Replies

When an electron does its thing in its orbital, it alternates between some positive and negative state, right? It's been a long time since I learned about this, so maybe "positive" and "negative" and "state" aren't the right words - but in any case, they oscillate between two conditions, which is what governs whether or not they're able to link up with the electron clouds of other atoms to form molecules.

I don't recognize this as anything I know. Electrons stay negative. Bonds are formed with other atoms by either sharing an electron in something like a figure-8 loop around both nuclei (covalent bonding) or loaning an electron from one to another (ionic bonding), leaving both atoms with a net charge and thus ionized.

(BTW, why would creationists care about whether electrons lose their energy in the atom? Are they arguing that God continually intervenes to keep the electrons from falling in?)

Setterfield uses the slowing of light to explain why the universe looks old but isn't. (I don't think this stuff works well at all, really.) He uses the ZPE increasing over time to explain why light slows down. (The vacuum thickens and gets harder to plow.) Somewhere in there he works in why electrons don't spiral down, which has not been regarded as much of a question since Bohr's day.

Setterfield also notes (as does Hal Putoff) that in classical atomic theory electrons circling the nucleus are accelerated particles and ought to radiate energy, but apparently they don't--according to the tacit assumptions of modern physics. Setterfield suggests that energy is actually being fed into every atom in the universe from the vacuum at precisely the rate electrons are dissipating this energy. The calculated total amount of this energy input is enormous, of the order of 1.071 x 10¹¹⁷ kilowatts per square meter. (Some have physicist have claimed that the latent energy resident in the vacuum is infinite, but Setterfield is content to be conservative, he says!) 10¹¹⁷ is of course a very large number in any case. [The total number of atoms in the universe is only ~ 10⁶⁶, the total number of particles in the universe is only ~ 10⁸⁰, the age of the universe is only about ~ 10¹⁷ seconds. And any event with a probability of less than 1 part in 10⁵⁰ is considered "absurd."]

From Implications of a Non-Constant Velocity of Light by Lambert Dolphin.

It's all just nuts. Electrons in stable orbits are not particularly accelerated particles. At any rate, they can only give off energy in discrete quantized bits corresponding to certain energies and certain orbitals or not at all. They're also excluded from being at the same energy level and the same spin state as any other electron. They can't spiral gradually in, glowing feebly as they go.

Electrons stay negative. Bonds are formed with other atoms by either sharing an electron in something like a figure-8 loop around both nuclei (covalent bonding) or loaning an electron from one to another (ionic bonding), leaving both atoms with a net charge and thus ionized.

Like I said, I was probably using a poor choice of words. I wasn't referring to the charge of the electron, but it's "phase" or some such. Basically the electron cloud seems to vibrate like a drum, and in order to form covalent bonds, the electrons of the clouds of two different atoms have to resonate together. The "figure 8" you referring to, I don't believe represents an actual circuit for the electron, but rather a vibration pattern, similiar to what you'd see if you struck a drumskin on one side. There'd be a region in the middle that wouldn't move, while one side goes up as the other goes down, and vice versa.

At least this is what I remember. Phyz, can you back me up on this, or am I hallucinating?

Setterfield uses the slowing of light to explain why the universe looks old but isn't.

Ah. So he's a YEC. I can see what you mean by it not working well. There'd have to be quite a bit of this ZPE around to slow light down by the several orders of magnitude necessary for that theory.