Posted on 06/28/2014 12:14:35 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The University of Maryland physicist believes the delay could have been because the light was in fact slowed as it travelled due to something known as 'vacuum polarisation'.
During this phenomenon, photons break down to something known as ‘positrons’ and electrons for a split second. before combining together again.
When they split, quantum mechanics creates a gravitational potential between the pair of ‘virtual’ particles.
Dr Franson argues that the process might have a gradual impact on the speed of the photon, meaning that over 168,000 light years, the photons may have suffered a near five-hour delay.
If the physicist is correct, it means scientists have to recalculate everything from our distance to the sun to some of the most distant objects seen in other galaxies.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I can’t comprehend this stuff. However, it brings to mind Petr Beckman. He was a great, Hungarian mad scientist type who was a leading anti-communist writer back in the Reagan era. A real character. He took a lot of heat for questioning Einstein’s Theory. I hope this makes people take time to remember him.
Einstein was a true theoretical physicist. I have no doubt that he would welcome challenges to his theories.
It's actually not, I think, contrary to what 'God' points to. There was a time when to even say His name at all - to utter it or even to conceive it - was a spiritual mistake ('sin' when it means, as it originally did, 'to miss the mark,' since all 'name and form' occupy time and space.) It wasn't that God occupied ALL time and space, or that all time and space was within the bounds of God, it's that there really is no time, nor space, yet: what is, is. Or: "It is only, it is."
That is why, I think we will see all the Quantum work approach, but never touch, the same roadblock Einstein never touched, but approached -> Like a cleat on a sailboat, the more progress you make pulling the rope through, the tighter the cleat, until the clamp force becomes infinite before the rope is through.
It's also why the universe only appears to manifest when observed. Because that is only when it manifests. Particles only take position when paired with attention.
When St. Augustine said "Whatever is exposed to the light, itself becomes the light." ... This light was not the 'light' we think of as in a flash light, nor the 'Light of God' we may conceive-> it was 'awareness.' (Many would argue that IS the light of God - awareness itself.)
So, no distance, no speed, because no space, no time ... and the appearance of the universe only as a phenomena with neither subject nor object. No witness, nothing to witness.
Not sure that will get Obama impeached this week.
That's been bouncing around my head for a couple years, and I guess this post on Einstein made it finally bounce out.
Absurd over-sensationalistic headline. I guess if 20th century physics were arising in a context of 21st century journalistic sensationalism, we’d be treated to headlines like “Newton Wrong Speed of Light Finite!” and the like.
Everyone reasonably conversant in physics knows that both general relativity and quantum mechanics must both be “wrong” in the sense of being only approximately correct, since the real theory of physics must be both relativistic and quantum mechanical, and general relativity is a classical theory, while we are only able to do the calculations of quantum mechanics in a non-relativistic background.
I wonder how much of the anomalies the speculative surmises of “dark matter” and “dark energy” are supposed to address can be fixed just by quantum corrections to general relativity. Beyond the massive neutrinos there may be no mysterious “dark matter” at all, ditto for “dark energy” since we still need what Einstein meant by a “grand unified theory” incorporating both gravity and the other forces in one description. And a description which must be quantum mechanical. It you want an “Einstein was wrong” headline, the really important basis for one came a while ago when it was confirmed that physical reality violates Bell’s Inequalities, and therefore cannot be describe by a classical local hidden variable theory of the sort Einstein thought should underlie and replace quantum mechanics.
Me too. But it's good to see that "settled science" is being challenged (are you listening, Al Gore?).
Having said that, objections to Relativity have always followed a two-step process:
Step 1: A scientist discovers a flaw in Einstein's work.
Step 2: (weeks later) The scientist finds an error in his own work. Einstein was right after all.
Beware of the super-genius Einstein created by media as opposed to the real Einstein who occasionally made conceptual errors like everybody else.
Great. Now I have to start worrying about how close those black holes are all over again.
Well ever try beating it into bed from the wall switch
“Einstein was wrong about the speed of light being constant at least. “
Einstein is STILL right. The fact that when light interacts with matter it slows down is a common fact for every high school science student. The links talk about space being filled with ‘matter’ which light interacts with, thus slowing down.
What about the things in the passenger side mirror?
Absolutely! Beckman just offended the "settled science" Gorean crowd of the day. If I remember right, he admired Einstein, just disagreed with his TOR. He was aggressively pro-nuke in the '70s and of course, any anti-communist was trashed back then. This weenie is still bitter:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Petr_Beckmann
The debate is over. This is settled science. The deniers should be jailed.
Maybe the light stopped off for a Light.
It’s threads like these that remind me how much I miss the contributions of FReeper Boris (RIP).
Some galaxies may be closer than they appear
we need an improbability drive!
too many zeroes
Well, yeah...it tastes great.
Or is it... less filling?
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