Setterfield's c-decay and the frequency of light

From: Shepherd Moon (shepherdmoon_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/30/04 

Date: 30 Nov 2004 14:25:09 -0800

Hello,

I'm involved in a debate regarding the creationist Barry Setterfield's
claim that the speed of light was much higher in the past and has
decayed following some kind of exponential decay curve. His conclusion
is that the universe is really only about 6,000 years old but looks
much older due to the changes in light speed from very fast (~10
million times c) to its current value.

The subject has been brought up in several posts at talk.origins,
sci.physics, sci.physics.relativity, and I'm sure other places too, so
I won't go into all the details. But in case anyone is new to this,
the much-cited article is here:

The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time
http://www.ldolphin.org/setterfield/report.html

There's also some other material here:

Implications of a Non-Constant Velocity of Light
http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkconseq.html

I think there are serious problems with the way Setterfield presents
his data, but I think I have a handle on how to approach the
statistical issues. What I am less certain about is the light physics
involved. So, my questions are as follows:

Does anyone have the following information in usable form (as far as I
can tell it is either buried in Setterfield's article or just
presently over my head)? I have three questions and I really have
tried hard to sort them out, but I'm not an expert and I would greatly
appreciate any help you can give.

1. Can anyone provide the actual, exact Setterfield decay equation
with what each of the variables is? And, if possible, a worked-out
example or two showing how c is obtained for say, the year 2004, the
year 1, and the year 1000 BC or somewhere around there?

2. Setterfield apparently claims that hc is constant, where h is
Planck's constant and c is the speed of light. Thus h and c are
inversely proportional, such that whenever one increases the other
decreases. Can anyone point me to the raw data that Setterfield has
published showing the values for h so they can be graphed against the
c decay data for the inverse proportion correlation? I know his report
has a table of h as part of an equation, but I'm more interested in h
alone, specifically whether h would have had to be 10 million times
smaller when c was 10 million times higher, and the resulting
implications.

3. The energy of a photon is given as follows:
E = hf where E is energy, h is Planck's constant and f is frequency
(or equivalently E = hc/w where w is wavelength)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon

My opponent's contention (or rather his explanation of Setterfield's
contention) is that although photon energy remained the same as c
decayed, the frequency changed while the wavelength remained the same,
which is balanced out by the speed of light's changes.

My question here has two perspectives, physical and logical:
Physical: How is it possible for the frequency of light to change
without the wavelegnth also changing? Can this be determined from the
electric and magnetic components of a light wave, i.e., some specific
property that says that for each wavelength there is one and only one
frequency?

Logical: Is it begging the question for my opponent to base the
explanation for the frequency changing on the changes in c, since he
justifies the frequency only change on a changing c -- when whether c
changed is what is at issue? Maybe this is not a logical fallacy, but
it just doesn't seem right to me. Yet I can't articulate the exact
problem.

Help if you can! It's really bugging me not being able to clarify
these issues. I'm not a math expert but math is OK if you want to show
it or point me to the right books. I'm motivated to figure this out.

Thanks.

Regards,
Shepherdmoon

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