constant since the formation of the visible universe.

If you're interested in understanding the theory behind the theory, you might want to look up an older book called "Cosmic Horizons". It doesn't cover inflation, but it doesn't really have to, it does cover the "basic idea" of cosmology really well though.

Maury 21:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

cutoff date[edit]

In Setterfield's paper he introduced a "cutoff date beyond which there is a zero rate of change", making the theory unfalsifiable by new observations of c.

Didn't Setterfield later realise that the observed cutoff date that he found in the data was due to the fact that all accurate measurements of the speed of light since the 1960s were done with atomic clocks, which slow down at the same rate as the speed of light they are measuring?

I'm sure he came up with some ad-hoc explanation, that's the way it goes. But many modern measures of the speed of light do not measure time at all. They measure the distance needed to make a standing wave at a particular frequency within a resonant cavity. The speed is calculated by dividing the length of the cavity by the frequency, sort of. Many of the modern measures in the immediate post-war era were made this way, due largely to the wartime invention of stable narrow-band oscillators used for radar. Maury 15:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trivial?[edit]

This seems like a fairly trivial topic, although I am not at all well-versed in the field. Should it be merged with another article? Wolfview (talk) 16:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Its only obvious home would be Creation Science, which is already a bit on the bulky side. On the flip side, the fact that no major creationist or creationist organisation appears to support it does argue against notability. Neither Setterfield nor c-decay appear to be mentioned in Numbers' The Creationists, which also argues against notability. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While in many ways it's difficult to judge anything that creationists say as notable (if, say, "having something to do with the real world" is an important consideration), I think this subject is perhaps one that suffers from having fallen out of favour within creationism. Talk.Origins says: "Setterfield's hypothesis, while initially embraced by the majority of the creationist community, received heavy criticism from the scientific establishment for several years since its introduction in 1981, and was finally rejected by the creationists themselves", and it's certainly a creationist idea that I remember being trumpeted in the past. For this reason, I think that it still has notability in terms of historical importance, and well-illustrates the nature of creationist thinking (much as old scientific theories are still informative if completely wrong). Further, I'm not sure how easy it would be to integrate it into another article, or what that other article would be. Anyway, either way the text could do with a bit more sourcing. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 17:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we can put our hands on some the "heavy criticism from the scientific establishment for several years" it would certainly raise both the notability and the verifiability of the article -- as it stands it feels more than a little soft. Incidentally, the ICR article TOA was quoting was from 1988 -- so it appears that the hypothesis has been on the outside of creationist views for at least 20 years, and that this criticism will be from the early 1980s (so may not be particularly accessible). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:18, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BTW. Why is the title of the article not capitalized? I thought this was standard for all WP articles. Is there something special about this word that it is always written in small letters? Wolfview (talk) 20:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because the constant for the speed of light in a vacuum, c, is conventionally expressed in lower case. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Does that trump WP's standard for titles to be capitalized? I don't know, but it does look kind of odd the way it is. Wolfview (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, any explicitly-lowercase-first-letter proper-noun remains lowercase in its Wikipedia article title -- e.g. arXiv. WP:NAME probably deals with this exception somewhere. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In passing, the way the article opens, which requires a capital "C" could be rephrased so that the lower case can be used instead. But to echo Hrafn's point, yes, article titles themselves should be capitalised (though, as is the case here, there are templates to deal with article subjects that should be lower case). --PLUMBAGO 10:24, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I just noticed that Creationist cosmologies would also be a potential merge target for this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 09:50, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it's already there. And, to be honest, what's currently here would probably be better off condensed to something more sensible and less flabby there (although I note that it's not the only CC to have its own article). Anyway, good find, and should I find the time at any point soon, I'll have a go at trying to squeeze it in over there. But I'm a little busy IRL at present, so it'll have to wait. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 10:24, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Creationist cosmologies already had a merger proposal (though one lacking a talk discussion section) with Starlight problem -- which also contains info on c-decay. So I've set up a combined merger discussion on Talk:Creationist cosmologies. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]