Subject: Norman/Setterfield
Posted: 17 May 88 06:06:09 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA

This is the third part of a short review of Norman and Setterfield
"The Atomic constants, Light and Time". (privately published)

In the previous section, on methodology, I raised the question:  "Why
not simply run the experiment?  Why choose this very indirect
methodology when a quick and simple method is at hand?"

Well, Norman/Setterfield have not, but other people have.  Over the
past twenty years here are some results:

1966	Karolus		299,792.44	+- 0.2
1967	Simkin		299,792.56	+- 0.11
1967	Grosse		299,792.50	+- 0.05
1972	Bay et al.	299,792.462	+- 0.018
1972	NRC/NBS		299,792.460	+- 0.006
1973	Evenson		299,792.4574	+- 0.0011
1973	NRC/NBS		299,792.458	+- 0.002
1974	Blaney		299,792.4590	+- 0.0008
1978	Woods et al.	299,792.4588	+- 0.0002
1979	Baird et al.	299,792.4581	+- 0.0019
1983	NBS		299,792.4586	+- 0.0003

As you can see, over almost twenty years, there is not the slightest
sign of the >2 Km/sec per year decay that Norman/Setterfield are
looking for.

Norman/Setterfield quote these results, so what is their reaction  to
them?  It is striking in its simplicity.  The decay has ceased, or in
their words "Is flattening out fast".

This bears thinking about.  Maybe you will recall me poking gentle fun
at Hoyle for proposing a rate of matter production between Galaxies
"too small to be measured".  Now imagine how I feel about a rate of
'decay' in the speed of light that was as high as 38 Km/sec per year
three hundred years ago, and can be confidently extrapolated back to
the creation of the Universe (by Setterfield), yet which has decided to
go to zero in the very decade when humanity has developed the
technology to detect it by direct means.

When data conflicts so radically with reality, we either have to change
our view of reality, or take a close look at the data.

For example, in looking at data over the past three hundred years, we
would expect to find both random and systematic errors.  The random
errors would come from uncertainties of observation and measurement,
differences between different observers, and miscalculation.  We would
not expect random errors to show much trend, but to get smaller as
technology is refined.  Systematic error come from the design of
experiments, or consistent bias in observers, and may introduce trends
in the data.

For a good account of all this, read Topping's book "Errors of
Observation and their Treatment" Oxford.  He does not just instruct,
but also tells some very funny stories, for example, about astronomers
who fired assistants who did not get the 'correct' values, because they
did not share the systematic bias of their employers.   Experimenters
before about the first quarter of the nineteenth century were simply
not so careful about error determination as they are today.

I don't have time to review all of Norman/Setterfield's data, so I
decided to ask myself which data were most imporant to their result.
If you want to produce a curve which extrapolates back to the correct
value, you probably want to look at the early values.  In any case,
recent values are too well known.   It's also the case that early
values tend to have very wide error margins.   This ought to make the
authors wary of them, but in fact they depend on them very heavily, and
tend to treat all data, from the seventeenth century up to today as of
equal weight.  Sometimes, that is.   Sometimes they do not.   In their
final analysis of 'reliable' data, they throw out the only Roemer-type
value with an error estimate attached to it, and keep two with no
tabulated error estimate at all.

Norman/Setterfield's earliest value is that of Roemer (1675) which they
quote as 307,600 (+- 5400) Km/sec.  As it happens, this is quite a well
known result, and Roemer is justly famous.  Roemer made his measurement
using the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, and the delay to their
appearance at Earth.  His result is often quoted as 193,000Km/sec.
That's about half the value quoted by Norman/Setterfield, so what has
happened?  Norman/Setterfield say this:

	"An examination of the best 50 Roemer values was undertaken
	by Goldstein in 1975 after initial work in 1973.   The correction
	of a procedural error, only recently noted 'gave a light travel
	time 2.6% lower than the present value.   The formal uncertainty
	is +- 1.8%'.    Roemer's value thus becomes 307.600 +- 5400 km/sec.
	The investigations are continuing".

Bill Jefferys noted in <2443@ut-emx.UUCP>, what has actually happened
is that on re-analysis Goldstein obtained results "giving a 2.4% lower
value in 1675 from today, and the fact that this difference from
today's value is not statistically significant".   You can see for
yourself that there is some inconsistency between what Goldstein
actually said, and what use Norman/Setterfield made of it.  Just as
startling is the use that they make of other published results using the
Roemer method.  They quote eight values, give error estimates for only
two, throw away two values, including one of the only two for which
they have error estimates, and finally, make no mention of the
possibility that Roemer-type measurements might have any kind of
systematic error.

On the other hand, when it suits them, they do mention systematic
errors.  In quoting Kerr-cell results, all of which are actually below
today's values, they dismiss the discrepancy as being 'systematic' and
proceed to give us a declining trend.

They mention Romer in the text, but omit his data in their least
squares linear fit on Roemer-type data, and take two only of the
Roemer-type values forward to their 'best' final analysis, and all
without any justification.  Amazingly, at another point in the paper,
they return to their original data, complete, with no omissions, and
derive an overall figure of 38Km/sec per year, and this is including a
figure by Cassini that even Edmund Halley condemned as erroneous as
long ago as 1694.

In a previous paper, "The Velocity of Light and the Age of the
Universe," one of the authors, Setterfield, has chosen to include
Roemer in his analysis of 40 values, yet here the authors have chosen
to include Roemer for comment, and yet exclude his data from their
analysis of Roemer type measurements in particular, but include him
again for their collecitve analysis of 163 measurements!   Then, when
they want to do an analysis of 'most reliable' values, they omit
Roemer himself, and all but two of the Roemer-type determinations,
including the latest in their table, which happens also to be the only
one with an error estimate.

In their treatment of Bradley-type measurements, their treatment of the
data is also strange.  They tabulate data from several sources, but
then they draw a graph showing data from only one observatory, Pulkova,
13 of the 63 values tabulated.  The graph shows a nice decline in
values, but of the values *not* graphed, some of the earliest values,
from  1843, 1868, 1878, 1879, 1880 are actually below those of today,
The graph itself is most confusing, with a zero bar at about 299,500
Km/sec.

All in all, I find this aritrary and unexplained treatment of data to
be quite incomprehensible.   In fact, one of the problems in following
the paper is the lack of any coherent plan.  One simply jumps from
selection to selection.

It is very hard to avoid the impression that what is going on here is
part fudge and part honest misunderstanding.  The honest
misunderstanding part is that the authors seem to have carried out a
survey which might, if carefully reworked, tell us something about the
systematic errors of different methods.  Instead, they have treated all
methods as of essentially equal weight, and have quoted their result as
a question of yearly change.  Since different methods were used in
different decades, one must at least eliminate systematic error, and
they have not.

On the other hand, when we see two authors, one of whom has already
written a study of creationist/scriptural chronology which rests
entirely on these results, and we also see methodological faults like
the following, then it's hard to believe that everything is as it
should be. 

Here is a short list of problems.

	+ unexplained inclusion and exclusion of data.

	+ no attempt to justify inability to reproduce the 'decay' effect 
		experimentally beyond saying that it has "levelled off".

	+ total omission of any systematic error treatment.

	+ selection of different data in different publications.

	+ inclusion of corrected and uncorrected data in the same
		calculations.

	+ inconsistent treatment of systematic error.

	+ misquotations from others' work.

	+ lack of acknowledgement of criticisms of previous work.

	+ incorrect attribution of this work to SRI international.


My final opinion is that this work is more or less valueless unless
the authors can come up with good answers to these objections.

jon.




THIS IS ONLY PART OF THE FAQ. N & S ALSO MISREPRESENT THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO
SRI, AMONG OTHER THINGS. I WOULD SUGGEST YOU READ THE COMPLETE LIST OF FAQ'S.

happy trails.

Ed E.
Newsgroups: talk.origins