Moshe Carmeli, the former Albert Einstein Professor of Theoretical Physics, Ben Gurion University

There are several YEC versions of relativity. Some have had papers accepted in peer review, most notably by Dr. John Hartnett who is a tenured physicist at a secular university. See: John Harnett. I mentioned one of his peer reviewed papers here. Hartnett worked with Moshe Carmeli, the former Albert Einstein Professor of Theoretical Physics, Ben Gurion University. Carmeli passed away and I hear there may be a postumous publication of a book he and Hartnett were working on. Carmeli is not a traditional YEC but Hartnett is. Harnett is defending a YEC version of Caremeli’s relativity….Hartnett encouraged me to think about becoming his PhD student someday. Hmm……

One of Hartnett’s YEC rivals is Dr. Charles “Bill” Lucas a PhD from William and Mary. There was a lovely shouting match at ICC 2008 between Dr. Lucas, Dr. Hartnett, Dr. Boudreux, Dr. Faulkner. Present in that room to witness the spectacle was Dr. Russell Humphreys, myself, and (gasp) Dr. Jason Rosenhouse of PandasThumb!

I privately took sides with Dr. Lucas. Last year I showed the derivation from Electrodynamics that is at the heart of Special Relativity. It was part of my very first homework assignment at Johns Hopkins to re-derive some of Einstein’s ideas from the creationist Maxwell’s equations. I showed the derivation here. The problem for YEC cosmology is that if the creationist Maxwell’s equations are true as stated, it would appear YEC is wrong! Ah, the irony.

But Dr. Lucas may have been able to rederive a YEC relativity with only a minor adjustment to Maxwell’s equations. Here is an excpert from one of his papers:

Abstract. A new universal electromagnetic force law for real finite-size elastic
charged particles is derived by solving simultaneously the fundamental empirical
laws of classical electrodynamics, i.e. Gauss’s laws, Ampere’s generalized law,
Faraday’s law, and Lenz’s law assuming Galilean invariance. This derived
version of the electromagnetic force law incorporates the effects of the self-fields
of real finite-size elastic particles as observed in particle scattering experiments.
It can account for gravity, inertia, and relativistic effects including radiation and
radiation reaction. The non-radial terms of the force law explain the
experimentally observed curling of plasma currents, the tilting of the orbits of the
planets with respect to the equatorial plane of the sun, and certain inertial
gyroscope motions. The derived force law satisfies Newton’s third law,
conservation of energy and momentum, conservation of charge, and Mach’s
Principle. The mathematical properties of equations for the fundamental
empirical laws and also Hooper’s experiments [13] showing that the fields of a
moving charge move with the charge require that the electrodynamic force be a
contact force based on field extensions of the charge instead of action-at-adistance.
The Lorentz force is derived from Galilean invariance. The most
general form of the force law, derived using all the higher order terms of the
Galilean transformation, is assumed to be exact for all phenomena on all size
scales. Arguments are given that this force law is superior to all previous force
laws, i.e. relativistic quantum electrodynamics, gravitational, inertial, strong
interaction and weak interaction force laws.

The trick is to assume Force is related to velocity!!!!! Whoa!!! One can then derive the supposed Lorentz invariance relationships that were in my first homework assignment at Johns Hopkins, but without all the nasty paradoxes in Einstein’s special relativity!!! We are able to thus preserve Galilean relativity with a more elegant version of Einsteinian relativity, plus make room for a viable YEC cosmology. Woohoo!

See Dr. Lucas’ outline here: Derivation of the Universal Force Law