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Originally posted by halcyonwaters:
If we see a ray of light that appears to be 12 billion years old, we're basing that off of saying it's 12 billion light years away, no?
The calculation is based on the constancy of the speed of light, yes. However, if the speed of light was greater than it is now for the first few seconds or few hundred million years after the big bang and then stablized at its current rate, the consequences for creationism are nil. The universe is still, basically far too old for Biblical Creation.
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So if light has actually slown down, wouldn't that change how we estimate the ray of light's age?
Yup, the consequences of this discovery, if it holds, could be very dramatic. But, as above, the rate of slowdown isn't enough to drag us into the Biblical age of the universe.
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