Non-constant Speed of Light

[Serendipity]

There's a new paper out suggesting that the speed of light is not constant... see
Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

Whilst the theory is still to be proved one way or another, the important thing is that it is testable!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Saw this in NewScientist - I've seen it suggested before that Universal Constants really aren't constant, and think it makes sense - after all, we already know with the Big Bang and Black Holes that the laws of physics as we know them cannot always apply in the universe.

What will be especially interesting is seeing what sort of extrapolations and predictions can be made from this - if it can simplify the Big Bang, it's bound to have an effect on particle physics, and possibly bring Quantum Theory and the Theory of Gravity closer together through newly revealed areas.

I'm not holding my breath on answers there any time soon, but it's always interesting to see this approach explored.

 

[Serendipity]

The suggestion that the speed of light has changed over the years (sorry meant to say shortly after big bang) was around since some time in the 1990s. But it could never be proved and really was all conjecture. Until now. The article suggests there is a way of testing it through the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Even more interesting is that the value we have currently from the Planck satellite (which has not yet finished its work) is tantalisingly close in physics terms. So it's a wait and see on this one.

The issue I have with the speed of light being a constant limit, is quantum entanglement which manages to send an effect faster than speed of light between particles. Trying to marry the two bits of physics together just blows my mind!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I wonder if anybody has pondered the possibility of General Relativity and Quantum Theory being 100% incompatible? That might give some interesting insights into the universe.

 

[mosaix]

Would a non-constant speed of light throw doubt on the perceived size / age of the universe?

 

[Extollager]

Wouldn't it have to? But let's hear from someone with the physics. I'm an English teacher.

 

[J Riff]

Well, there is the idea that you only have to get close to the SOL, 90%ish, and dilation and other effects kick in. That's what we've heard, the numbers are a mystery here, too.

 

[juelz4sure]

I don't know if the speed of light actually changes. I've had a few conversations about it in regards to the big bang, where they explained that time and distance is compressed which gives the illusion that the speed of light was faster... It's very interesting though.

 

[Extollager]

Quoting from "The Biocentric Universe Theory" by Lanza and Berman in Discover May 2009:

According to biocentrism, time does not exist independently of the life that notices it. The reality of time has long been questioned by an odd alliance of philosophers and physicists. The former argue that the past exists only as ideas in the mind, which themselves are neuroelectrical events occurring strictly in the present moment. Physicists, for their part, note that all of their working models, from Isaac Newton’s laws through quantum mechanics, do not actually describe the nature of time. The real point is that no actual entity of time is needed, nor does it play a role in any of their equations. When they speak of time, they inevitably describe it in terms of change. But change is not the same thing as time.

....
Biocentrism should unlock the cages in which Western science has unwittingly confined itself. Allowing the observer into the equation should open new approaches to understanding cognition, from unraveling the nature of consciousness to developing thinking machines that experience the world the same way we do. Biocentrism should also provide stronger bases for solving problems associated with quantum physics and the Big Bang. Accepting space and time as forms of animal sense perception (that is, as biological), rather than as external physical objects, offers a new way of understanding everything from the microworld (for instance, the reason for strange results in the two-slit experiment) to the forces, constants, and laws that shape the universe. At a minimum, it should help halt such dead-end efforts as string theory.

Above all, biocentrism offers a more promising way to bring together all of physics, as scientists have been trying to do since Einstein’s unsuccessful unified field theories of eight decades ago. Until we recognize the essential role of biology, our attempts to truly unify the universe will remain a train to nowhere.

------Take a look at the whole article. Is it relevant in any way to the present discussion, and is it possibly true? Like I said, I', am English teacher, interested in hearing from commenters who have some physics chops.

 

[tinkerdan]

Maybe it's something to do with the limits of how we measure speed.
After all who knows what it was like before the big bang. Maybe there was no time. After all who was around to need time.
Take time out of the equation and... everyone knows what happens when you divide by zero.
Thankfully this is a null.
But if we eliminate time, then light could travel as far as it wants in no time at all and that's pretty darn fast if you ask me.
It's a good thing that time came along and slowed it down enough that we can see it.
Perhaps man wove time as a net into which he could capture the remaining closer light like butterflies; slowing it just enough to light his way before he passes from this earth.

Perhaps Christopher Bullock ; Edward Ward and Mark Twain had it right when they said something around the lines of 'The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.'

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

At least one way of slowing light in a vacuum has been demonstrated, more than a decade ago I believe. This was in Science News a while back.
There is also a concept called the Alcubierre drive that is no more than a thought experiment yet and may not be possible in the real world. But the math of it intrigues some real physicists. Strictly, as I understand it, it doesn't change C, but reduces the distance to travel in a way that works out similarly.

 

[Steven Sorrels]

Ah, but the real question is this:

What is the Speed of Darkness?

 

[juelz4sure]

My guess -299,792 kilometers per second. (Does that mean it goes back in time?)

 

[juelz4sure]

I do believe I found the missing key to time travel. And yes I will be patting myself on the back when time travel becomes a reality due to this tremendous breakthrough. And everyone here will be getting a signed copy of The Average Joe Solves Time Travel with a special thanks going out to Steven Sorrels

 

[Steven Sorrels]

I do believe I found the missing key to time travel. And yes I will be patting myself on the back when time travel becomes a reality due to this tremendous breakthrough. And everyone here will be getting a signed copy of The Average Joe Solves Time Travel with a special thanks going out to Steven Sorrels

You do the math, I'll provide the inspiration.

 

[Brian G Turner]

A suggestion that Inflation is just a fudge, and allowing the speed of light to be different in the early universe could solve at least one fundamental problem with the Big Bang theory:

Gravity may have chased light in the early universe

 

[Ursa major]

Physicists, for their part, note that all of their working models, from Isaac Newton’s laws through quantum mechanics, do not actually describe the nature of time.

Which isn't, of course, the same thing as time not existing.

I don't know anyone who experiences life in a different order to the rest of us (give or take the order in which they observe things or receive the observations of others). I read a book about the universe being made up of an inordinately large number of (obviously) unchanging time slices, but don't recall any explanation of how any of us navigate our way through them, let alone take the path that appears to show cause and effect in operation. And there was nothing in the book that might explain why we find ourselves choosing the same sequence of time slices as other people (for the "times" when we exist simultaneously)... or, indeed, why any particular sequence of time slices would simulate** cause and effect.

Frankly, alighting on biocentrism looks like grasping at an imaginary straw on a day when everyone was particularly short of inspiration.


** - Surely it would have to be simulation if these time slices were otherwise independent entities whose sequence was simply a matter of the path a sentient entity took***. (In what "medium" they all existed, goodness only knows.)

*** - And as the sentient entity was already built into all the time slices that "represented" that entity's "life span", how could the sentient entity make such a choice?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Physicists, for their part, note that all of their working models, from Isaac Newton’s laws through quantum mechanics, do not actually describe the nature of time. The real point is that no actual entity of time is needed, nor does it play a role in any of their equations.

Errmmm....no mention of thermodynamics and entropy - such that the entropy of an isolated system always increases. i.e. the arrow of time??? That they haven't mentioned something so fundamental is a bit of a warning bell!

I've tried to find what Bio-centrism is, and from a quick look it appears to be a very 'hard' case of the anthropic principle - not just that the universe is the way it is because for intelligent life because, well, we are here. But that life actively influences the fundamental nature of the universe to make it suit it's existence. And it is that interaction between the living thing and the universe we should be studying. And not assume that the universe is objective and that things just exist independently of life and we should study them separately....

It kinda reads like a couple of biologists who have just figured out the implications of Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of the double slit experiment. So about 70 years behind the rest of the party

 

[dask]

Perhaps Christopher Bullock ; Edward Ward and Mark Twain had it right when they said something around the lines of 'The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.'

How about: the only two things we can be certain of are life, death and taxes.

 

[steelyglint]

I always thought that Vernor Vinge may be on to something in 'A Fire Upon the Deep' where light travels faster (and automation works better) away from large masses - in intergalactic space, for instance.

As I live next door to the noisiest pub in town, his description of the area where Earth is in the Milky Way seems to fit, too - the Unthinking Depths.

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