Einstein Wrong, Speed of Light Slowing Down -CNN

[AsukaStrikes]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/08/07/australia.lightspeed/index.html

:Q


that means as time approaches infinity, eventually light will reach 0 velocity

and maybe even negative velocity, hence it'd all go back to the center and start all over again...

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: AsukaStrikes
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/08/07/australia.lightspeed/index.html

:Q


that means as time approaches infinity, eventually light will reach 0 velocity

and maybe even negative velocity, hence it'd all go back to the center and start all over again...

It didn't have the properties they expected, and therefor they concluded through elimination that it must have slowed down?
I expected all of you to have purple cars with orange dots, as it appears not everyone here does I conclude that you will have to give me all your money!

Maybe they just don't understand light well enough yet to see how it works? It is known that the speed of light can differ depending on the circumstances. If 'old' light slows down it would mean that if you turned on a lightbulb that light would go faster than the light from a distant star. I'd wait for their proof that E=mc^2 before starting to work on a new equation.

Edit: Only reason why light could lose its speed is if the speed of light depends on the energy of basic matter, and that deteriorates over time. Although they could then use fusion to recreate matter from energy to create faster light.

 

[Cattlegod]

wow, this is crazy. the implications of this are unthinkable if this is proven to be true.

i can't wait to see the discussion on the HT forum.

 

[iamwiz82]

i think they were saying that all light was faster before and is slowing down everywhere. That is, light created now is not as fast as light created 10 days ago.

 

[Alphathree33]

Skyclad: I think what they're suggesting is that light travelled fasted when the universe was younger, not when the light itself was younger.

i.e. if we were to measure the speed of light coming from a 5 -billion-year old source (over 5 billion light years) or that coming from your neighbourhood street light, we should measure about the same speed.

Not being a physicist I'm not sure about this: but does anyone claim that when a photon is absorbed it is destroyed? And if the electron emits another photon it is a "new" one? If it were the same photon, maybe somehow over very large amounts of time time its kinetic energy is depleted (even though it doesn't take any energy to move something that is massless. Then again, I believe photons have a tiny amount of mass when they're moving, but no rest mass?)

 

[Alphathree33]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
i think they were saying that all light was faster before and is slowing down everywhere. That is, light created now is not as fast as light created 10 days ago.

Exactly what I was thinking (see above post! )

 

[Alphathree33]

Just some other interesting implications I'm tossing around in my mind...

If you could develop a function for light's velocity with respect to time (guestimating at the age of the universe and the speed of light at that time... if it is infinite, then the velocity must climb down from an asymptote at that point).... Some things might happen. The function might have a horizantal asymptote at the x-axis or it might do something really scary, as AsukaStrikes suggests, it might cross it.

Either way, we're looking at way for all life to end at a predetermined point. Technology couldn't protect us as so much of it depends on light moving quickly or just plain moving at all. And planets wouldn't receive nearly as much heat from the stars because if light were moving slugglishly... let's say at 3 x 10^8 m/s a trillion photons hit an area in a second. But as the speed of those photons slowed down, less of them would hit in a given time period. The mean temperature of any planet would slowly drop. (And by this suggestion, IS slowly DROPPING)

EDIT: well, hmm, except that the star is still putting out the same amoung of light... it's just moving more slowly.... actually, I'm semi-kinda-wrong here because now there would be MORE photons as they would "bunch up" due to the slower speeds. That would suggest an increase in mean temperature...

EDIT: no, I'm still wrong.. now I know what's going to happen there will be no change. At the beginning of the universe very spare packages of photons would hit very, very often. And toward the end, more dense packages of photons would hit less often. Cool. Hmm, there goes my doomsay theories.

 

[Cattlegod]

http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/07/1028157961167.html

There is a much bigger article on the topic and it goes into greater detail. I stole the link from a thread in the HT forum.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33
Skyclad: I think what they're suggesting is that light travelled fasted when the universe was younger, not when the light itself was younger.

i.e. if we were to measure the speed of light coming from a 5 -billion-year old source (over 5 billion light years) or that coming from your neighbourhood street light, we should measure about the same speed.

Not being a physicist I'm not sure about this: but does anyone claim that when a photon is absorbed it is destroyed? And if the electron emits another photon it is a "new" one? If it were the same photon, maybe somehow over very large amounts of time time its kinetic energy is depleted (even though it doesn't take any energy to move something that is massless. Then again, I believe photons have a tiny amount of mass when they're moving, but no rest mass?)

And that's what I was saying in my edit: That matter itself would have to have changed for such things to happen. If you have the exact same situation, with the same 'objects', there is no reason whatsoever why it would not go in the same way. There is no unpredictable element present in this setup. The only reason why it could be different is if the situation is not identical in some way, e.g. matter itself changed (no difference between a vacuum then and one now, both are void of matter and energy). As I don't see why the basics of matter would somehow change overtime I think they're bullsh!tting. They expected different results, didn't get what they want, and blame it on everything but themselves or their research.

 

[Alphathree33]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Alphathree33
Skyclad: I think what they're suggesting is that light travelled fasted when the universe was younger, not when the light itself was younger.

i.e. if we were to measure the speed of light coming from a 5 -billion-year old source (over 5 billion light years) or that coming from your neighbourhood street light, we should measure about the same speed.

Not being a physicist I'm not sure about this: but does anyone claim that when a photon is absorbed it is destroyed? And if the electron emits another photon it is a "new" one? If it were the same photon, maybe somehow over very large amounts of time time its kinetic energy is depleted (even though it doesn't take any energy to move something that is massless. Then again, I believe photons have a tiny amount of mass when they're moving, but no rest mass?)

And that's what I was saying in my edit: That matter itself would have to have changed for such things to happen. If you have the exact same situation, with the same 'objects', there is no reason whatsoever why it would not go in the same way. There is no unpredictable element present in this setup. The only reason why it could be different is if the situation is not identical in some way, e.g. matter itself changed (no difference between a vacuum then and one now, both are void of matter and energy). As I don't see why the basics of matter would somehow change overtime I think they're bullsh!tting. They expected different results, didn't get what they want, and blame it on everything but themselves or their research.

But one thing is changing: the size of the universe. As it expands, the average amount of gravitational force at any given point is less. I don't have any idea yet how this relates to the speed of light, but it is something that has changed.

Furthermore, if the universe were to begin contracting, the speed of light would, following this logic, begin to increase once again until it was near infinite. (Or maybe it would go negative. It depends if it is the size of the universe that [hypothetically] affects it or the rate of its expansion. The size is always positive, but the rate of its expansion could be negative.]

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
http://theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/07/1028157961167.html

There is a much bigger article on the topic and it goes into greater detail. I stole the link from a thread in the HT forum.

Ah yes, their proof: They don't know what light from a quasar should look like, know it passed through a cloud which they didn't quite understand, and therefor it should have less energy, and as it doesn't it means light used to go faster!

Apparently they have quite good crack in Australia.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

But one thing is changing: the size of the universe. As it expands, the average amount of gravitational force at any given point is less. I don't have any idea yet how this relates to the speed of light, but it is something that has changed.

Furthermore, if the universe were to begin contracting, the speed of light would, following this logic, begin to increase once again until it was near infinite. (Or maybe it would go negative. It depends if it is the size of the universe that [hypothetically] affects it or the rate of its expansion. The size is always positive, but the rate of its expansion could be negative.]

But if gravitation influences the very basics of matter we should be able to measure that easily. Measure the energy in a light beam close to Earth, and compare that to one further away from it.

 

[Cattlegod]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Alphathree33
Skyclad: I think what they're suggesting is that light travelled fasted when the universe was younger, not when the light itself was younger.

i.e. if we were to measure the speed of light coming from a 5 -billion-year old source (over 5 billion light years) or that coming from your neighbourhood street light, we should measure about the same speed.

Not being a physicist I'm not sure about this: but does anyone claim that when a photon is absorbed it is destroyed? And if the electron emits another photon it is a "new" one? If it were the same photon, maybe somehow over very large amounts of time time its kinetic energy is depleted (even though it doesn't take any energy to move something that is massless. Then again, I believe photons have a tiny amount of mass when they're moving, but no rest mass?)

And that's what I was saying in my edit: That matter itself would have to have changed for such things to happen. If you have the exact same situation, with the same 'objects', there is no reason whatsoever why it would not go in the same way. There is no unpredictable element present in this setup. The only reason why it could be different is if the situation is not identical in some way, e.g. matter itself changed (no difference between a vacuum then and one now, both are void of matter and energy). As I don't see why the basics of matter would somehow change overtime I think they're bullsh!tting. They expected different results, didn't get what they want, and blame it on everything but themselves or their research.

they didn't measure the speed of light from a 12 billion year old source, they observed the properties the light had and analyzed those.

 

[Nemesis77]

Sheesh, what is this world coming to? Your email is full of spam, your ISP may or may not work, stock-markets come crashing down, kids these days have no respect for their elders.... And now they find out that light itself is slowing down! I mean, come on!! Haven't we had enough already? It's time we put a stop to this madness, who's with me?!?!?!

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod

they didn't measure the speed of light from a 12 billion year old source, they observed the properties the light had and analyzed those.

It is hair-curling science. They looked at light from the most distant objects in the universe, quasars up to a billion times the size of our sun, which are 10 billion or 12 billion light years away.

"The light that comes to you from a quasar has been travelling for most of the age of the universe - several billion years - and it carries with it information about what happened to it along the way," Murphy says.

On its long journey, the light from those quasars has passed through gas clouds full of metals. The photons in the light - little packets of energy that make up the light itself - interact with the electrons in the gas clouds, charged particles that orbit the nuclei of the metal atoms. This leaves a fingerprint on the light as it arrives on Earth, called the fine structure constant, Murphy explains.

When they measured the fine structure constant of this 12 billion-year-old light, Webb and Murphy found it was slightly higher than it would be today. 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.

They observed 12 billion year old light.

Edit: Take a coffee cup which was made 1 year ago, and an identical one which was made only 1 month ago and has not yet been used. Make sure the first one has been used in that time, and not been cleaned. Compare the two. Now publish your conclusions on recent coffee cups being much cleaner than older ones.

Edit 2: They do not have light from Quasars which only left a few days ago and passed a gas cloud yesterday to compare it with. Photons can be altered, and this can have happened by either being in the Quasar, leaving it, passing through the gas cloud, or any other thing that may have happened on the way. They do not yet understand light, and compare uncomparable things, and draw conclusions from that.

 

[Alphathree33]

5-billion was just a number I pulled out of a hat. ;-)

What I said wasn't that inaccurate, here's what they said: "If the vacuum of space is changing uniformly across the universe, just as the universe is expanding uniformly, it could affect the speed of light."

 

[Alphathree33]

Edit: Take a coffee cup which was made 1 year ago, and an identical one which was made only 1 month ago and has not yet been used. Make sure the first one has been used in that time, and not been cleaned. Compare the two. Now publish your conclusions on recent coffee cups being much cleaner than older ones.

That's laughable at best. It's apples and oranges. Coffee cups being cleaned require human decision and interaction

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Edit: Take a coffee cup which was made 1 year ago, and an identical one which was made only 1 month ago and has not yet been used. Make sure the first one has been used in that time, and not been cleaned. Compare the two. Now publish your conclusions on recent coffee cups being much cleaner than older ones.

That's laughable at best. It's apples and oranges. Coffee cups being cleaned require human decision and interaction

And only humans can change stuff? Nothing in the universe will ever change unless a human does it? Read my edits

 

[Alphathree33]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Edit: Take a coffee cup which was made 1 year ago, and an identical one which was made only 1 month ago and has not yet been used. Make sure the first one has been used in that time, and not been cleaned. Compare the two. Now publish your conclusions on recent coffee cups being much cleaner than older ones.

That's laughable at best. It's apples and oranges. Coffee cups being cleaned require human decision and interaction

And only humans can change stuff? Nothing in the universe will ever change unless a human does it? Read my edits

No, but no one studies the way humans change things. If they do they are social scientists not physicists. I've completely lost what your point was because your metaphor was so lame.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: Alphathree33

Edit: Take a coffee cup which was made 1 year ago, and an identical one which was made only 1 month ago and has not yet been used. Make sure the first one has been used in that time, and not been cleaned. Compare the two. Now publish your conclusions on recent coffee cups being much cleaner than older ones.

That's laughable at best. It's apples and oranges. Coffee cups being cleaned require human decision and interaction

And only humans can change stuff? Nothing in the universe will ever change unless a human does it? Read my edits

No, but no one studies the way humans change things. If they do they are social scientists not physicists. I've completely lost what your point was because your metaphor was so lame.

They compare light emitted from a quasar (which we have never been able to really investigate as we don't have one next door), which passed through gas clouds (same idea), and who knows what else happened with it. As it is not identical to light generated by whatever else they used they think they can draw conclusions as to its speed, as 'it can't get more energetic over time!'...
Who knows if it wasn't more energetic to start with?

 

[zzzz]

Yeah, the editors of Nature must have been morons, then!

 

[ElFenix]

if the speed of light was slowing down, wouldn't your perception of time's passage slow down as well? so would anyone notice?

 

[Circlenaut]

Lets say the universe is a train track and light is a train. So he's basicly saying that the train track is straching and the straching is exiding the train to a point till the train starts moving backwards?

 

[Cattlegod]

pasted from my post in the repost thread.



hmm, i just thought of something. what if the speed of light is really infinite in *complete* nothingness, not just space, because there is a ton of particles all over. What if the reason we can't go faster than light is because we can't go faster than an infinite speed, thus, infinite speed being 300,000 km/s around where we exist. it could be that our part of space is just more dense with matter we cannot detect yet (afterall it is estimated that we can only account for 20%(somewhere around there if my memory serves me right) or so of the total mass in the universe). if you travel outside of the universe there is truly nothing ( or so we precieve ) and the speed of light would be infinite.

hmm.

EDIT: this raises the question of what lies outside of the universe. if the speed of light is infinite, then that would mean everything is everywhere outside of the universe. since there is nothing there, nothing exists outside of our known universe verifying what we already believe, that there is nothing beyond our universe.

hmm.

 

[Circlenaut]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
if the speed of light was slowing down, wouldn't your perception of time's passage slow down as well? so would anyone notice?

No we would not notice since our minds are traped in the same spacetime. Everything would slow down so everything stays the same.