Origin of the Earth’s magnetic field The Humphreys Proposal Dr Humphreys proposed that God first created the earth out of water.1 He based this on several Scriptures, e.g. 2 Peter 3:5 which concludes that the earth was formed out of water and by water. After this, God would have transformed much of the water into other substances like rock minerals. Now water contains hydrogen atoms, and the nucleus of a hydrogen atom is a tiny magnet. Normally these magnets cancel out so water as a whole is almost non-magnetic. But Humphreys proposed that God created the water with the nuclear magnets aligned. Immediately after creation, they would form a more random arrangement, which would cause the earth’s magnetic field to decay. This would generate current in the core, which would then decay according to Barnes’ model, apart from many reversals in the Flood year as Humphreys’ model states. Observational support from the fields of other planets Dr Humphreys also calculated the fields of other planets (and the sun) based on this model. The important factors are the mass of the object, the size of the core and how well it conducts electricity, plus the assumption that their original material was water. His model explains features which are deep puzzles to dynamo theorists. For example, evolutionists refer to ‘the enigma of lunar magnetism’2—the moon once had a strong magnetic field, although it rotates only once a month. Also, according to evolutionary models of its origin, it never had a molten core, necessary for a dynamo to work. Also, Mercury has a far stronger magnetic field than dynamo theory expects from a planet rotating 59 times slower than Earth. Even more importantly, in 1984, Dr Humphreys predicted that the field strength of Uranus was about 100,000 times the evolutionary predictions from their ‘dynamo’ theory. The two rival models were tested when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past these planets in 1986 and 1989. The field for Uranus was just as Humphreys had predicted. Dr Humphreys’ prediction for the field strength of Neptune aligned with the evolutionary prediction, because this planet has a high heat outflow.3 But Neptune’s field was still different in other important ways from the evolutionary dynamo prediction: the tilt and offset.4 Yet many anti-creationists call creation ‘unscientific’ because it supposedly makes no predictions! Humphreys’ model also explains why the moons of Jupiter that have cores have magnetic fields, while Callisto, which lacks a core, also lacks a field.5 (See Dr Humphreys’ online article Beyond Neptune: Voyager II Supports Creation) Cause of the earth’s magnetic field Materials like iron are composed of tiny magnetic domains, which each behave like tiny magnets. The domains themselves are composed of even tinier atoms, which are themselves microscopic magnets, lined up within the domain. Normally the domains cancel each other out. But in magnets, like a compass needle, more of the domains are lined up in the same direction, and so the material has an overall magnetic field. Earth’s core is mainly iron and nickel, so could its magnetic field be caused the same way as a compass needle’s? No—above a temperature called the Curie point, the magnetic domains are disrupted. The earth’s core at its coolest region is about 3400–4700°C (6100–8500°F), much hotter than the Curie points of all known substances. But in 1820, the Danish physicist H.C. Ørsted discovered that an electric current produces a magnetic field. Without this, there could be no electric motors. So could an electric current be responsible for the earth’s magnetic field? Electric motors have a power source, but electric currents normally decay almost instantly once the power source is switched off (except in superconductors). So how could there be an electric current inside the earth, without a source? The great creationist physicist Michael Faraday answered this question in 1831 with his discovery that a changing magnetic field induces an electric voltage, the basis of electrical generators. Imagine the earth soon after creation with a large electrical current in its core. This would produce a strong magnetic field. Without a power source, this current would decay. Thus the magnetic field would decay too. As decay is change, it would induce a current, lower but in the same direction as the original one. So we have a decaying current producing a decaying field which generates a decaying current … If the circuit dimensions are large enough, the current would take a while to die out. The decay rate can be accurately calculated, and is always exponential. The electrical energy doesn’t disappear—it is turned into heat, a process discovered by the creationist physicist James Joule in 1840. This is the basis of Dr Barnes’ model. Addendum: Answering sceptical objections Exponential Decay? Some sceptics have claimed that an exponential decay curve is wrong, and a linear decay should have been plotted. Now, both exponential and linear decay curves have two fitted parameters: Exponential decay ( i = Ie -t/τ ) requires the parameters I and τ.

) requires the parameters I and τ. Linear decay of the general form y = mx + c requires the gradient m and y-intercept c. If the fit were similar, there is no statistical reason to choose one over the other. The fit is very similar for the limited range of data available, with no significant difference between the two. However, it is a well-accepted procedure in modelling of regression analysis to use meaningful equations to describe physical phenomena, where there is a sound theoretical basis for doing so. This is the case here. Currents in resistance/inductance circuits always decay exponentially, not linearly, after the power source is switched off. For example, in a simple electric circuit at time t with initial current I, resistance R and inductance L, the current is given by i = Ie-t/τ, where τ is the time constant L/R—the time for the current to decay to 1/e (~37%) of its initial value. For a sphere of radius a, conductivity σ and permeability μ,τ is given by μσa²/π². A linear decay might look good on paper, but it’s physically absurd when dealing with the real world of electric circuits. In fact, linear decays are rare in nature in general. Conversely, exponential decay is firmly rooted in electromagnetic theory. Thomas Barnes, who first pointed out magnetic field decay as a problem for evolutionists, was a specialist in electromagnetism and wrote some well-regarded textbooks on the subject. But most of his critics are crassly ignorant of the subject. Another important point is that these calculations point to a maximum age of the earth. Even if the sceptics were right about a linear decay, it would still point to an upper limit of 90 million years, and this is far too young for evolution. A final point is that if the decay really were linear, we haven’t got much time left before the earth’s magnetic field disappears! Multipole components of the field Some sceptics have claimed: ‘… only the dipole-field strength has been “decaying” for a century and a half … the strength of the nondipole field (about 15% of the total field) has increased over the same time span, so that the total field has remained almost constant. Barnes’ assumption of a steady decrease in the field’s strength throughout history is also irreconcilable, of course, with the paleomagnetic evidence of fluctuations and reversals [in the geomagnetic field] (Ecker, 1990, 105)’ The ‘authority’ turns out to be an anti-creationist dictionary compiled by an anti-Christian librarian with, as far as we are aware, no scientific training! Dr Humphreys answered in July 2001: ‘Litany in the Church of Darwin: “The non-dipole part of the earth’s magnetic field shall save us!” That is indeed an old and dismissive evolutionist argument. Tom Barnes discussed it in his papers during the 1970s. I discussed it near the end of my paper “A Physical Mechanism for Reversals of the Earth’s Magnetic Field During the Flood”.6 ‘Over 90% of the field is dipolar (two poles, one north and one south), but the rest of it is non-dipolar, or multipolar, such as the quadrupole part (two north and two south poles), the octopole part (four north and four south poles), etc. Just imagine the fields from bar magnets tied together at various angles to one another. ‘In the 1970s, the evolutionists claimed that the very large energy (units are Joules or ergs) disappearing from the dipole part of the field is not really converted into heat, but is somehow being stored in the non-dipole part, later to be resurrected as a new dipole in the reverse direction. Some papers showed that the average field intensity (units are Teslas or Gauss) of some of the non-dipole parts is increasing slightly.7 ‘But field intensity is not energy. To get the total energy in a component, one must square the intensity in a small volume around each point, multiply by the volume and a certain constant, and add up all the resulting energies throughout all space. The non-dipole intensities fall off (with increasing distance from the earth’s center) much faster than the dipole intensity, so the non-dipole parts are not able to contribute nearly as much energy to the total as the dipole part. That means the small increase in some non-dipole field intensities does not appear to represent nearly enough energy to compensate for the enormous energy lost year by year from the dipole part. ‘I have my doubts that the paper referred to actually proves the point the evolutionists want to make, that “non-dipole energy gain compensates for dipole energy loss”. Not only does my eyeball estimate above disagree, but the theory of reversals in my 1990 ICC paper disagrees [As shown below, Dr Humphreys no longer has his doubts—he (and anyone who checks the numbers) now knows that the evolutionist claim is fallacious]. It says that some energy will go into non-dipole components, but not nearly enough to compensate for the energy loss from the dipole part. The reversal process I propose is not efficient; it dissipates a large amount of energy as heat. I discussed this, including non-dipole parts by implication, in the second-to-last section (“The Field’s Energy Has Always Decreased”) of my Impact article on the ICR website. ‘As further evidence, I used the authoritative International Geomagnetic Reference Field data—more than 2500 numbers representing the earth’s magnetic field over the whole twentieth century. The bottom line is this: ‘In the most accurately recorded period, from 1970 to 2000, the total (dipole plus non-dipole) energy in the earth’s magnetic field has steadily decreased by 1.41±0.16%. At that rate, the field would lose at least half its energy every 1500 years, give or take a century or so. This supports the creationist model that the field has always been losing energy—even during magnetic polarity reversals during the Genesis flood—ever since God created it about 6000 years ago. ‘The evolutionists, on the other hand, have no workable, mathematically-analyzable theory of reversals. They are claiming that whatever process actually caused the reversals was 100% efficient—that the total energy in their hoped-for future dipole field will be equal to the total energy which was in the dipole field at its last peak (about the time of Christ). That is, their faith in a billion-year age for the field requires them to believe that each cycle is resurrected phoenix-like from the ashes of the previous cycle—with no losses. ‘Put another way, the Church of Darwin requires them to believe that the Second Law of Thermodynamics—that all forms of energy devolve down to heat—does not apply to planetary magnetic fields. Sound familiar?’ Later, Dr Humphreys published ‘The Earth’s magnetic field is still losing energy’, CRSQ 39(1)1–11, March 2002, which explains the above and more in detail (see full article, and his Creation Matters layman’s summary—The Earth’s Magnetic Field: Closing a Loophole in the Case for its Youth, March/April 2002—both off site). The abstract of the CRSQ paper reads: ‘This paper closes a loophole in the case for a young earth based on the loss of energy from various parts of the earth’s magnetic field. Using ambiguous 1967 data, evolutionists had claimed that energy gains in minor (“non-dipole”) parts compensate for the energy loss from the main (“dipole”) part. However, nobody seems to have checked that claim with newer, more accurate data. Using data from the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) I show that from 1970 to 2000, the dipole part of the field steadily lost 235 ± 5 billion megajoules of energy, while the non-dipole part gained only 129 ± 8 billion megajoules. Over that 30-year period, the net loss of energy from all observable parts of the field was 1.41 ± 0.16 %. At that rate, the field would lose half its energy every 1465 ± 166 years. Combined with my 1990 theory explaining reversals of polarity during the Genesis Flood and intensity fluctuations after that, these new data support the creationist model: the field has rapidly and continuously lost energy ever since God created it about 6,000 years ago.’ References D. Russell Humphreys, The creation of planetary magnetic fields, Creation Research Society Quarterly 21(3):140–149, 1984. Return to text. L.L. Hood, The enigma of lunar magnetism, Eos 62(16):161–163. Return to text. The Voyager measurements were 3.0 and 1.5 x 1024 J/T for Uranus and Neptune respectively. N.F. Ness et al., Magnetic fields at Uranus, Science 233:85–89, 1986; A.J. Dessler, Does Uranus have a magnetic field? Nature 319:174–175, 1986; R.A. Kerr, The Neptune system in Voyager’s afterglow, Science 245:1450–51. Return to text. Dr Humphreys had predicted field strengths of the order of 1024 J/T—Creation Research Society Quarterly 27(1):15–17, 1990. The fields of Uranus and Neptune are hugely off-centred (0.3 and 0.4 of the planets’ radii) and at a large angle from the planets’ spin axis (60° and 50°). A big puzzle for dynamo theorists, but explainable by a catastrophe which seems to have affected the whole solar system (see Revelations in the solar system). Return to text. Magnetic moon findings support creationist’s theory Creation 19(4):8, 1997. Return to text. Humphreys, D.R., Physical mechanism for reversals of the earth’s magnetic field during the flood, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, 2:129–142, 1990. Return to text. Barraclough, D.R., Geophy. J. Roy. Astr. Soc., 43:645–659, 1975. Return to text.