YEC`s like to use this to explain away the light we see from stars that are more than x,000 (where x is of the order of 6 to 10) lightyears away....
In fact recent observations seem to show that the fine structure constant alpha (which is the charge on an electron squared over the product of Plancks constant and c) has changed...
However these changes in alpha are not the same kettle of fish which YEC`s postulate, they are very slight and as I posted elsewhere...
"Given that the universe is supposed to have expanded faster than c under presesnt cosmological studies I wouldn`t be too surprised if it turns out that it didn`t exceed c afterall....
Seems like someone already had that idea...
from
http://www.worldscinet.com/...11/1107/S0218271802002621.html:
quote:
POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN THE CHANGING FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT AND THE ACCELERATING UNIVERSE VIA SCALAR-TENSOR THEORY
YASUNORI FUJII
Nihon Fukushi, Handa, Aichi, 475-0012 Japan
In 1976, Shlyakhter showed that the Sm data from Oklo results in the upper bound on the time-variability of the fine-structure constant: |[(a)\dot]/a|10-17 y-1, which has ever been the most stringent bound. Since the details have never been published, however, we recently re-analyzed the latest data according to Shlyakhter's recipe. We nearly re-confirmed his results. To be more precise, however, the Sm data gives either an upper-bound or an evidence for a changing a: [(a)\dot]/ a = -(0.44 0.04) 10-16 y-1. A remark is made to a similar re-analysis due to Damour and Dyson. We also compare our result with a recent "evidence" due to Webb et al, obtained from distant QSO's. We point out a possible connection between this time-dependence and the behavior of a scalar field supposed to be responsible for the acceleration of the universe, also revealed recently.
Also AFAIR the fine structure constant does change as you approach high energies i.e the immediate post big bang universe..."
I looked into it a bit and I think my AFAIR was correct, alpha is a coupling constant and therefore temperature dependant, another AFAIR is that it approaches unity at around the point when the universe was still on the Planck scale......
™ Version 4.2
