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The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Correct?

No.

It's important to qualify statements that one makes, particularly when they have to do with technical subjects, such as history, science, or other fields where precision and accuracy are both important. Among other things, this helps to prevent the necessity of clarifying complex statements if a person misunderstands.

The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles per second. Correct?

Nope. But that's a better explanation than before. It is precise (measuring the speed requires precise instruments and technological proficiency) and more accurate than the previous statement (clarifying that the speed is measured in a vacuum qualifies the statement).

The round-trip speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles per second.

It is impossible to measure the one-way speed of light. For all we know, it could be instantaneous.

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That's the point of this (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v6/n1/distant-starlight ) article (based on this [http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v3/n1/anisotropic-synchrony-convention ] research paper), which argues that the explanation for why we can see stars billions of light years from Earth, despite the universe being no more than several thousand years in age, is because their light takes exactly 0 seconds to reach us.

Light is a dual wave-particle phenomenon. Have you considered what allows your eyes to see light, or your skin to be warmed by it? Does a particle of light attach itself to molecules in your eyes? (Wouldn't a rapid build-up, due to the speed and quantity of incoming photons, be prohibitive in that case?) Does a photon bounce off and go flying in a 180° direction? What happens?

It appears that, since light  is electromagnetic radiation, that it energizes particles, and the light energy is then converted into other forms of energy, but primarily heat and light. In some cases, it is used as a catalyst for chemical reactions and its energy is converted into mechanical energy and potential energy (photosynthesis).  A light particle/wave would hit an electron in its orbital around an atom, and excite it, causing it (the electron) to 'jump' to a higher energy state. But what happens to the photon? Apparently it is absorbed in the process. In fact, when an electron falls down to a lower-energy state, it releases a photon. [citations pending]

As the electron is moved to a different energy state, it becomes possible to form  and break different bonds, resulting in conformational changes in various molecules, which drives the mechanical processes that produce energy-storing molecules such as glucose during photosynthesis.

I read somewhere, I believe in one of the UMBC textbooks, that when an electromagnetic wave (i.e. light) hits a molecule that is part of a larger structure (think cellular organization), the energy 'pushes the molecule out of its position, whereafter it (the molecule) "snaps" back, emitting a different photon,' presumably in the opposite direction (paraphrased, [citation pending]).

Ladies and gentlemen, I posit that light radiation travels at an instantaneous speed, and that the time lapse during measurements of its round-trip speed are due to the interaction of the EM wave with whatever particle the light is reflecting off of before returning to the detector. The implication is that the measured round-trip speed of light is a measurement of the time it takes for 'light to bounce off a surface by energetically interacting with it,' rather than the actual SPEED of the light itself.

This is a testable prediction. The theory predicts that in terms of astronomical observation, one ought to find that the universe appears to be the same age at all distances, no matter how far away from earth one might be able to see with a telescope. This prediction has a large amount of observational data in support of it--numerous examples of fully formed galaxies and "old" stars (that is to say, with detectable amounts of non-hydrogen-and-helium atoms, since those are the heaviest elements predicted to be formed by the Big Bang Model of the universe, and therefore must, in the BB model, have been formed subsequent to the supernovae of the first generation of stars, which would have theoretically produced heavier elements by fusion) are prevalent in the scientific literature.


Some considerations: Albert Einstein's work underlies this theory, and his own statements attest to the truthfulness of what I'm saying.  Einstein said that light’s one-way speed “is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own freewill in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity [A. Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, authorized translation by R. W. Lawson (New York: Crown Publishers, 1961), pp. 22–23.]

Also, regarding the Answers Research Journal link--regardless of what you may feel toward Creation Science, do please take the time to look through it and mull over the discussion about clock synchronization, which takes up one portion of the paper. I think that it is an inherently interesting topic, and it will doubtlessly appeal to anyone who enjoys technical mathematical and philosophical questions, which would still be interesting even if they were not discussed in the context of supporting the Biblical Creation Cosmology. So take a look.

~EriK

P.S.  This convention could be called the “anisotropic synchrony convention,” or ASC, because it claims that light travels at different speeds in different directions (anisotropic).

That is, [an] = not, [iso-] = unchanging, [tropic] = location