The Age of the Universe Depends on WhereYou Are

My wife and I sometimes enjoy watching nature programs on cable television about life in the sea or life in Africa.  During the show, usually sometime close to the beginning of the program we will hear the narrator mention how many millions of years ago a species came into existence and what the species evolved from. There is never an explanation of the basis for the claim; it is simply stated as fact. This post is not an attempt to debate the controversy of humans evolving from lower animals. We will certainly blog about that at a later time. This post is to educate the reader about the methods devised to determine how old something is and the assumptions that are made to support these methods.

 According to secular scientist, it is settled that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. A variety of “scientific” methods have been developed to support these claims. One thing we plan to do is to interview college students and ask their opinion as to the age of the Earth and ask them to explain how they arrived at their opinion. We will publish these results in a later blog.

Let us begin at the beginning and discuss the age of the universe. In the book, Starlight and Time, Dr. Russell Humphreys explains that the measure of time in the universe is not the same everywhere; in fact, time passes at different rates depending on factors including the magnitude of the force of gravity. The accepted theory of Black Holes in the universe is that any object or even light sucked into a Black Hole cannot escape because of the massive force of gravity. In other words, the velocity of light is not a constant. This understood theory means that light will travel at a much slower rate under the influence of massive amounts of gravity. Dr. Humphreys' theory is that the creation event took place in the vicinity of where the earth now resides and that the entire mass of the universe was centered here. As the universe rapidly expanded, time passed much faster away from the center of mass. As the universe expanded, time would pass faster as the mass increased its distance from the center of gravity. If you were able to be on the outside edge of this expansion, the rate of the passage of time would not seem unusual to you just as it would not seem unusual to someone left behind at the center of gravity. Both would experience time passing at a normal rate but there would be a vast comparative difference. In other words, one could experience 13.7 billion years while the other could experience only 6000 years. The math is complicated, but it has been worked out and it is in the realm of possibilities. This phenomenon is due to the fact that the rate of time passing is not a constant but varies depending on the value of gravity at a point in the universe.

What about the theory that we see light from galaxies that are 13.7 billion light years from earth? If the Earth is near the center of the universe, this would be the original point of the source of the light.

When astrophysicists measured the rate of the acceleration of the universe, they understood that there was not enough visible matter in the universe to explain the rate. Their solution was that the overwhelming type of matter in the universe was “dark matter”, the kind we cannot see.  As a counter to that theory, in the Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Science, two mathematicians, Blake Temple and Joel Smoller suggest a solution to the accelerating universe that doesn’t require conjuring up anything like “dark matter” — in fact, it doesn’t require conjuring up anything new at all. Their solution works with the current laws of physics we already have. Their solution? That the acceleration seen is due to an expanding shockwave that occurred after the Big Bang–a shockwave that would have originated very near the Earth. Did you catch that? A shockwave, plowing through the universe and spreading out the galaxies that originated near the Earth.

It is understood that this will not sit well with established science in that it flies in the face of The Copernican Principle that states that the Earth is not in a special place in the universe and has no special significance. Actually the only thing that Copernicus demonstrated was that the whole universe did not rotate around the Earth, but that the Earth rotated around the Sun. His discoveries were later expanded by scientist to claim that Earth was mediocre and not privileged in any way.

This blog post is not an attempt to claim that it is absolutely true that the earth is at or near the center of the universe, but an exercise in critical thinking so that we understand the concepts that are presented as scientific fact, are not necessarily the truth.

When you let your mind challenge scientific statements and start asking questions about the veracity of what you have been taught, you find that behind some claims is not the truth, but a desire to validate someone’s philosophy.  Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, John 8: 32 NIV.