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Starlight, Time and the New Physics
Despite increasingly compelling arguments for biblical creation, many still doubt the Bible's clear timescale because, they think, it is impossible for light to have reached Earth in only a few thousands years from stars that are millions of light years away. This misconception is often the ultimate stumbling block to the straightforward acceptance of the Bible even the gospel itself. Positively, the answer to the creationists starlight problem falls out of the same equations that, in the process, do away with many of the props for big bang thinking. Inspired by the pioneering creationist physicist D. Russell Humphreys and building on the work of secular cosmologist Moshe Carmeli, physics professor John Hartnett employs the evidence which demands another revolution in cosmological physics. Supporting technical papers make up a series of technical appendices, so that the main text is easily digestible for the intelligent layperson.
150 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 2, 2025
Excellent treatment of the issues surrounding 'the starlight problem'. See also Dr. Jason Lisle's book Taking Back Astronomy
September 29, 2020
Although much of this book is very technical, I enjoyed reading it. Parts of it were quite clear.
One thing that was very clear is that the author accepted the biblical timeline for creation that says that everything that God created was created in six 24 hour days a few thousand years ago. His technical work showed that it was possible to accept the Genesis account as true and still explain the vast size of the universe. In other words, science has not been able to prove that the universe must be very old. Evolutionists claim to have demonstrated that the universe is very old but the same evidence can demonstrate a young universe. It does not depend on the data but in the philosophical assumptions that a person starts with.
One thing that was very clear is that the author accepted the biblical timeline for creation that says that everything that God created was created in six 24 hour days a few thousand years ago. His technical work showed that it was possible to accept the Genesis account as true and still explain the vast size of the universe. In other words, science has not been able to prove that the universe must be very old. Evolutionists claim to have demonstrated that the universe is very old but the same evidence can demonstrate a young universe. It does not depend on the data but in the philosophical assumptions that a person starts with.
October 12, 2011
In this heady book, John Hartnett, Ph.D. picks up where Russel Humphreys, Ph.D. left off in his creationist relativistic cosmology, but this work not only benefits from a further 13 years of study, it is more sophisticated and refined. Hartnett builds on the work of cosmologist Moshe Carmeli to introduce a cosmological model of his own. Dr. Hartnett (as does Dr. Humphreys) has impressive credentials (viewable at creation.com/dr-john-hartnett-cv). Half the book contains four technical appendices, of which I read the last two becaue they seemed especially interesting. But these appendices are for technical readers and contain pages of equations that are Greek to me. The main body text (which is only 120 pages) is written for the average Joe, at least ostensibly. It can still be hard to follow. I found the book engrossing, but Dr. Hartnett could learn from Stephen Hawking about writing in a smoother and more accessible fashion. I'll just mention as a non-scientist that I am currently more attracted to the Humphreys-Hartnett model than the theory advanced by astrophysicist Jason Lisle, Ph.D.
January 20, 2021
Scientifically Decisive; Biblically Supportive
Brilliant how he demonstrates that dark matter, dark energy, and the big bang are not necessary. We can finally throw out those false ideas and focus on this model.
Any takers want to try and refute this author?
Brilliant how he demonstrates that dark matter, dark energy, and the big bang are not necessary. We can finally throw out those false ideas and focus on this model.
Any takers want to try and refute this author?
December 7, 2014
Heavy on equations, not for anyone lacking a solid foundation in physics, but perfect for anyone with questions about how our universe can be understood within a literal six day creation.
July 9, 2024
Loo lCAN A ‘NEW PHYSICS’ EXPLAIN ‘COSMIC CLOCKS’ RUNNING MUCH FASTER THAN ‘EARTH CLOCKS' ON DAY 4?
Author John Hartnett wrote in the first chapter of this 2010 (2nd edition) book, “I don’t dispute that commonly held view that the visible universe is about twenty-eight billion light-years across (i.e., its diameter). At first glance, that would mean it should take a beam of light about fourteen billion years to travel to us from the outer limits of the universe (i.e., along its radius). The Bible tells us … that the earth was created four days before the creation of the stars… So, considering the size of the universe, questions arise: … ‘How do we see distant stars?’ For creationists this has been one of the most difficult problems to solve if we are to accept Genesis … as straightforward history. Even the nearest star … is 4.3 light-years away, and most of the rest of the stars in our galaxy are … tens of thousands, of light-years away. And from the biblical text alone, we cannot determine a period of time greater than about seven thousand years since the creation of the universe… But this would seem to mean that we would only be able to see out into space to a distance of about six thousand light-years… how do we see the stars and galaxies in the universe, MOST of which are much more distant than the six- or seven-thousand-light-year limit?... For some, this has been reason to … compromise with the origins teachings of so-called modern science.” (Pg. 9-11)
He continues, “In this book, I will explain how … complicated explanations were invented to ‘explain away’ inconvenient facts… [B]ecause of the insistence of the majority on the unbiblical ‘big bang’ model, a whole new suite of ‘fudge factors’ has been postulated to explain certain puzzling observations. These fudge factors include unknown and invisible (‘dark’) forms of matter and even energy… Similarly, if we take the starlight travel issue… rather as an OBSERVATION to be explained… then it is clear that … new physics is required. In this book, I will introduce you… to new physics that does away with the need for the big bangers’ … ‘dark’ fudge factors---and… it resolves the starlight/time issue… It indicates that Adam would most definitely have been able to see the stars in our galaxy… VERY shortly after he was created.” (Pg. 13-14)
He reports, “The starlight-travel-time problem was significantly addressed by Dr. Russ Humphreys in his popular book ‘Starlight and Time.’ … But as Humphreys himself readily … acknowledged, it was only … meant to stimulate others to look into this new direction of creation cosmology… In such a ‘time dilation’ model, the key is that the universe is only thousands of years old---but relativity leads us to ask, 'By which clocks?’ … the focus of Genesis history is on EARTH CLOCKS…. [For] an observer on earth… it is possible that the entire universe can be only six thousand years old, while there is ‘plenty of time’ for light … to cover a distance of billions of light-years. It is only necessary to show … what the mechanism was that would have made Earth clocks run at such a different speed to cosmic clocks.” (Pg. 15-17)
He acknowledges, “Before Humphreys, a common solution was… that the speed of light was enormously faster around Creation Week and has slowed down since… the speed of light being up to 600 billion times the present value. But… if the speed of light slowed down, how is it that we are now able to see the stars?” (Pg. 18-19) He continues, “the stars would disappear from view as the light slowed down, and then subsequently take millions and billions of years to get here. Also, such light arriving at the earth would show enormous blueshifts. But it doesn’t.” (Pg. 23)
He rejects the ‘appearance of age’ arguments used by some young-earth creationists. “When a supernova happens… we see a whole series of events take place... transmitted by the light beams. If… the supernova occurred more than 6,000 light-years away, that would mean … all that information we see… never happened. It would mean that God created a gigantic phony lightshow of things that are not real.” (Pg. 26)
He outlines, “This book explores new physics that … leads to the conclusion that time has been accelerated with respect to Earth’s clocks. This could have been done … from God using his cosmos in … a way that caused time to accelerate in the cosmos.” (Pg. 27)
He recounts, “In the early 1990s, a theoretical physicist, Moshe Carmeli… developed a new description of the universe around the kitchen table in his home in … Israel… he initially developed his new theory: Cosmological Special Relativity (CSR), and then his general theory… Carmeli predicted that the expansion of the universe must be accelerating… Carmeli’s new ‘spacevelocity’ … incorporates … the velocity of the expanding fabric of space itself… In turn, I have been able… by properly describing the matter density dependence on redshift, eliminate the need for ‘dark’ matter on the scale of the cosmos as a whole… The new Carmeli-Hartness model eliminates the need for any exotic ‘dark’ matter at all.” (Pg. 39-42)
He clarifies, “though Carmeli is some sort of a rebel… in his mind his new theory does not present anything more than a new type of big bang model. However, we can apply the same theory to extract a new model that is consistent with what we would expect, starting with the Genesis history. The starting conditions cannot be determined from observations… To get the correct starting conditions you would need the testimony of an eye-witness… which is what we have in God’s account of what He says He did, in Genesis 1.” (Pg. 64)
He explains, “The universe Carmeli describes … could be either infinite or finite, yet UNBOUNDED… However, I have extended the analysis of Carmeli and have found that the solution he arrives at … is also valid in a finite bounded universe with a unique centre and edge… The choice of cosmology, then, is ultimately personal preference, not a requirement dictated by the data… And if the universe is finite… then the event horizon is still a long way from us. So we can describe the universe as an expanding white hole with our galaxy at its centre.” (Pg. 82-83)
He continues, “CGR is … using … Riemannian geometry. But in this case gravitation is described with a five-dimensional presentation in which the coordinates are those of… proper distances as measured by the Hubble Law and the measured redshifts of galaxies… and atomic time, as measured by Earth clocks. The metric used by Carmeli… extends the number of dimensions of the universe by the addition of this new dimension---the radial velocity of the galaxies in the Hubble flow. The Hubble Law is assumed as a fundamental axiom for the universe and the galaxies are distributed accordingly. This is the crucial point in understanding this thesis. The assumption is that during the creation of the heavenly bodies on Day 4, the universe underwent a very rapid expansion… the newly created galaxies were spread out throughout the expanding space.” (Pg. 104)
He summarizes, “Based on my analysis of a galactocentric universe of finite size with a unique centre… galaxies were initially created much closer to Earth, and then God expanded out the space, dragging them apart. And as that occurred, new material---additional galaxies, quasars, etc.---was created like one of those fireworks displays where we see the exploding embers from the parent explosion in a chain reaction sequence.” (Pg. 96) Later, he adds, “This very rapid acceleration of the cosmos during Day 4 of Creation Week caused cosmic clocks to run very fast compared to Earth clocks… This, then, provides the massive time dilation needed to allow light to travel the vast distances of the universe, even billions of light-years IN A MATTER OF ONE DAY---as measured by Earth Clocks.” (Pg. 107)
He concludes, “This book proposes a model where the Galaxy is at the centre of a spherically symmetric, finite bounded universe… This model is based on the CGR theory, but explores the motion of particles in a central potential. In this case, the central potential is the result of the Galaxy being situated at the centre of a spherically symmetric isotropic distribution comprising all matter in the universe.” (Pg. 171) Later, he adds, “Observations from the large galaxy surveys seem to indicate that we do indeed live at the centre of concentric spherical shells of galaxies with a spacing of about one hundred million light-years.” (Pg. 202) He adds, “The apparent effect on the one-way speed of light… is really the effect of TIME DILATION. The actual measurable speed of light has not changed… time … only APPEARS to be producing enormous theoretical changes in the one-way speed of light, as seen by the observer. The actual speed of light … is constant.” (Pg. 211)
Some Young Earth creationists seeking answers to the ‘Distant Starlight’ problem may be interested in this book.
Author John Hartnett wrote in the first chapter of this 2010 (2nd edition) book, “I don’t dispute that commonly held view that the visible universe is about twenty-eight billion light-years across (i.e., its diameter). At first glance, that would mean it should take a beam of light about fourteen billion years to travel to us from the outer limits of the universe (i.e., along its radius). The Bible tells us … that the earth was created four days before the creation of the stars… So, considering the size of the universe, questions arise: … ‘How do we see distant stars?’ For creationists this has been one of the most difficult problems to solve if we are to accept Genesis … as straightforward history. Even the nearest star … is 4.3 light-years away, and most of the rest of the stars in our galaxy are … tens of thousands, of light-years away. And from the biblical text alone, we cannot determine a period of time greater than about seven thousand years since the creation of the universe… But this would seem to mean that we would only be able to see out into space to a distance of about six thousand light-years… how do we see the stars and galaxies in the universe, MOST of which are much more distant than the six- or seven-thousand-light-year limit?... For some, this has been reason to … compromise with the origins teachings of so-called modern science.” (Pg. 9-11)
He continues, “In this book, I will explain how … complicated explanations were invented to ‘explain away’ inconvenient facts… [B]ecause of the insistence of the majority on the unbiblical ‘big bang’ model, a whole new suite of ‘fudge factors’ has been postulated to explain certain puzzling observations. These fudge factors include unknown and invisible (‘dark’) forms of matter and even energy… Similarly, if we take the starlight travel issue… rather as an OBSERVATION to be explained… then it is clear that … new physics is required. In this book, I will introduce you… to new physics that does away with the need for the big bangers’ … ‘dark’ fudge factors---and… it resolves the starlight/time issue… It indicates that Adam would most definitely have been able to see the stars in our galaxy… VERY shortly after he was created.” (Pg. 13-14)
He reports, “The starlight-travel-time problem was significantly addressed by Dr. Russ Humphreys in his popular book ‘Starlight and Time.’ … But as Humphreys himself readily … acknowledged, it was only … meant to stimulate others to look into this new direction of creation cosmology… In such a ‘time dilation’ model, the key is that the universe is only thousands of years old---but relativity leads us to ask, 'By which clocks?’ … the focus of Genesis history is on EARTH CLOCKS…. [For] an observer on earth… it is possible that the entire universe can be only six thousand years old, while there is ‘plenty of time’ for light … to cover a distance of billions of light-years. It is only necessary to show … what the mechanism was that would have made Earth clocks run at such a different speed to cosmic clocks.” (Pg. 15-17)
He acknowledges, “Before Humphreys, a common solution was… that the speed of light was enormously faster around Creation Week and has slowed down since… the speed of light being up to 600 billion times the present value. But… if the speed of light slowed down, how is it that we are now able to see the stars?” (Pg. 18-19) He continues, “the stars would disappear from view as the light slowed down, and then subsequently take millions and billions of years to get here. Also, such light arriving at the earth would show enormous blueshifts. But it doesn’t.” (Pg. 23)
He rejects the ‘appearance of age’ arguments used by some young-earth creationists. “When a supernova happens… we see a whole series of events take place... transmitted by the light beams. If… the supernova occurred more than 6,000 light-years away, that would mean … all that information we see… never happened. It would mean that God created a gigantic phony lightshow of things that are not real.” (Pg. 26)
He outlines, “This book explores new physics that … leads to the conclusion that time has been accelerated with respect to Earth’s clocks. This could have been done … from God using his cosmos in … a way that caused time to accelerate in the cosmos.” (Pg. 27)
He recounts, “In the early 1990s, a theoretical physicist, Moshe Carmeli… developed a new description of the universe around the kitchen table in his home in … Israel… he initially developed his new theory: Cosmological Special Relativity (CSR), and then his general theory… Carmeli predicted that the expansion of the universe must be accelerating… Carmeli’s new ‘spacevelocity’ … incorporates … the velocity of the expanding fabric of space itself… In turn, I have been able… by properly describing the matter density dependence on redshift, eliminate the need for ‘dark’ matter on the scale of the cosmos as a whole… The new Carmeli-Hartness model eliminates the need for any exotic ‘dark’ matter at all.” (Pg. 39-42)
He clarifies, “though Carmeli is some sort of a rebel… in his mind his new theory does not present anything more than a new type of big bang model. However, we can apply the same theory to extract a new model that is consistent with what we would expect, starting with the Genesis history. The starting conditions cannot be determined from observations… To get the correct starting conditions you would need the testimony of an eye-witness… which is what we have in God’s account of what He says He did, in Genesis 1.” (Pg. 64)
He explains, “The universe Carmeli describes … could be either infinite or finite, yet UNBOUNDED… However, I have extended the analysis of Carmeli and have found that the solution he arrives at … is also valid in a finite bounded universe with a unique centre and edge… The choice of cosmology, then, is ultimately personal preference, not a requirement dictated by the data… And if the universe is finite… then the event horizon is still a long way from us. So we can describe the universe as an expanding white hole with our galaxy at its centre.” (Pg. 82-83)
He continues, “CGR is … using … Riemannian geometry. But in this case gravitation is described with a five-dimensional presentation in which the coordinates are those of… proper distances as measured by the Hubble Law and the measured redshifts of galaxies… and atomic time, as measured by Earth clocks. The metric used by Carmeli… extends the number of dimensions of the universe by the addition of this new dimension---the radial velocity of the galaxies in the Hubble flow. The Hubble Law is assumed as a fundamental axiom for the universe and the galaxies are distributed accordingly. This is the crucial point in understanding this thesis. The assumption is that during the creation of the heavenly bodies on Day 4, the universe underwent a very rapid expansion… the newly created galaxies were spread out throughout the expanding space.” (Pg. 104)
He summarizes, “Based on my analysis of a galactocentric universe of finite size with a unique centre… galaxies were initially created much closer to Earth, and then God expanded out the space, dragging them apart. And as that occurred, new material---additional galaxies, quasars, etc.---was created like one of those fireworks displays where we see the exploding embers from the parent explosion in a chain reaction sequence.” (Pg. 96) Later, he adds, “This very rapid acceleration of the cosmos during Day 4 of Creation Week caused cosmic clocks to run very fast compared to Earth clocks… This, then, provides the massive time dilation needed to allow light to travel the vast distances of the universe, even billions of light-years IN A MATTER OF ONE DAY---as measured by Earth Clocks.” (Pg. 107)
He concludes, “This book proposes a model where the Galaxy is at the centre of a spherically symmetric, finite bounded universe… This model is based on the CGR theory, but explores the motion of particles in a central potential. In this case, the central potential is the result of the Galaxy being situated at the centre of a spherically symmetric isotropic distribution comprising all matter in the universe.” (Pg. 171) Later, he adds, “Observations from the large galaxy surveys seem to indicate that we do indeed live at the centre of concentric spherical shells of galaxies with a spacing of about one hundred million light-years.” (Pg. 202) He adds, “The apparent effect on the one-way speed of light… is really the effect of TIME DILATION. The actual measurable speed of light has not changed… time … only APPEARS to be producing enormous theoretical changes in the one-way speed of light, as seen by the observer. The actual speed of light … is constant.” (Pg. 211)
Some Young Earth creationists seeking answers to the ‘Distant Starlight’ problem may be interested in this book.
April 10, 2024
tl;dr: This book is bad at reading the Bible and at doing science. Read John Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One if this sort of thing bothers you. Genesis 1 has nothing to do with the material origins of the universe.
Exegesis
This book assumes that the only Biblical way to understand Genesis 1 is a literal 24/7 creation week that occurred 6000 years ago. This is just false. Young earth creationism is a recent phenomenon. Further, there are many strained arguments about how we must live in the centre of the universe because the story of the Bible focuses on Earth and how there must be a finite universe because God said to Abraham that he would have as many descendants as the stars of the sky and the grains of sand - and since sand is finite so is the universe. This is very juvenile and contrived.
Science
This book unexplainably spends almost all of its runtime arguing that a) dark matter doesn't exist and b) that a non-mainstream cosmology model known as the Carmelian model is true. The problem is that this does not actually prove what the author believes at all. Moshe Carmeli agreed with the Big Bang inflationary model, he simply provides a different mechanism for it - according to the author themselves. Second, the existence of dark matter has nothing to do with the expansion of the universe. There are also a lot of references in this book - good! Unfortunately, almost all the references have no relevance to the unique points of the author. Those go completely without citation - bad.
The "cosmology model" that the author argues for is that the universe was suddenly expanded trillions of times on the fourth day of Creation Week by God, that we live quite literally in the centre of the universe, and that we are on a white hole. These are all very stupid arguments with no empirical evidence to prove it. According to the author, "the choice of cosmology, then, is ultimately personal preference, not a requirement dictated by the data". This firmly places what they say in the realm of pure conjecture and unfalsifiable pseudo-science. There is nothing of value here. Further, to say that the physical mechanism is God renders the whole point of this book as meaningless. Just say "God did it" for everything. The book opens with a judgment room scene where someone stands in front of God apologizing that they did not believe His eye-witness testimony of a 24/7 creation week. Why waste your time pretending that you even care about science.
Now let's talk about the specific cosmological model: Carmelian cosmology. In Appendix 3, the author says that it is the theoretical basis for MOND (I suspect the author hates dark matter because they are a believer in MOND). Unfortunately for the author, MOND has been disproven by objects like the Bullet Cluster which can only be explained by dark matter. So even the theoretically fine part of this book is empirically untrue. The existence of the Bullet Cluster alone means almost every word of this book is irrelevant as near 90% of the book argues against the existence of dark matter and for a Carmelian cosmology.
Finally, there is a long, long laundry list of unanswered questions that the author cannot explain. They explicitly say that the initial size of the universe was 8 million light years. This cannot explain the temperature of the CMB. They claim that the issue of the homogeneity of the CMB is explained - it just isn't. That's a lie. Anyways, here's a non-exhaustive list of questions that the author cannot answer without saying "God just made it that way":
- The temperature of the CMB
- The power spectrum of the CMB
- Baryonic acoustic oscillations
- Why our stellar evolution models work so well
- Why isochrones exactly match populations on CMDs
- The Bullet Cluster
- Why the NFW dark matter profile works so well
- Why supernovae are predicted from our stellar evolution models
- The existence of low metallicity stars
- Black holes as AGNs and quasars
- Basic hydrodynamics of stellar interiors
- Matter/anti-matter asymmetry
- Big bang nucleosynthesis matching our observations of H, He, and Li
and much much more
Exegesis
This book assumes that the only Biblical way to understand Genesis 1 is a literal 24/7 creation week that occurred 6000 years ago. This is just false. Young earth creationism is a recent phenomenon. Further, there are many strained arguments about how we must live in the centre of the universe because the story of the Bible focuses on Earth and how there must be a finite universe because God said to Abraham that he would have as many descendants as the stars of the sky and the grains of sand - and since sand is finite so is the universe. This is very juvenile and contrived.
Science
This book unexplainably spends almost all of its runtime arguing that a) dark matter doesn't exist and b) that a non-mainstream cosmology model known as the Carmelian model is true. The problem is that this does not actually prove what the author believes at all. Moshe Carmeli agreed with the Big Bang inflationary model, he simply provides a different mechanism for it - according to the author themselves. Second, the existence of dark matter has nothing to do with the expansion of the universe. There are also a lot of references in this book - good! Unfortunately, almost all the references have no relevance to the unique points of the author. Those go completely without citation - bad.
The "cosmology model" that the author argues for is that the universe was suddenly expanded trillions of times on the fourth day of Creation Week by God, that we live quite literally in the centre of the universe, and that we are on a white hole. These are all very stupid arguments with no empirical evidence to prove it. According to the author, "the choice of cosmology, then, is ultimately personal preference, not a requirement dictated by the data". This firmly places what they say in the realm of pure conjecture and unfalsifiable pseudo-science. There is nothing of value here. Further, to say that the physical mechanism is God renders the whole point of this book as meaningless. Just say "God did it" for everything. The book opens with a judgment room scene where someone stands in front of God apologizing that they did not believe His eye-witness testimony of a 24/7 creation week. Why waste your time pretending that you even care about science.
Now let's talk about the specific cosmological model: Carmelian cosmology. In Appendix 3, the author says that it is the theoretical basis for MOND (I suspect the author hates dark matter because they are a believer in MOND). Unfortunately for the author, MOND has been disproven by objects like the Bullet Cluster which can only be explained by dark matter. So even the theoretically fine part of this book is empirically untrue. The existence of the Bullet Cluster alone means almost every word of this book is irrelevant as near 90% of the book argues against the existence of dark matter and for a Carmelian cosmology.
Finally, there is a long, long laundry list of unanswered questions that the author cannot explain. They explicitly say that the initial size of the universe was 8 million light years. This cannot explain the temperature of the CMB. They claim that the issue of the homogeneity of the CMB is explained - it just isn't. That's a lie. Anyways, here's a non-exhaustive list of questions that the author cannot answer without saying "God just made it that way":
- The temperature of the CMB
- The power spectrum of the CMB
- Baryonic acoustic oscillations
- Why our stellar evolution models work so well
- Why isochrones exactly match populations on CMDs
- The Bullet Cluster
- Why the NFW dark matter profile works so well
- Why supernovae are predicted from our stellar evolution models
- The existence of low metallicity stars
- Black holes as AGNs and quasars
- Basic hydrodynamics of stellar interiors
- Matter/anti-matter asymmetry
- Big bang nucleosynthesis matching our observations of H, He, and Li
and much much more
August 23, 2025
Yet more evidence that a belief in evolution isn't necessary to understand, or make sense of, the universe. The "technical stuff" is stowed away in the appendixes, while the main body of the text explains everything for laymen.
May 23, 2019
Glad to finish this book. Some interesting scientific theories, however I see that Creation science has moved on and black holes are now accepted.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews