Posted on 08/08/2002 9:06:23 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A team of Australian scientists has proposed that the speed of light may not be a constant, a revolutionary idea that could unseat one of the most cherished laws of modern physics -- Einstein's theory of relativity.
The team, led by theoretical physicist Paul Davies of Sydney's Macquarie University, say it is possible that the speed of light has slowed over billions of years.
If so, physicists will have to rethink many of their basic ideas about the laws of the universe.
"That means giving up the theory of relativity and E=mc squared and all that sort of stuff," Davies told Reuters.
"But of course it doesn't mean we just throw the books in the bin, because it's in the nature of scientific revolution that the old theories become incorporated in the new ones."
Davies, and astrophysicists Tamara Davis and Charles Lineweaver from the University of New South Wales published the proposal in the August 8 edition of scientific journal Nature.
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.
Davies said fundamentally Webb's observations meant that the structure of atoms emitting quasar light was slightly but ever so significantly different to the structure of atoms in humans.
The discrepancy could only be explained if either the electron charge, or the speed of light, had changed.
IN TROUBLE EITHER WAY
"But two of the cherished laws of the universe are the law that electron charge shall not change and that the speed of light shall not change, so whichever way you look at it we're in trouble," Davies said.
To establish which of the two constants might not be that constant after all, Davies' team resorted to the study of black holes, mysterious astronomical bodies that suck in stars and other galactic features.
They also applied another dogma of physics, the second law of thermodynamics, which Davies summarizes as "you can't get something for nothing."
After considering that a change in the electron charge over time would violate the sacrosanct second law of thermodynamics, they concluded that the only option was to challenge the constancy of the speed of light.
More study of quasar light is needed in order to validate Webb's observations, and to back up the proposal that light speed may vary, a theory Davies stresses represents only the first chink in the armor of the theory of relativity.
In the meantime, the implications are as unclear as the unexplored depths of the universe themselves.
"When one of the cornerstones of physics collapses, it's not obvious what you hang onto and what you discard," Davies said.
"If what we're seeing is the beginnings of a paradigm shift in physics like what happened 100 years ago with the theory of relativity and quantum theory, it is very hard to know what sort of reasoning to bring to bear."
It could be that the possible change in light speed will only matter in the study of the large scale structure of the universe, its origins and evolution.
For example, varying light speed could explain why two distant and causally unconnected parts of the universe can be so similar even if, according to conventional thought, there has not been enough time for light or other forces to pass between them.
It may only matter when scientists are studying effects over billions of years or billions of light years.
Or there may be startling implications that could change not only the way cosmologists view the universe but also its potential for human exploitation.
"For example there's a cherished law that says nothing can go faster than light and that follows from the theory of relativity," Davies said. The accepted speed of light is 300,000 km (186,300 miles) per second.
"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.
Well, first of all, the short period comets indicate the existence of the Kuiper belt. The LONG period comets indicate the existence of the Oort cloud.
The principle of deducing either population of comets is the same. You count the ones you see, you apply basic physics and basic statistics to the sample, and it allows you to estimate the population and distribution of the unseen comets. When you do that, you see that they separate into two distinct populations. You can also see how the populations are distributed. What it tells you is that there is a population of nearby comets that lies more or less in the ecliptic plane, and a distant population of comets that is distributed more or less isotropically.
The difficulty with measuring the Oort cloud is primarily that the sample size is small, and that the distribution of velocities is also compatible with the hypothesis that the long period comets are interlopers from an interstellar population of comets. (The data favor the Oort cloud hypothesis, last I heard.)
The existence of the Kuiper belt can only be avoided by postulating a contrived distribution of short period comets (i.e., that they are arranged so that an anomalous fraction of them come close to the sun, and that an anomalous percentage of them have passed through during the period when we have been watching most intently). You are of course entitled to doubt that short period comets come from the Kuiper belt, just as you are entitled to doubt that rain comes from clouds.
What I can't explain is what fundamentalist Christians have against the Oort cloud and Kuiper belt. You aren't the first I've seen on that jeremiad. Do they run afoul of some obscure Biblical verse, or is it just a general anti-science target of opportunity?
Would you expect the writing style of the author of Beowulf to much resemble those of modern authors?
The people who wrote the books of the bible never wrote "John went to the bathroom"; they wrote "The Lord CAUSED John to go to the bathroom, for such and such a reason. You can take the part about the Lord any way you like; nonetheless in cases in which they wrote "The Lord CAUSED John to go to the bathroom...", you can pretty well believe that John went to the bathroom, i.e. they DIDN'T just make stuff up.
Moreover, ancient literature describes a number of things which we do not see in our present world, including:
JOS 10:11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.etc. In other words, the kinds of things Velikovsky wrote about.
When you see that when a bunch of Amorites get wiped by a meteorite storm, the bible talks about the Lord "casting great stones from heaven upon them", then you begin to get the feel for what's going on.
Not that God and the spirit world aren't real, but direct contact with the spirit world was lost at the time of the flood or shortly afterwards, and the people who wrote the books of the bible afterwards were attempting to see the hand of God in everything, whether it was there or not.
Ancient religion as we read of it in classical literature amounted to attempts to communicate with the spirit world using prophecy, oracles, idolatry, divination, electrical gadgetry such as the ark of the covenant etc. and it is remarkable we do not read of those things prior to the flood, but only afterwards. The words 'prophet' and 'prophecy' permeate the books of the OT after Genesis but do not appear in Genesis at all other than for the one vague reference to Abraham as 'God's prophet', after the flood. The most obvious interpretation of that is that communication with the spirit world prior to the flood did not REQUIRE any such gyrations.
The story of the flood is another case of people tossing out valid history because of the religious language in which the story is frame.
It is a dogma of establishment science that the tale of the biblical flood is a fairytale or, at most, an aggrandized tale of some local or regional flood. That, however, does not jibe with the facts of the historical record. The flood turns out to have been part and parcel of some larger, solar-system-wide calamity.
In particular, the seven days just prior to the flood are mentioned twice within a short space:
Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...These were seven days of intense light, generated by some major cosmic event within our system. The Old Testament contains one other reference to these seven days, i.e. Isaiah 30:26:Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."
"...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days..."
Most interpret this as meaning cramming seven days worth of light into one day. That is wrong; the reference is to the seven days prior to the flood. The reference apparently got translated out of a language which doesn't use articles. It should read "as the light of THE seven days".
It turns out, that the bible claims that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. It may not say so directly, but the ages given in Genesis 5 along with the note that the flood began in the 600'th year of Noah's life (Genesis 7:11) add up that way:
Gen. 5:25 ->"And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years.
<i.e. he lived 969 - 187 = 782 years after Lamech's birth>
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah...
<182 + 600 = 782 also...>
Thus we have Methusaleh dying in the year of the flood; seven days prior to the flood...
Louis Ginzburg's seven-volume "Legends of the Jews", the largest body of Midrashim ever translated into German and English to my knowledge, expands upon the laconic tales of the OT.
From Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews, Vol V, page 175:
...however, Lekah, Gen. 7.4) BR 3.6 (in the week of mourning for Methuselah, God caused the primordial light to shine).... God did not wish Methuselah to die at the same time as the sinners...
The reference is, again, to Gen. 7.4, which reads:
"For yet seven days, and I shall cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."
The note that "God did not wish Methusaleh to die at the same time as the sinners" indicates that Methusaleh died at pretty nearly precisely the beginning of the week prior to the flood. The week of "God causing the primordial lights to shine" was the week of intense light before the flood.
What the old books are actually telling us is that there was a stellar blowout of some sort either close to or within our own system at the time of the flood. The blowout was followed by seven days of intense light and radiation, and then the flood itself. Moreover, the signs of the impending disaster were obvious enough for at least one guy, Noah, to take extraordinary precautions.
The ancient (but historical) world knew a number of seven-day light festivals, Hanukkah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. Velikovsky claimed that all were ultimately derived from the memory of the seven days prior to the flood.
If this entire deal is a made-up story, then here is a case of the storyteller (isaiah) making extra work for himself with no possible benefit, the detail of the seven days of light being supposedly known amongst the population, and never included in the OT story directly.
Greek and Roman authors, particularly Hesiod and ovid, Chinese authors and others, note that small groups of men and animals survived the flood on high places and on anything which could float for a year. I do not see an essential contradiction between this and the biblical account. Noah's descendants were probably unaware of anybody else surviving and wrote the story that way.
Absolutely not. And I love your comparison between Beowulf and the Bible. I think they are eminently comperable.
Moreover, ancient literature describes a number of things which we do not see in our present world
Correct. Beowulf, for example, describes horrifying Grendel. Greek myths describe the transformation of humans into spiders. The Bible describes a flood covering the whole earth. The power of imagination was as strong then as it is now. All are works of fiction.
A good line with the ring of truth.
Are you implying that a flood covering the whole earth is as difficult to believe as humans turning into spiders? If we're to believe the world was at one time covered in ice, why is it so difficult to believe it was at one time covered in water?
Maybe those Greeks happened to catch some of that macro-evolution at work. ; * )
Sadly for him, this is not the same phoenomenon that he predicted. As it were, his predictions are easily questioned by looking at the number of significant figures that the observations he uses relies on. I hear he posts frequently to the Baptist Board (www.baptistboard.com). I posted there before the environment became much too hostile for a productive crevo debate to occur.
Because I've seen zero evidence of any global flood in the last few billion years. That's why.
To prove Tifft wrong, two Guthrie and Napier collected their own data, and to their chagrin determined that Tifft was right.
Read his paper. I could never figure out why he thought so.
Unfortunately, Vsevolod Sergeevich was wrong.
Look up the Michelson-Morley experiment.... Basically Michelson, a Russian immigrant, Annapolis graduate and naval officer was recognized as the best experimental optical physicist in the world at the time. He invented the Michelson interferometer to measure any change in the speed of light from the Sun in the morning when the Earth's rotation was towards the Sun and in the evening, when the Earth was rotating away from the Sun. Given the sensitivity of his apparatus this should have been a piece of cake. (The experiment is not unprecedented, Bradley in 1727 had observed that the apparent position of a star varies with the direction of the Earth around the Sun, much as the apparent direction of rain is changed when we drive through the rain in a car.)
He was surprised to discover that there was absolutely no difference. No theory could adequately account for this result until Einstein's theory of relativity. Einstein held that the speed of light - derived from Maxwell's Equations and predictable from measurements of the magnetic and electical properties of space that apparently had nothing to do with the speed of light - were fundamental physical quantities and the same in any non-accelerated reference frame.
One prediction of the theory of relativity is that if you were stationary with respect to another observer and he and you each established a laboratory and measured the speed of light you would agree. If he and his laboratory was later moving at, say, half the speed of light with respect to you and you shone a laser beam in his direction, both of you would measure the same speed for the mutally observed laser light as you did before, even though you both would agree that each of you was moving with respect to the other.
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it turns out that's the still the best explanation of things that are observed every day. You either have to take it on faith or learn more physics.
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