The Speed Of Light Varies Over Time
Recently, I watched Matthew Zajac’s video “Einstein’s Biggest Blunder”. If you subscribe to NetFlix, you can see it at https://www.netflix.com/title/80106154 – I don’t believe it’s available on YouTube, although there are other, different videos of the same name.
This video was about physicist Matthew Zajac who proposed that the speed of light varies over time. I find that the video confirms many “critical thinking” positions. For example:
– the variable speed of light proposal was seen as “bold and brilliant”, yet to many in the CNPS, this option, while not necessarily fanatically endorsed by all, is something virtually all have heard discussed for decades. Further, critical thinker Barry Setterfield, a CNPS member, was decades ahead of Zajac and discusses much data supporting how the speed or light varies over time which Zajac is apparently unaware of.
– Zajac had this idea early in his career but did not put it forward as he was concerned that would end his career (i.e., one cannot be labeled a physics heretic and succeed).
– Zajac went to work for one of the key proponents of Big Bang Inflation theory who admits he always had concerns about Inflation.
– Zajac was able to pursue his idea because the gatekeepers of Big Bang theory knew Big Bang theory had a couple of fatal problems that needed fixing.
– “Einstein’s Biggest Blunder” was alleged to be his cosmological constant. We see great hero worship of Einstein. Because of this hero worship and because of his cosmological constant, Einstein’s cosmology can’t be wrong. If the universe is stable, then Einstein was brilliant to add the cosmological constant to the gravitational field equation to yield a stable universe. If the universe is expanding, then Einstein was brilliant to add a (adjusted) cosmological constant to the gravitational field equation to yield an expanding universe. If the universe is shrinking, then Einstein was brilliant to add a (adjusted) cosmological constant to the gravitational field equation to yield a shrinking expanding universe.
– Zajac took “his” variable speed of light idea and did lots of math manipulation to see if he could address the outstanding problems of Big Bang/Inflation and developed a theory. Despite new data supporting the variable speed of light over time conjecture, Zajak is not getting much attention (the video notwithstanding). Zajak comments that most theoretical physicists tend to ignore new data if it contradicts their current beliefs. Also, note that Zajak’s math manipulations which are fixing some problems in currently accepted Big Bang theory, he’s still going down the wrong path as he was unaware of some other findings by Setterfield.
– Zajac at least got to do some critical thinking within physics academia. If someone outside physic academia had suggested the same idea, then he’d just be ignored as a quack. So far, Zajac, et al haven’t fared much better.
– Zajac, at the end, has to say that he admires Einstein (I agree) and has great respect for relativity (disagree), but as he puts it, he’s trying to go beyond relativity. Zajac knows the politics and the appropriate physics-PC phrasing.
– So much of what Zajac says and experiences confirms what we, the CNPS, claim is wrong with physics academia.
– A further problem that I see is that even if someone in physics academia does do some “bold” critical thinking, they still have a major obstacle. They have a flawed theory, namely, the standard Big Bang and when they realized it had a major flaw, they had to perform a major fix, namely, Inflation, but when Inflation had a major flaw, the focus within academia, even for critical thinkers, was how to fix the fix of the flawed theory. Hence, in academia, there may be a rare exception who does some critical thinking, but they are constrained to do it “within the box of relativity” – they either cannot bring themselves to think outside that box or are not allowed to do so.
For completeness, let me comment on Barry Setterfield’s video series “Anomalies” which discusses the variability of the speed of light. (“Anomalies” was the winner of the 2015 Best Pioneering Lecture Series Award at the SciFlix Film Festival.) Setterfield was looking for “anomalies” in physics data when he ran across a book giving the empirical results of measurements of the speed of light over the past 3 centuries. He found that for each epoch, the findings were quite consistent. However, when plotted over time, there was a consistent downward trend in speed. In 22 time period groupings, which were averaged, there was great consistency within each time period, but there was a consistent decline over time – there were no exceptions.
To give an idea of the changes, there follows data couplets giving the speed of light and approximate year of measurement (1874 – 300,400km/s; 1890 – 299,942; 1915 – 299,812: 1926 – 299,798; Current – 299,792.458 km/s. Some measurements have been done with the same equipment over periods of one or two centuries and whether those measurements were done in England, Australia or Russia, they had a consistent downward trend.
Looking at the literature, Setterfield saw that, in the early part of the 20th century, this variability of the speed of light was generally accepted by all including Raymond T Birge who, among others, would write things like “As we all know, …” and then go on to discuss that the speed of light seemed to be declining over time. Birge, being an expert on the subject was unofficially considered the keeper of the speed of light data. Then, in 1941, Birge made a dramatic turnabout and made a most strange pronouncement along the lines of “While the data shows the speed of light declining, that would be fatal to science and would lead to some absurd conclusions, so it’s best to think that it is the PROBABLE value that changes and not the ACTUAL value” – Birge acknowledged that this statement was being made “upon request” of the science establishment. Not only was non-constant speed of light at odds with modern physics, but atomic dating would also be thrown off. After that, the topic of a variable speed of light virtually disappeared from the physics literature so that when Zajac resurrected the idea within the mainstream, it seemed quite bold and a bit of heresy.
Setterfield also looked at other “constants” where the data showed they were actually changing, either steadily increasing or steadily decreasing. He found another “constant” that increased over time and eventually when he looked at the effect of that change with the change in the speed of light, he found that the combined effect would be to keep the amount of energy in the universe constant.
Others may differ in their interpretations of the two videos.
The biggest blunder isn’t the change in time.
The biggest mistake is say that the speed of light is a fixed value relative to the observer. Any observer.
Einstein created a new privileged reference: Each one of us.
We already knew that there are speeds whose privileged reference is the medium: the speed of sound.
In other speeds, it is the emitter (source): a stone that was thrown from a car.
But, using the observer as a privileged reference, it is very surreal.
As each one of us drags his/her particular universe where he/she go.
Yes! I’d agree! However, there are other big blunders that are also serious contenders as the BIGEST blunder (e.g., the Twin Paradox scenario claim).
Light always ‘travels’ at the same speed irrespective of medium pursuant to the equation c = ƒ λ. The reason it does so is that light is not mediated by particles or ‘waves’. Light is mediated by a rope-like entity. The rope twirls in situ. Light goes nowhere. Light consists of a rope that binds any two atoms in the Universe. When it spins in place, it gives the impression that ‘waves’ are moving from A to B much like the stripes on a barber’s pole . c = ƒ λ implies that when the links on a rope are shorter, there are more links and vice versa.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbrvYDbmbJA
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“Light always ‘travels’ at the same speed irrespective of medium pursuant to the equation c = ƒ λ.”
That cannot be true if we say that c = v n, where v is the velocity of light in a particular medium and n is the refractive index of that medium. Modern science currently operates under the assumption that in a vacuum n = 1 and c is “defined” based on a specific hyperfine transition of 133Cs. This pigeon holes the velocity of light and declares that all else is dependent on that. This in and of itself is circular reasoning since if n changes for a material, who is to say that it does not change for all materials. Then how do we know that that rate of emission of 133Cs remains constant; we do not.
In general we consider ƒ to be the constant in the expression c = ƒ λ since it is based on time, something we cannot define outside of physical process when c is NOT light speed. Only for light speed do we consider c to be the constant, again we have arrived at circular reasoning since if the velocity of light can depend on a medium but assume there is no medium in the vacuum, yet according to EM theory (and solid RF engineering) the vacuum has and intrinsic impedance (377 Ω) which strongly suggests that it is a medium. This is part of the real paradox in observational science when we understand Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem.
-Joe
Sorry, Joe. You should have read what I wrote before replying. You didn’t address a single issue…. Again…
Light is mediated by a ROPE that binds any two atoms. The torsion along the EM rope is the signal we detect as light. Therefore, light canNOT possibly travel at any other speed except little c through ANY medium. When ƒ gos up, λ MUST come down and vice versa. Just buy yourself a rope and torque it. More links, shorter links. Longer links, fewer links you can fit in the same length of rope. It’s straight forward. The rope is the only physical configuration that can simulate ALL the physical properties of light (including entanglement, slit, polarization, straightness, speed, etc.). It is deluded autists who continue to insist on simulating light with 0D particles, 2D waves and unimaginable wave-packets. And RI is an ARTIFICIAL concoction of the religion of Mathemagix. It has no validity in Science. It is a conversion table circumscribed to Technology.
Bill, I did read your comment, completely; I simply elected to focus only on your velocity of light statement that c (299792458 m/s – according to ‘modern’ science) does not depend on the media:
“Light always ‘travels’ at the same speed irrespective of medium pursuant to the equation c = ƒ λ.”
Now I may have not understood what you were trying to say about how light travels through different media, i.e. emission, collision, and re-emission or some other mechanism along your ‘rope’, but the clear experimental results do indicate conclusively that the from the time light enters a different medium, from say the vacuum, to the time it exits that medium depends on the properties of that medium. I am looking at the macro expression of light travel and pointing out that we really do not know as much as we think we do because of our circular arguments. The thrust of my point was that it is very possible that the speed of light has changed over time, which was the original subject of the original blog post, and our current interpretation and assumption does not lend itself to seeing that. It was in that context that I was responding, a point on which I should have probably elaborated.
As to your idea of how light travels around thought hypothetical ‘ropes’, is a novel idea that I have not seen used before. If you are looking at a more ‘micro’ view, it was not totally clear to me. I personally prefer using a wave in the water analogy to explain light propagation where we must extend that observable 2D model of water waves moving (within a stationary medium) to 3D for light. But this is just a way to understand from a visual perspective wave phenomenon and how they carry energy. Here too we can demonstrate through observation that the medium can affect the wave propagation velocity of mechanical waves. Now, as to how light actually propagates, none of us really knows, only our Creator knows. Our job is to keep seeking, discussing and reasoning about the truth of reality.
-Joe
I prefer the wave model for light too and this gives rise to a number of riddles that have remained unsolved for more than 150 years.
And the velocity of light in glass is 199,861,000 m/s, while that in water is 225,408,000 m/s.
– Akinbo
Actually, it’s well established that the speed of light is dependent on the medium it’s traveling through.
Unfortunately, I do not have a subscription to Netflix but the statement credited to Einstein caught my eye. That is, “Einstein’s Theory of Relativity holds that the speed of light is constant, but some cutting-edge scientists are questioning this fundamental premise”. This wrong attribution to Einstein is pervasive in both the mainstream and critical thinking community. Einstein himself may not be completely absolved of blame for this because of occasional prevarication during the construction works on his theories. I post a quote here and can further show that in the final analysis Einstein was agreeable to a variable light speed even if some of his followers stubbornly cling to a constant speed.
From his book, Relativity: the special and general theory, p.89, this quote from Einstein is illuminating, “… according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, CANNOT CLAIM ANY UNLIMITED VALIDITY. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude that the special theory of relativity CANNOT CLAIM AN UNLIMITED DOMAIN OF VALIDITY; (special relativity) results hold only so long as we are able to disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena {e.g. of light}”
That is why special relativity is a bad joke. A model created in a gravitational universe designed to disregard gravity. No matter how you cut it or move those numbers around it will never imply details about objective reality.
Most interesting to read. Perhaps there are things taken as common knowledge and scientific fact that are not so. Thanks for a very insightful article and look forward to more!
The scientific evidence that the speed of light does not change is abundant. If it were changing, GPS would not work. The spectra that we see from distant stars would be different. Radiometric decay of atoms would have been nuclear bombs a few thousand years ago due to E=mc^2. The historical measurements of the speed of light do not show a steady decrease. If you actually look them up, you find that some measurements are faster and some slower than the presently accepted value, as you’d expect from trying to measure something incredibly fast with older technology. Roemer’s measurement was much slower than the currently measured value; as soon as he published, other workers tried and got values that range all around our current best value, as expected for trying to precisely measure the timing of something using the best clocks available in the late 1600’s.
You need to review the sources cited as they rebut your claims completely. For one thing, Setterfield has meticulously “looked up the data” and it shows, well within the margin of error, that there is a clear trend in the speed of light change. Interestingly, there is another “constant” that also has been shown to vary over time which keeps energy values constant. The original thesis stated above was developed independently by Zajac and Setterfield that I’m just reporting on, hence, if you have some specific facts you wish to present, I’m very open to analyzing them.