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The Speed of Light and the Universe
William Diehl
What if the moment when the universe was created by the will and word of God, the speed of light was absolutely "nearly" instantaneous in speed. (this is only hypothetical). Would not the entire universe with all the matter in it take on the appearance of one very small speck that is "nearly" infinitely compacted and compressed? Then if God began to gradually slow the speed of light. The divinely organized matter of stars and planets and moons in the universe would then take on the "appearance" of moving apart from each other. The slower the speed of light traveled the more that the stars would seem to be "distant" from each other. The universe would continue to take on the appearance of expansion as the speed of light continued to slow. The slower the speed of light became, the more vast the universe would "appear" to be and the faster the universe would appear to be expanding. This "apparent" expansion of the universe would cause the light to be "red shifted" as the speed of light which reaches our eyes slowed.
Now let us imagine that suddenly the speed of light began to increase!! As the speed of light increased, the "apparent" size of the universe would become "smaller" and the stars would appear to be coming towards us rather than traveling away from us.
Do you all get the "picture" of this imaginative little game? The "apparent" size of the universe is only proportional to the speed of light. The entire theory of relativity and the energy contained in the universe is vastly changed if the speed of light changes. Time also changes and the amount of energy in matter changes. Time would slow to a near halt as the speed of light reached the near instantaneous mark. The amount of energy within the atoms of matter would become almost infinite.
Some implication to this hypothesis: If hypothetically the speed of light is slowing since creation, then the universe is only expanding "relatively" to the slowing speed of light. Time is relative to the speed of light so time would be appearing to speed up as the speed of light decreases.
The problem with those stars which are not "red shifted" but rather "blue shifted" could be due to the fact that for some reason the light reaching our eye from these stars is increasing in speed rather than increasing. Thus these stars appear to coming towards us rather than away from us.
If the speed of light were increased, the universe would take on the over-all appearance of being much smaller and the stars much closer than presently. Perhaps there is an "ideal" speed of light which when reached gives the universe the appearance that time is very slow and distances between the stars is very close. We could travel to the stars very quickly, almost instantaneously but not quite instantaneously. The relative size of the stars and planets and people and all matter would become "relatively" much larger than at present and much closer.
The question about time travel is very interesting. Since time is relative to the speed of travel and speed of travel is limited by the speed of light. (at present our speed of travel is very limited due to the fact that as we increase our speed, more and more energy is required to go faster. As we approach the present speed of light the energy required to go faster is almost infinite.) It seems to me that if one could find out how to speed up the speed of light, one could theoretically invent a time machine and go back in time to the beginning of time. I don't think that God will ever allow Man to discover how to increase the speed of light though. This is the ultimate limitation that He has placed upon the fallen universe. The slower speed of light has set a limit upon Man so that we are cut off from the rest of the universe and the stars. You could almost say that we have been "cast out" and away from the presence of God and the universe by the slowing of the speed of light (all this is hypothetical reasoning don't forget).
What is a black hole? In this scenario, a black hole is a star which, because the speed of light has slowed to a such a slow speed therefore the weakened energy of the light has been stopped completely due to the intense gravity of the star. Hence the light is unable to escape the gravity of the star.
The next step in this hypotheses might be to look for light that is traveling at differing speeds. It may be that we can find evidence for some light that is faster than other light. Sounds preposterous but maybe not so crazy after all. The question to ask ourselves is what determines the speed of light as a "constant" of 186,000 miles/second.
Photons seem to have almost no mass yet there is some indication that photons do indeed have some mass as a particle. Perhaps it is the amount of mass that they do have (albeit almost infinitely small) which determines the constant speed of the photon. If the mass of the photon could be lessened even more, then perhaps the photon could travel even faster. Conversely if the mass within the photon were increased, then the photon would probably slow. This could be the mechanism by which God has determined the speed of light. By regulating the amount of mass within the photon, He has set and determined the very nature of existence for all the universe.
The "curse" that Genesis speaks of could very well be that God increased the mass within the photon and thus decreased the speed of light and thus decreased the amount of energy in matter. And thus the entire universe became much "darker" in appearance. By decreasing the amount of energy within matter, God increased the amount of "work" that must be put into a mechanical system in order for the system to produce the desired result. Biological life would not be as efficient. Physical and chemical reactions would require more energy input in order to take place. Entropy would greatly increase within all these mechanical and biological systems. All because the photon took on a slightly increased amount of mass and slowed down in speed.
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