Slashdot Mirror
Speed of Light Inconstant?
DHR writes "Australian scientists have discovered that light isn't quite as fast as it used to be." We've done previous stories on these findings. Those of you with subscriptions to Nature can read the actual paper, the rest of us will just have to suffer.
While reading the article, I came across this paragraph.
If the speed of light was close to infinity, immediately after the Big Bang, as Davies believes it may have been, our theories about the way energy cooled to form matter, giving rise to stars, planets and people, could be completely wrong.
Excuse me, but how exactly can something be close to infinity?
my other penis is a vagina
In October, 1971, American physicists took four super-accurate atomic clocks, kept two on the ground and put two on commercial jets flying at 1000 kmh in opposite directions around Earth.
When the planes landed, the scientists found what they were hoping for: The clocks on the high-speed journeys were ticking a few billionths of a second behind their stationary friends.
Isn't the speed of a jet negligible compared to the speed of the Earth rotating, revolving around the sun, the sun revolving around the center of the galaxy and the galaxy spiralling in the expansion of the universe?
Please explain.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
Well, let's see here:
The speed of light -is- always constant in one sense,
simply because the length of 1 meter is defined by the distance light travels in a set time.
Now, from a more physical standpoint: We need more evidence.
Quite a few measurements of c have been done, and a single measurement isn't about to upend all this.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, remember?
Now, nobody says that relativity is a complete and final theory. It probably isn't. But you still need lots
of evidence to replace it with another theory.
Otherwise, we won't even know if the theory we're replacing it with is better!
It's an interesting theory and experiment, but even so, I'd bet on this being a
freak result, for the simple reason that scientific breakthroughs don't come around that often.
Interesting they suggest that time and motion are different between two frames of reference travelling at different speeds.
Isn't this kinda the idea of relativity? How does it change the speed of light?
The reason Astronomers don't want to accept this is becuase it would change the nature of every cosmological theory they have. They've invested large amounts of time in old theories, why should they learn new ones? It's all about ego for them.
While there is a possible grain of truth in what you say, it's probably vastly overstated.
It would be better to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. To almost everybody, the claim that the fine structure constant has been changing is pretty extraordinary, and as such requires pretty solid proof before any measurable fraction of people who care about these things will casually accept it.
There is a danger in the iconoclastic argument. Yes, if a new truth is revolutionary and will require everybody to throw out everything they know, everybody will resist accepting that truth. It does not follow that therefore every revolutionary idea which meets widespread resistance must be a new truth.
-Rob
What's interesting to me is the uniformly violent reaction of the "educated" crowd to creation scientists (e.g. read a few of the above posts). I'll admit they somewhat deserve it because of their history of intolerance and quackery but they have been correct about a number of things, many of which are still to be discovered.
Take for example the BS theories of evolution that were passed around as fact until recently. You know, the ones that said that evolution happens at a very slow rate. Creationists argued against this for years because of the nature of how fossils are created. Evolutionists finally caught on and now almost all the recent theories talk about periods of very rapid evolution.
It's true that a lot of what they're saying is shit. But its also true that traditional scientists are full of it too. All I'm asking is that before you blast it out of the water as religious ranting, consider that they probably have a much more critical view of accepted science than you. Consider whether you what to be the one defending the status quo.
You should read Dr. Brown's 20 questions for evolutionists. No true scientist can read the traditional "irreducible complexities" (like the Bombardier Beetle) without questioning current theories of evolution.
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
Article quote:
"Mathematically, there were two possible reasons for this - either the electric charge of the electrons had increased, or the speed of light had fallen.
Using Stephen Hawking's formula for black hole thermodynamics, Davies, Davis and Lineweaver ruled out the electric charge possibility. By adapting Hawking's formula, they determined that an increase in electric charge would break the second law of thermodynamics, which says energy can only flow from hot spots to cold spots.
"That's illegal. It would be like a cup of coffee sitting on your desk getting hotter," Lineweaver says.
Observation -- but didn't they just prove that something "illegal" -- that the constant speed of light is changing -- is actually happening? Perhaps they should examine their logic on this point, because it seems to me it could be either. Or perhaps I should read the original article, where they probably address this issue.
I am member of that educated crowd (Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry, specializing in protein structure and biochemistry, not that anybody cares) who has a negative reaction to what the creationists put out but that's becuase when I was younger I spent about a year reading their books and tracts and comparing them to mainstream evolutionary books and papers while debating the matter on a local BBS. I was able to debunk everything that was thrown at me then and it's rather sad that your 20 questions by Dr. Brown (Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, a discipline not noted for its rigorous requirements in evolutionary or for that matter any biology) is the exact same as the stuff I waded through and debunked ten years ago. As for the Bombardier beetle, check here for the actual truth of the matter. Actually, read the whole talkorigins site to get what is currently believed in evolutionary biology rather than the strawmen arguments that have been fed to you by creationists. Although personal experience tells me that creationists never change their position no matter how much evidence is presented to them or how badly their arguments and even their champions are crushed please surprise me by being different and holding that "critical view" that you believe is lacking in us supporters of evolution.
One more thing: scientists are trained to be skeptical. It's our job to take a critical view of everything we read no matter what journal it got published in or who wrote it. Evolution is still the prevailing view because of its merits not because of some vast conspiracy or adherance to the status quo because if you can't ask original quesitons and attempt to find the answers you're not doing science; this is the very definition of breaking the status quo.
From the article: ``If the speed of light was close to infinity immediately after the Big Bang....''
WTF is "close to infinity"? I'm not a mathematician, so maybe that's the problem, but I cannot parse this statement....
moto411.com