Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Inconstant Speed of Light May Debunk Einstein
Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | Wed Aug 7, 2:07 PM ET | By Michael Christie

Posted on 08/08/2002 9:06:23 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 241 next last
To: far sider
The idea that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant and that no particles can move faster is the premise of the special theory of relativity. Assuming the speed of light is that, the rest of the math was developed. The theory of relativity did not prove the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum, but relied on that assumption.

Then it comes down to what is meant by "vacuum." It might be necessary to add a term to the equations and that will disrupt their apparent canonical simplicity. That's the way it goes.

41 posted on 08/08/2002 11:15:55 AM PDT by RightWhale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Momaw Nadon
...and maybe:

"Light doesn't travel at all, but its presence causes units of aerogen matter to move. Some of this movement produces the phenomena which appear as waves and the speed of light."

42 posted on 08/08/2002 11:16:38 AM PDT by Consort
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Momaw Nadon
"Maybe it's possible to get around that restriction, in which case it would enthrall Star Trek fans because at the moment even at the speed of light it would take 100,000 years to cross the galaxy. It's a bit of a bore really and if the speed of light limit could go, then who knows? All bets are off," Davies said.

I'm gonna report this guy to Star Fleet Command.

43 posted on 08/08/2002 11:21:57 AM PDT by AxelPaulsenJr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Momaw Nadon
The suggestion that the speed of light can change is based on data collected by UNSW astronomer John Webb, who posed a conundrum when he found that light from a distant quasar, a star-like object, had absorbed the wrong type of photons from interstellar clouds on its 12 billion year journey to earth.

Or the quasar isn't really that far away and the light is actually characteristic of more newly created matter, the higher redshift quasar having been relatively recently ejected from a relatively near, lower redshift Seyfert type galaxy. This guy's problems stem directly from his unwarranted assumption that the redshift of the quasar is a product of its recessional velocity.
44 posted on 08/08/2002 11:22:12 AM PDT by aruanan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: aristeides
Aha, I found a much better one with graphics! Construction of Lorentz Transformation
45 posted on 08/08/2002 11:27:20 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Alamo-Girl
Lorentz Transformations.

Once again, you have impressed me!

Actually, I feel very sad about people that must create an alternative physical universe to justify thier views of religion and life.

I always keep an open mind, but I will not keep it so open than my brains fall out.

46 posted on 08/08/2002 11:27:23 AM PDT by Hunble
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: Stone Mountain
Have you also read articles that contradict Young Earth Creationism?...have you never seen scientific evidence that contradicts your beliefs?

Of course I have. There are some things that I still have problems with, but the list is pretty short. The two biggies are the distribution of animal species and orders on the earth (e.g., Australia) and how the heck did light from millions of light years away get here if the earth is less than 10,000 years old? These are two questions that I wish Creationists had better answers for. That's why Setterfield's theory was/is so exciting, despite the continuing problems with it. Otherwise, we're pretty much stuck with the "apparent age" argument, which has its own problems.

My "list" of problems with evolution is much longer however. For instance, from a young earth view, dark matter, solar neutrinos, short period comets, stable planetary rings, unstable galaxies, uniform 3K background radiation, etc., do not pose problems.

47 posted on 08/08/2002 11:27:44 AM PDT by far sider
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: Hunble
Thank you oh so very much for the kudos (blushing...!)

Actually, I am a Christian "fundamentalist" because I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. And I have no problem at all with science because I see where science and the Bible reconcile quite nicely!

48 posted on 08/08/2002 11:35:01 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Jesse
I believe that is one inference you could draw from this experiment - at least that light used to be faster, and so the "speed limit" was higher back in the "old days."
49 posted on 08/08/2002 11:39:51 AM PDT by eno_
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: far sider
...and how the heck did light from millions of light years away get here if the earth is less than 10,000 years old?

What does the age of a planet have to do with light coming from an older distant object? If a new planet is formed tomorrow, it too will receive the same old light.

50 posted on 08/08/2002 11:40:38 AM PDT by Consort
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: far sider
The two biggies are the distribution of animal species and orders on the earth (e.g., Australia) and how the heck did light from millions of light years away get here if the earth is less than 10,000 years old? These are two questions that I wish Creationists had better answers for.

This is my point. Do you believe that your knowledge of the distribution of animal species is incorrect, or do you believe that Young Earth Creationism thoery needs to be changed? With a scientific theory, the answer to this question is simple - you change the theory to make it fit the facts. However, if you are starting off with an immutable theory, and contradictory evidence appears, don't you end up with a contradiction?
51 posted on 08/08/2002 11:41:20 AM PDT by Stone Mountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: far sider
Radioactive decay?
52 posted on 08/08/2002 11:47:11 AM PDT by Doctor Stochastic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Willie Green; John Robinson
Apparently the search doesn't find articles that are posted to the "General Interest" forum.

Only if you do the search from General Interest. I would think that's the reason for a lot of duplicate threads.

53 posted on 08/08/2002 11:49:05 AM PDT by Dakmar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Momaw Nadon
It is easy to demonstrate that the speed of light is not constant. Just take a stopwatch and measure the length of time it takes for the bathroom light to come on after you flip the switch. You will come up with a different reading each time.

Seriously, this is interesting stuff. It will be especially interesting to see how this affects our understanding of measuring size and distance in the universe.

54 posted on 08/08/2002 11:51:53 AM PDT by sheltonmac
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Junior
A "light" hearted placemarker.
55 posted on 08/08/2002 11:52:58 AM PDT by Junior
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Physicist
Who needs an explanation? I just want to know what kind of bombs this will enable us to build! LOL!
56 posted on 08/08/2002 11:56:40 AM PDT by Cobra Scott
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: aristeides
Which raises another question -- again as I remember relativity, one space-time point is unambiguously earlier than another if the distance between the two cannot be covered in time at the speed of light. Otherwise, different observers can decide that two different space-time points are both earlier and later. So, if the speed of light varies, how do we decide?

You remember right. The hitch comes when we assume that different observers must agree upon which space-time point is earlier and which later. Having different light-speeds in different parts of the universe guarantees that there can be observers who disagree.

Looked at in different ways, it guarantees that somewhere and somewhen a traveler could set out on a journey and return to the same place and time he started, or that he could travel backwards in time. The bottom line is that cause and effect need not be absolute, but may just depend on who's doing the looking. Lots of people object to such a universe on religious grounds and reject its possibility out of hand.

57 posted on 08/08/2002 11:57:24 AM PDT by OBAFGKM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Momaw Nadon
Recent experiments show light moving as much as 300 times its normal velocity through cesium gas. That's inside the margin of error for light being an instantaneous force between two points as Ralph Sansbury claims and the so-called "speed of light" being the lapse time of some secondary effect. Some physicists interpret that as meaning that the cesium gas creates a resonant condition or something like a resonant condition which eliminates the lapse time.

Einstein was trying to use relativistic time to account for the fact that light does not obey the ordinary additive laws for velocities. This was based on what he called "thought experiments", such as the mirror-clock experiment, rather than upon anything resembling real evidence or real experiments. Thought experiments, it turns out, are not a terribly good basis for physics. Moreover, the basic approach is unsound. Louis Carrol Epstein ("Relativity Envisioned"), uses the following analogy: a carpenter with a house in which everything worked flawlessly other than one door which bound, would usually plane the door until it worked. He COULD, however, purchase a couple of hundred jacks and jack the foundation of the house until the one door worked, and then try to somehow or other make every other door and window in the house work again... Light is the one door in the analogy; distance, time, mass etc., i.e. everything else in the house of physics are the other doors and windows. Epstein assumes that relativity is the one case you will ever find in which that sort of approach is the correct one, nonetheless, common sense tells us it isn't terribly likely.

It turns out there is another way in which one could account for light not obeying additive laws, and that this other way is the correct one. That is to assume that light simply does not have a velocity; that it is an instantaneous force between two points, and that the thing we call the "velocity of light" is the rate of accumulation of some secondary effect.

The story on this one lives HERE

The basic Ralph Sansbury experiment amounts to a 1990s version of the Michelson/Moreley experiment using lasers and nanosecond gates, which Michelson and Moreley did not have. Wallace Thornhill, an Australian physicist, describes it:



>I mentioned a few weeks ago that an epoch making experiment had been
>performed in the realm of fundamental physics which had great
>importance for Velikovskian style catastrophism (and just about
>everything else for that matter). The experiment, performed by Ralph
>Sansbury, is amazingly simple but has amazing consequences.
>
>Sansbury is a quiet spoken physicist from Connecticut.  He is
>associated with the Classical Physics Institute, or CP Institute, of
>New York which publishes the Journal of Classical Physics. In the
>Notes to Contributors we find the focus of the journal: "Marinov's
>experiment, Bell's theorem, and similar works reveal increasing
>discontent with the dogmas of modern physics. Some physicists
>postulate that blackbody radiation, atomic spectra, nuclear reactions,
>electron diffraction, the speed of light and all other phenomena which
>Quantum Wave Mechanics and Relativity were designed to explain will
>require different explanations. It is the viewpoint of this journal
>that the new explanations probably will be consistent with
>Aristotelian logic and Newtonian or Galilean mechanics." Volume 1,
>Part 1, in January 1982 was devoted to an article titled "Electron
>Structure", by Ralph Sansbury. The title itself should raise
>physicist's eyebrows since electrons are considered to have no
>structure. They are treated as being indivisible, along with quarks.
>
>The fallout from Sansbury's idea, if proven, is prodigious. To begin,
>for the first time we have a truly unifying theory where both
>magnetism and gravity become a derived form of instantaneous
>electrostatic force. The Lorentz contraction-dilation of space time
>and mass is unnecessary. Electromagnetic radiation becomes the
>cumulative effect of instantaneous electrostatic forces at a distance
>and the wave/particle (photon) duality disappears. Discontinuous
>absorption/emission of energy in quanta by atoms becomes a continuous
>process. And there is more.
>
>Sansbury's was a thousand dollar experiment using 10 nanosecond long
>pulses of laser light, one pulse every 400 nsec. At some distance from
>the laser was a photodiode detector. But in the light path, directly
>in front of the detector was a high speed electronic shutter (known as
>a Pockel cell) which could be switched to allow the laser light
>through to the detector, or stop it.
>
>Now, light is considered to travel as a wavefront or photon at the
>speed of light. Viewed this way, it covers a distance of about 1 foot
>per nanosecond. So the laser could be regarded as sending out 10ft
>long bursts of light every 400ft, at the speed of light. The
>experiment simply kept the Pockel cell shutter closed during the 400ft
>of no light and opened to allow the 10ft burst through to the detector.
>
>What happened?
>
>The detector saw nothing!!!
>
>It is as if a gun were fired at a target and for the time of flight of
>the bullet a shield were placed over the target. At the last moment,
>the shield is pulled away - and the bullet has disappeared; the target
>is untouched!
>
>What does it mean?
>
>Only that Maxwell's theory of the propagation of electromagnetic waves
>is wrong! Only that Einstein's Special theory of relativity (which was
>to reconcile Maxwell's theory with simple kinematics) is wrong! Only
>that, as a result, the interpretation of most of modern physics is
>wrong!
>
>As another classical physicist using a theoretical approach to the
>same problem succinctly put it:
>
>"... there emerges the outline of an alternative "relativistic"
>physics, quite distinct from that of Maxwell-Einstein, fully as well
>confirmed by the limited observations available to date, and differing
>from it not only in innumerable testable ways but also in basic
>physical concepts and even in definitional or ethnical (sic) premises
>as to the nature of physics. Thus a death struggle is joined that must
>result in the destruction of one world-system or the other: Either
>light is complicated and matter simple, as I think, or matter is
>complicated and light simple, as Einstein thought. I have shown here
>that some elegant mathematics can be put behind my view. It has long
>been known that inordinate amounts of elegant mathematics can be put
>behind Einstein's. Surely the time fast approaches to stop listening
>to mathematical amplifications of our own internal voices and to go
>into the laboratory and listen to what nature has to say." -
>Modifications of Maxwell's Equations, T E Phipps, The Classical
>Journal of Physics, Vol 2, 1, Jan 1983, p. 21.
>
>Ralph Sansbury has now done precisely that!
>
>In simple terms, Sansbury gives the electron a structure by proposing
>a number of charged particles (he calls subtrons) orbiting within the
>classical radius of an electron. A simple calculation gives the
>surprising result that these subtrons are moving at a speed of 2.5
>million light years per second! That is, they could theoretically
>cover the distance from Earth to the far side of the Andromeda galaxy
>in one second. This gives some meaning to the term 'instantaneous
>action at a distance'. (Note that this is a requirement for any new
>theory of gravity). (Also I have always considered it evidence of
>peculiar naivety or arrogance on the part of scientists, such as
>Sagan, who search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) by using
>radio signals. What superior intelligence would use such a slow, and
>therefore useless, interstellar signalling system?) Such near infinite
>speed requires that there can be no mass increase with velocity. The
>speed of light is not a speed barrier. All of the experiments which
>seem to support Einstein's notion are interpreted by Sansbury in a
>more common-sense fashion. When an electron or other charged particle
>is accelerated in an electromagnetic field, it is distorted from a
>sphere into an ellipsoid. The more electromagnetic energy applied to
>accelerating the particle, the more energy is absorbed by distortion
>of the particle until, ultimately, at the speed of light, there is an
>expulsion of the subtrons. Under such conditions, the particle only
>APPEARS to be gaining mass.
>
>Notably, in the past few months, scientists in Hamburg using the most
>powerful electron microscope have found on about a dozen occasions out
>of 10 million trials, relativistic electrons recoiled more violently
>off protons than had ever been seen before. This may turn out to be
>direct experimental proof of Sansbury's model of the electron having
>structure.
>
>To return to the experiment involving a "chopped" light beam: One of
>the major requirements of the new theory is instantaneous
>electrostatic forces between subtrons. This forms the basis of a
>radical new view of the basis of electromagnetic radiation which is
>now the subject of stunning experimental confirmation. In Sansbury's
>view, a signal from a light source is received instantly by a distant
>detector and the speed of light delay in detecting the signal is due
>to the time taken for the ACCUMULATED RESPONSE of the subtrons in the
>detector to result in a threshold signal at the electron level. This
>is totally at variance with orthodox interpretations which would have
>the light travelling as a discrete photon or wave packet at the speed
>of light.
>
>In terms of the gun and target analogy, it is as if particles of the
>bullet are being absorbed by the shield from the instant of firing, so
>that when the shield is pulled aside there is no bullet left to hit
>the target.
>
>It is not possible to overstate the importance of this work because it
>lends direct support to a new model of the electron in particular, and
>matter in general, which EXPLAINS magnetism, gravity and quantum
>effects without any resort to the kind of metaphysics which allows our
>top physicists to think they can see "God" in their equations.  The
>new classical physicists can mix it with the best of them when it
>comes to the mathematics but they are more prepared to "go into the
>laboratory and listen to what nature has to say."
>
>This work is of crucial importance for Velikovskian re-arrangements of
>the solar system in recent times because astronomers have been able to
>say that such scenarios defy the laws of physics - which is true,
>insofar as they know the laws of physics. To discover that gravity is
>a form of charge polarization within the particles that make up the
>atom, rather than a warp in space (whatever the hell that means),
>gives us a simple mechanism by which the solar system can be rapidly
>stabilised after a period of chaotic motion.
>
>There is an impression, as I reread the work of Sansbury and other
>classical physicists, that what we are facing is something like "Back
>to the Future". And like the movie of that name, the possibilities
>that we encounter will seem like science fiction come true. But it is
>well-known that science fiction writers are better at predicting the
>future of science than experts!


58 posted on 08/08/2002 12:01:02 PM PDT by medved
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jimer
The Bible says the earth was created first and then the stars. God would have had to create the stars with the light already reaching the earth. That means a star 1,000,000 light years away would appear to be 1,000,000 years old. I don't have a problem with that. If God is going to create something it has to appear to be older than it is. Adam had to appear to be, say 20 to 30, when he was created even though he was less than a day old. Same with dogs and trees, etc. If God decided to create a river in front of your house, the water flowing in it would have to appear to come from upstream even though it had just come into existence.

The same goes for a star. Even if God created a star with light only at the surface, we know that the light generated by a star actually comes from beneath the surface. So a star can't be created instantaneously without the "appearance" of age.

The only problem I have is with things like novas. If we observe a nova 100,000 light years away how can it have happened within the last 10,000 years (ie, since Creation)? If the speed of light was faster in the past, that would help to explain it.

59 posted on 08/08/2002 12:01:27 PM PDT by far sider
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: far sider
The Bible says the earth was created first and then the stars.

That's because humans saw the Earth first, and then the stars, as the primordial atmosphere cleared enough for them TO see them.

60 posted on 08/08/2002 12:03:50 PM PDT by medved
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 241 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson