Question:  Have you published anything in the past 2-3 years or do you plan to in the near future?  How can we purchase it? 

Setterfield:  The recent papers can all be referenced here on this website.  In addition, a new paper has just been accepted for web publication by the Journal of Theoretics.  The new paper deals with mass and gravity.  I am currently working on another paper with a mathematician dealing with the recombination of Planck Particle Pairs.  We are hoping to submit that for publication in early 2004.  We are also hoping to have the rewrite of the book Creation and Catastrophe finished within a month or two and submitted for publication.  Anything happening in this area will be announced on this website.

(2012 note: "Creation and Catastrophe" became our book "The Bible and Geology" which is for sale along with the DVDs "The Christmas Star" and "Anomalies." The paper with Daniel Dzimano was published in 2003, "The Redshift and the Zero Point Energy.")

 

Question:  Quasars give off matter particles besides light.  What happened to the particles from the quasar in our galaxy?

Setterfield:  The particles emitted from quasars generally are ejected at the ‘poles’, or perpendicular to the plane of the associated galaxy.  A pretty good artist’s rendition of this can be found at the Science Photo Gallery.

 

Question: Why are two different dating methods used to date the two star populations?  Are they consistent methods?  What is the evidence they are consistent?

Setterfield:  First of all, to quote from A Brief Stellar History, here is what the question concerns:

A study of the Thorium to Neodymium ratio in stars like our sun has concluded that the minimum age of the sun and similar Population I stars was 9.6 billion atomic years, with a maximum of 11.3 billion atomic years [Nature, 328, pp.127-131, 9 July, 1987]. From these figures, a good average age for the sun would be about 10.5 billion atomic years. This view finds some support from the fact that the age of the oldest events recorded in Moon rocks ranged from 5.4 billion, through 7 billion, and up to 8.2 billion atomic years [Science, 167, pp.479-480, 557, 30 January, 1970]. In similar fashion, a recent study of Population II stars using the Uranium to Thorium ratio has indicated that the oldest stars in our galaxy have an age of 12.5 ± 3 billion atomic years [Cayrel et al., Nature, 409, p. 691, 8 February, 2001]. Earlier work based on Thorium and Europium abundances suggested 15.2 ± 3.7 billion atomic years [Cowan et al., Astrophysical Journal, 480, p. 246, 1997]. Even though the limits of error are larger, the data from this 1997 study suggest that the actual value should be at the higher end of the range indicated by the more precise 2001 study. When further studies are completed, it may be expected that results may converge to a figure somewhere around 14.5 billion atomic years, which would accord with data from stellar theory [Riess et al., arXiv:astro-ph/9805201v1, 15 May, 1998]. The difference in atomic age between the two main Populations of stars is thus about 4 billion atomic years. 

 

Question: What are the estimated sizes of parent bodies of the asteroids – the exploded planet and its moon?

Setterfield:  It is generally stated that if all the asteroidal material were collected together, they would make a planet probably smaller than our moon.  However, this does not take into account the material which has been lost into the sun or impacted on other planetary or moon bodies.  The planet would not have been very large, though, and its moon, of course, smaller.  The question behind this question may be “Why did these two bodies explode when other planets and their moons did not?”  The answer to this lies in the high aluminum (aluminium) 26 content that these bodies had initially.  We see the high resulting magnesium 26 which is the result of the radio decay of the parent element.  This decay would have heated the planet and its moon rapidly under the conditions which also produced the high light speed of the early cosmos, and this rapid heating would have driven the water not only out of the rocks, but would have caused the parent bodies to explode.  The key is in the make-up of the early bodies.  This can be referenced to the Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy, p. 122.  For further details, please see A Brief Stellar History.

 

Question: Please explain more about the Zero Point Energy.  If it is electromagnetic, what frequencies?  What polarization?  What field strengths?  Can it be measured other than with parallel plates?  Do secular scientists discuss it?

Setterfield:  I think there is quite a bit about the ZPE here on my website.  You might check the Discussions section regarding the ZPE questions and also my paper Exploring the Vacuum.  Yes, the ZPE is electromagnetic in character; its frequencies range from very low to very high.  The cutoff frequency at the high end is determined by the Planck length.  I am unaware of a limit at the low end.  I am not aware of any studies done on polarization of the ZPE (in the same way the cosmic background radiation is polarized) and did a quick look on the net for you on this one.  The closest I found was the following from the California Institute of Physics and Astrophysics:

Radio waves, light, X-rays, and gamma rays are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. Classically, electromagnetic radiation can be pictured as waves flowing through space at the speed of light. The waves are not waves of anything substantive, but are in fact ripples in a state of a field. These waves do carry energy, and each wave has a specific direction, frequency and polarization state. This is called a "propagating mode of the electromagnetic field."

Each mode is subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. To understand the meaning of this, the theory of electromagnetic radiation is quantized by treating each mode as an equivalent harmonic oscillator. From this analogy, every mode of the field must have hf/2 as its average minimum energy. That is a tiny amount of energy, but the number of modes is enormous, and indeed increases as the square of the frequency. The product of the tiny energy per mode times the huge spatial density of modes yields a very high theoretical energy density per cubic centimeter.

From this line of reasoning, quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations (also called the zero-point field) creating a universal sea of zero-point energy. The density of this energy depends critically on where in frequency the zero-point fluctuations cease. Since space itself is thought to break up into a kind of quantum foam at a tiny distance scale called the Planck scale (10^-33 cm), it is argued that the zero point fluctuations must cease at a corresponding Planck frequency (10⁴³ Hz). If that is the case, the zero-point energy density would be 110 orders of magnitude greater than the radiant energy at the center of the Sun.

This article implies that every electromagnetic wave making up the ZPE has a random polarization, so there should be no net polarization of the ZPE in general.

The ZPE can be detected by a variety of mechanisms, but to the best of my knowledge, the only way to actually measure it is via parallel plates (the Casimir effect).   Further discussion of this may be found in my paper Exploring the Vacuum, in particular the section starting on page 8 with the following:

Evidence For The Existence Of The ZPE

Experimental evidence soon built up hinting at the existence of the ZPE, although its fluctuations do not become significant enough to be observed until the atomic level is attained. For example, the ZPE can explain why cooling alone will never freeze liquid helium^{25, 48}. Unless pressure is applied, these ZPE fluctuations prevent helium’s atoms from getting close enough to permit solidification¹⁵. In electronic circuits, such as microwave receivers, another problem surfaces because ZPE fluctuations cause a random “noise” that places limits on the level to which signals can be amplified. This “noise” can never be removed no matter how perfect the technology.

There is other physical evidence for the existence of the ZPE proving that it is not just a theoretical construct. One such piece of evidence is something called the surface Casimir effect, predicted Hendrik Casimir, the Dutch scientist, in 1948 and confirmed nine years later by M. J. Sparnaay of the Philips Laboratory in Eindhoven, Holland¹. The Casimir effect can be demonstrated by bringing two large metal plates very close together in a vacuum. When they are close, but not touching, there is a small but measurable force that pushes them together. An elegant analysis by Milonni, Cook and Goggin explained this effect simply using SED physics⁴⁹. Given that the ZPE consists of electromagnetic waves, then as the metal plates are brought closer, they end up excluding all wavelengths of the ZPF between the plates except those for which a whole number of half-waves is equal to the plates’ distance apart. In other words, all the long wavelengths of the ZPF are now acting on the plates from the outside with no long waves acting from within to balance the pressure. The combined radiation pressure of these external waves then forces the plates together^{16, 32}. The same effect can be seen on the ocean. Sailors have noted that if the distance between two boats is less than the distance between two wave crests (or one wavelength), the boats are forced towards each other. 

The Casimir effect is directly proportional to the area of the plates.  However, unlike other possible forces with which it may be confused, the Casimir force is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the plates’ distance apart⁵⁰.  For plates with an area of one square centimetre separated by 0.5 thousandths of a millimetre, this force is equivalent to a weight of 0.2 milligrams.  In January of 1997, Steven Lamoreaux⁵¹ reported experimental verification of these details within 5%. Then in November 1998, Umar Mohideen and Anushree Roy reported that they had verified the theory to within an accuracy of 1% in an experiment that utilized the capabilities of an atomic force microscope⁵².

Regarding the last part of your question, I think if you look up “zero point energy” on any of the search engines, you will find that it is the subject of much discussion among a great many scientists.  Some of the articles are linked in my Discussion section on ZPE.

 

Question: Aren’t there other instances in Scripture where the ‘earth’ is used as an idiom for people?  (in reference to the earth being divided in Peleg’s day)  -- such as “…the earth was full of wickedness.”

Setterfield:  There are a number of problems with trying to associate the ‘earth’ with ‘people’ in Genesis 10:25 (“Two sons were born to Eber:  One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided;…”).  First, there have been many migrations of people throughout time, and this is not considered anything extraordinary.  Second, there is a clue in his brother’s name: Joktan.  Joktan means to 'cut off', 'make small', 'kill', 'destroy', to 'diminish' or to 'tear off'.  Not your normal name for a child!  The name Peleg itself means 'earthquake', 'division', 'channel of water'. It is also the root word for Pelagos, which was the old Grecian term for the Mediterranean, and for the 'pelagic' or upper ocean region in geology.

But the question was about the word used for ‘earth’ in Genesis 10:25.  That word is “eres” or “erets”.  It comes from an unused root probably meaning ‘to be firm.’  The word is used over 2500 times in the Old Testament.  According to my Concordance for the NIV, it is translated as “land” 1150 times, “earth” 524 times, “Egypt” 184 times (when used in conjunction with “misrayim”),  “ground” 160 times, “country” 92 times, “countries” 39 times, “lands” 34 times, “Canaan” 29 times (when used in conjunction with “k’na’an”), “world” 20 times, “region” 18 times, “territory” 17 times, etc.   It is even translated as “clay” once and “field” once.

In other words, to presume this word means ‘people’ or ‘population’ is to deny its clear meaning in the Hebrew and the way it is used in Scripture.  The word is used in the phrase  “the earth was corrupt” in Genesis 6:11.  But it is important to look at this verse in context:

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.”

Question: Why wasn’t your mechanism to explain the five anomalies included in ICC03?  Why aren’t you part of ICR’s RATE group?

Setterfield:  Regarding the ICC03, the abstracts were called for over a year ago and at that time I was not ready to put a presentation together on this subject.  Regarding the RATE group, although I appreciate their work, they and I know that I am not supportive of the model they are supporting which says that Noah’s Flood, in one year, built up most of the geologic column.  Since they are working from this basis and I disagree strongly with it, it would have been difficult for us to work together.  I would like to repeat, however, that I appreciate the work they are doing.

Question: According to cosmological models, was Noah’s Flood inevitable from the way God created the earth?  The Bible seems to imply that God sent the Flood due to the wickedness of man.  If the Flood was inevitable from creation, how can we say that what God created was very good?