VSL (Varying Speed of Light)

[GENIUS'02]

I read recently, in discover, that a physicist has come up with a new explanation for what happened in the first few quintillionths of a second after the big bang, he says, against einstiens law, that for the frist few seconds light could travel infinitely fast, it wasn't stuck to the 300000000 m/s we record it as now. it wen't on to explain how this accounts for the similarties found at great distances in the universe, not sure something like that. i only glanced over the articl due to time but has anyone heard anything else on this? anymore information it was intriguing. it also had something about the laboratory experiments to test the theory.

Added:
It said something about blackholes, according to his theory (can't remember his name spanish sounding though majuero or something) c is still the fastest anything can travel, but his theory of a black hole is that it simply freezes c to 0 at event horizon, nothing actually 'falls' inside the black hole it simply stops at the edge as it cannot move faster than the speed of light and the speed of light at the edge is 0. i think this indicates that, the closer you get to a black hole the slower time gets. his analogy is a space craft would 'see' the black hole but it would never get closer as the closer they get the slower time goes. forgive me if im wrong.

_________________
its amazing how in the space of a few months, the memory can be serverly damaged, and all that you once knew is now hearsay and you know.... notmuch.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GENIUS'02 on 2003-03-13 21:42 ]</font>

[Argos]

Welcome back, friend.

I thought you´d like to know the work of one of the proponents of VLS, Joao Magueijo.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Argos on 2003-03-14 09:19 ]</font>

[Argos]

And, GENIUS02, Magueijo is a Portuguese scientist, not Spanish.

As you can see over the link I provided, he´s a controversial subject, too flamboyant, according to some. But I´m sympathetic to him, cause he seems to have a rebel quality, which I appreciate. He stretches the limits of science very far, thus frequently provoking harsh responses. He also despises something very dear to the average scientist: mathematical “elegance”. Once he got to state that modern theories, like strings theory, look for mathematical beauty only, instead of focusing on the real character of nature. He denounces what he calls neo-platonism.

It´s a pity this thread is being ignored by our community. It could yield an interesting discussion, especially for the fact that you are a young person (as I can infer from your previous posts). But don´t get disappointed and keep tuned. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Tim Thompson]

The idea of a variable speed of light (VSL) cosmology was introduced in 1999, in a pair of papers published in Physical Review, the flagship journal of the American Physical Society: A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles, by Andreas Albrecht & Joao Magueijo, (physical Review D 59(4): paper number 043516, 1999 and Cosmologies with Varying Light-Speed by John D. Barrow, Physical Review D 59(4): paper number 043515.

The basic idea is that the speed of light acts as a factor of proportionality between space and time in general relativity. So, instead of having the universe expand rapidly in a period of "inflation", one can just leave space alone, and let the proportionality factor change instead.

There is no fundamental reason why the speed of light in a vacuum must be constant in general relativity. However, if the speed of light is not constant, then Lorentz invariance from special relativity loses its real meaning, and most cosmologists are not yet ready to give up on that. Also, VSL cosmologies may not preserve the constancy of the electron charge, and that too is a sacred cow hard to part with (Charge conservation and time-varying speed of light, S.J. Landau, P.D. Sisterna, and H. Vucetich, Physical Review D(63): paper number 081303, April 15, 2001). So, for now, it is much the minority opinion, though there have been a number of research papers written on VSL cosmology.

[CJSF]

Well, I am going to stick my neck out here and ask:

I've heard some posters on this board say that the speed of light (c) was an expression of some relationship between electric and magnetic charges of particles or something ??? (I have no idea what that means).
So would it then make sense that right at the start of the "Big Bang", when everything was so close together, that the relationship was somehow different and therefore c was different?

Or did I completely misunderstand or misremember what was said?

CJSF

_________________
"Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never,
ever get it out."
-Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Christopher Ferro on 2003-03-14 17:56 ]</font>

[Eta C]

OK, first post. Only 99 to go until promotion.

Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. That is, it's a propogating wave that consists of alternating electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell's equations, when manipulated, form a wave equation that describes this propogation. The speed of this wave is the speed of light, c. It's independent of the size of the universe at any given moment (I'm pretty sure)

As a side note, c is no longer a measured quantity. In the latest standards its value is fixed and the definitions of meter and second are made in reference to that value. That's one of the reasons physicists are reluctant to accept theories with variable speeds. Another is that it is a dramatic claim, and like all such claims will require dramatic confirmation before it's accepted.

[SeanF]

On 2003-03-14 17:54, Eta C wrote:
As a side note, c is no longer a measured quantity. In the latest standards its value is fixed and the definitions of meter and second are made in reference to that value.

Meter, yes, second, no. Actually, if you stop and think about it, it would not be possible to have both definitions (distance and time) based on c.

A second is based on atomic vibrations, and a meter is based on c and those same atomic vibrations.