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EDITORIAL

This issue catches up on some of the correspondence which has arrived over the last couple of issues. Most of these have been in the form of questions which are here answered, but one makes an interesting statement of geocentric import. See “Readers' Forum.”

The most famous formula in the world

Jim Hanson takes a brief look at the famous E=mc2 formula, usually attributed to Einstein, and shows that it antedates that fornicating humanist1 by more than 100 years. Hanson even gives a simple derivation of the formula. Beyond that, he shows that much of the formulae used by relativity to explain phenomena at speeds close to that of light are derived on the assumption that the speeds are very much less than the speed of light. This has consequences in creationist circles for such works as Russell Humphries' work that only six days elapsed on earth while the distant universe experienced billions of years.

Infinite numbers and science

Dr. John Byl also contributed an article to this issue of the Biblical Astronomer. He looks at the question of transfinite (infinite) numbers and its relation to cosmology. He points out that many of the problems in modern physics, which problems involve infinite quantities, stem from paradoxes of self reference. Lest the reader think that this has nothing to do with the day-to-day reality of his life, consider some common paradoxes of self-reference (here the paradoxical statement is in quotes and the illustrator or answer follows in plain text):


• “There are no absolutes!” — Absolutely, right?

• “There are only points of view on an issue, and none is the point of view!” — One thing's for sure, the view that says there is no the point of view on an issue cannot itself be the point of view.


A home page on the Internet

Work has started on the construction of a home page on the Internet. Some of the key position papers will be posted there and eventually we hope to present some video clips and some audio, too. One of the first papers to be posted will be the firmament paper presented at the Sixth European Creationist Congress last August. The biggest drawbacks involve incorporating the equations (an Adobe PDF file creator is way too expensive and time consuming to learn), but we'll scan them in as JPEG files. We are also looking for illustrations to grace the pages and to keep the site from dying with boredom. The site will be shared by college students, but you can find it at http://baldwinw.edu/~gbouw. An E-mail address is provided there, as well as a picture of yours truly. If you can help in the site construction, we would appreciate it very much.

SOLUTION TO LAST ISSUE'S PUZZLE

In a study done about 10 years ago, more than 20% of the scientists to whom the puzzle was presented said that it was impossible. The rest solved it in anywhere from no time to 20 minutes. Here is the statement of the puzzle:

Draw three boxes in a row flush along the bottom of a sheet of paper. Label these from left to right as “A,” “B,” and “C. Above that row of boxes draw another row of three boxes and label these three boxes from left to right as “C,” “B,” and “A.” Is it possible to draw lines connecting the bottom boxes with the correspondingly labeled top boxes without the lines crossing each other?

Solution: No one said the upper boxes had to be along the top of the page. At least one of the lines will come in from its bottom box and connect to the top of its corresponding upper box.


NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 Highfield, Roger and Paul Carter, 1994. The Private Lives of Albert Einstein, (St. Martin's Press).


Translated from WS2000 on 14 February 2005 by ws2html.