Claim CE410:

Physicists only assume that physical constants have been constant over billions of years. In particular, this untestable assumption underlies all radiometric dating techniques.

Source:

Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 24.

Response:

  1. The constancy of constants is a conclusion, not an assumption. It is tested whenever possible. For example:

    • The fine structure constant affects neutron capture rates, which can be measured from products of the Oklo reactor, where a natural nuclear reaction occurred 1,800 million years ago. These measurements show that the fine structure constant has remained constant (within one part in 1017 per year) for almost two billion years (Fujii et al. 2000; Shlyakhter 1976).

    • Despite some weak evidence that the fine structure constant may have varied slightly more than six billion years ago (Musser 1998; Webb et al. 1999), analysis of the spectra of quasars shows that it has changed less than 0.6 parts per million over the last ten billion years (Chand et al. 2004)

    • Experiments with atomic clocks show that any change is less than a rate of about 10-15 per year (Fischer et al. 2004).

    • Absorption lines in light from quasars suggest that the ratio of masses of the proton and electron may have changed by 20 parts per million over the last 12 billion years (Cho 2006).

Links:

Ball, Philip, 2003. Lab tests tenets' limits. Nature Science Update, http://www.nature.com/nsu/030428/030428-20.html

SpaceDaily, 2004. Quasar studies keep fundamental physical constant - constant. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cosmology-04i.html

References:

  1. Bize, S. et al., 2003. Testing the stability of fundamental constants with the 199Hg+ single-ion optical clock. Physical Review Letters 90: 150802.
  2. Chand, H., R. Srianand, P. Petitjean and B. Aracil, 2004. Probing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample. Astronomy and Astrophysics 417: 853. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401094
  3. Cho, Adrian. 2006. Skewed starlight suggests particle masses changed over eons. Science 312: 348.
  4. Fischer, M. et al., 2004. New limits on the drift of fundamental constants from laboratory measurements. Physical Review Letters 92: 230802.
  5. Fujii, Yasunori et al., 2000. The nuclear interaction at Oklo 2 billion years ago. Nuclear Physics B 573: 377-401. http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9809549
  6. Marion, H. et al., 2003. Search for variations of fundamental constants using atomic fountain clocks. Physical Review Letters 90: 150801.
  7. Musser, George, 1998. Inconstant constants. Scientific American 279(5) (Nov.): 24,28. http://members.tripod.com/unifier2/inconstantconstants.html
  8. Shlyakhter, A. I., 1976. Direct test of the constancy of fundamental nuclear constants. Nature 264: 340. http://sdg.lcs.mit.edu/~ilya_shl/alex/76a_oklo_fundamental_nuclear_constants.pdf
  9. Webb J. K., V. V. Flambaum, C. W. Churchill, M. J. Drinkwater, J. D. Barrow, 1999. Search for time variation of the fine structure constant. Physical Review Letters, 82: 884-887. http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/?9803165
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created 2001-2-18, modified 2007-12-16