This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 6, Issue 5, from 1992.
The Atomic Constants, Light, And Time by Trevor Norman and Barry Setterfield (1987), is a Technical Report from Flinders University of South Australia, which forms an invited research report for Stanford Research Institute International. The Report has 24 tables of measurements and 377 references. The authors have studied 163 measurements of the velocity of light by 16 methods over 300 years. They have also studied 475 measurements of 11 other atomic constants by 25 methods. The conclusion they reach is that the velocity of light – c – and all the other atomic ‘constants’ are not constant at all, but have decayed.
As their unit of time measurement, the authors use the ‘dynamical second’, defined as 1/31,556,925.9747 of the period of Earth’s orbital rotation, which they say was standard until 1967. In fact, there has never been such a standard. Until 1955, the standard second was 1/86,400 of a day. This standard lapsed when clocks accurate to one thousandth of a second became available, because days vary in duration by several thousandths of a second. A new standard, in terms of vibrations of the caesium atom, was agreed in 1967 when all standards laboratories had caesium clocks. Between 1955 and 1967 there was no standard second, in the sense of a standard against which clocks could be set. However, the internationally agreed definition of a second was 1/31,556,925.9747 of the solar year 1901. A particular year had to be specified, because years vary in duration no less than days.
The whole argument of the report in question is based on the assumption that all ‘dynamical seconds’ (that is, all years) are of equal duration. By definition, the years 1955 to 1981 contained exactly the same number of dynamical seconds. By observation, they contained successively fewer atomic seconds. This is presented as evidence that atomic seconds were lasting longer.
The finite velocity of light was first demonstrated in 1675, by the astronomer Ole Roemer. Roemer’s observatory notebooks were lost in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728, but he had published his calculation that light took 22 minutes to cross the diameter of Earth’s orbit. With modem values of the diameter, this gives a value for c of 225,000 km/s, about 25% slower than the currently accepted value.
The report, however, takes Roemer’s value for c to be 307,500 ± 5,400 km/s, about 2.6% faster than the currently accepted value. The authors rely on a private communication from S J Golstein, who had earlier published a finding, based on ‘an examination of the best 50 Roemer values’, that Roemer’s value for c was in excess of 320,000 km/s. Goldstein rescinded this when it was pointed out that he had added some figures which should have been subtracted. His revised figure (‘after correction of a procedural error’) contributes to the evidence that estimates of c did not vary randomly as measuring techniques improved, but systematically became slower.
The motives of the authors of this document are apparent. They fit a cosec2 curve to their doubtful data, to show that the whole history of the Earth, until the appearance of the first humans, took only a few days in or about the year 5,300 BC. The report is circulated with a supplement written by Setterfield, entitled Geological Time and Scriptural Chronology. I learned of its existence, in fact, from a pamphlet of the Creation Science Movement.
But how did two reputable scientific establishments, Stanford Research Institute and Flinders University of South Australia, come to lend their authority to such obvious nonsense? Part of the answer is in an appendix to the report, and another part in a memorandum prepared by Mr Malcolm Bowden. A draft of the report, written by Barry Setterfield, was circulated for comment in 1982 or 1983. Among those circulated was Dr Lambert T Dolphin, Assistant Director of a laboratory at Stanford Research Institute, who responded, “Your paper is well-written and thorough and I cannot find anything that needs changing or improving. I gave a two-hour presentation a week ago in Los Gatos summarizing your work”.
In early 1987 Trevor Norman, of the School of Mathematical Sciences at Flinders University, had become involved, and Dolphin suggested that the paper should be published as an ‘invited report’ from Flinders University to SRI. In July 1987, Dolphin circulated 15 copies for comment within SRI and elsewhere, and received no adverse comments. Dr Leonard, the laboratory director, was kept fully informed of Dr Dolphin’s activities.
In August 1987 Dr Leonard had the misfortune to lose his job at 24 hours’ notice, and left without signing a certificate of authorisation for the invited report. Dolphin himself was given three weeks’ notice, and in the confusion omitted to seek a certificate from the new director. The certificate of authorisation, however, is a formality frequently overlooked. It cannot be denied that Dolphin was a senior research physicist at SRI, or that he genuinely invited the report.
There is no denying either, that permission was given to use the Flinders University logo. This is proved by a letter dated July 1987, signed by Dr Rao, head of the School of Mathematical Sciences, applying for tax exemption for the Report. Dr Rao’s name does not appear among the acknowledgements, but several clerical workers at Flinders are thanked for their help. The Report was printed in Australia, at private expense, late in August 1987. In June 1988, Flinders University circulated all known recipients, on behalf of themselves and SRI, denying responsibility for the document and demanding that the covers be removed. Defenders of the report, however, insist that it had been authorised a year earlier, and that, in any case, authorisation cannot properly be revoked after the document has been published.
