Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Is Light speed really the limit?

Please re-read what you originally wrote. Here it is quoted exactly.

"It's pretty tuff to go faster than the vehicle you are traveling in."

Your words. Nonsensical but your words. Take light out of the picture. What you wrote means that in a vehicle moving 0.5 mph a fly can't fly from the back seat to the front seat.

But even when one is looking at your corrected version, and with even a passing knowledge of relativity and quantum mechanics, your statement makes no sense.

The size of the universe is irrelevant to whether something can or can not travel from the earth to the moon at any finite or infinite speed.

I just bought a book by einstein that explains his general and special theories of relativity. i have yet to crack a page so this response is just my own guess.
If the current speed of light was not the limit, then light would be moving faster. because light is a massless ball of energy, and speed is determined by the energy being applied on the object with consideration to its mass (the larger the slower) and friction; then in a frictionless environment,the fastest object would have to be pure energy and no mass (I.e a photon). This is assuming that einsteins photon theory is correct. btw i dont know the formula for speed, i was just postulating based on what i thought sounded logical.

Ok, I'll give this failure of ours, to have a reasonable meeting of minds, one more shot.
Enlighten me, in plain language. You know, the way that fellow explained the quantum world on PBS. The way someone who really knows their field can break things down to every day language. Language that guys like me can understand. By the way j6p stands for Joe six pack. I'm the guy next door, the guy that built your car, the farmer, the electrician, plumber, carpenter. Average Joe. So make it clear to me what this universe is.
If you do that, I'll explain how I think it's happening, what's causing it, why it's acting like it is and I'll explain it in language that most anyone can understand. In fact I guarantee that you will understand what I am talking about. No ambiguity. Deal?
Otherwise, for me at least, this conversation is over.

Ay, if for no other reason, think of the laughs you can have at ol j6p's expense. Go for it.

Gotta love this. "I don't know anything about the subject, but I bought a book about it which I haven't read. Nevertheless, I will now explain it to you."

(just poking fun, no offense intended)

I am not versed in Physics, this will be obvious, in a moment. Only that after reading Justin Whalon's pondering about if there are other particles faster than light? My unproven theory as well as others with the same or similar idea on the subject is that; although the measurable speed of light has distinctly won the blue ribbon as the fastest. Quantum theories, (which tend to make my brain like pudding after 30 minutes of reading) have stated that the existance of energy/matter, in both states is faster. The example given is this. Not only the space in between atoms at the sub atomic particle level, but the space in between that is so minute a mass, that it is both energy and mass simultaneously. In a pulsating back and fourth type of dimention that can only be proven math matically. Which I have not seen nor the brain pan to comprehend. (I told you this is not my forte') any way, by being both, can be faster than light x's 10. I havent read the articles for some time, and I if I can find them, I will include them in my reply. (after my slaughter of how I make no sense etc...) ha haa. this to be the way it was explained in theory, of what I read. Im sure the more educated of the lot of you can shread this theory and tell me so. Fair enough, but the possibility is so beyond our limitations of thought, because we can only think of things with limits and Time. Im sure it goes beyond that, and perhaps then, things like God, and Creationism etc... will start to make sense.

Justin that's a pretty decent suggestion. However, i dont know h ow true it holds. The escape velocity of the earth is 25,300 mph, or 11.3 km/sec; that doesnt mean that the earth pulls objects into it at the speed of 25,300 mph and greater. I assume this holds true with a black hole as well, the gravity is so great the its escape velocity is higher than 299,792,458 km/sec doesnt mean that it is pulling objects toward it at a speed faster than that... although truth be told it may. It is a proposition that I myself haven't thought of.
by the way DA Morgan's reference to Einstein's special theory of Relativity was completely irrelevant.

Thank you for redefining "clueless."

Not once did I reference SR. To see the only person that did will require that you use a mirror.

Question: Is speed of light really the limit?

The speed of light should be considered from the perspective of common sense as well as from the posture of current dogma. I am surprised at the heat of discussion between parties that have different views on various scientific subjects with the speed of light formost.

We arrive at the speed of light by measurements made here on Earth. It matters not where the light originates from because all measuring is done from here at Earth. We discover a speed of 186,281 miles per second. We use that determination to conclude that it represents the speed of light throughout the Universe. We have no disagreement so far, do we?

In spite of the elaborate theories, all of them, that make conclusions concerning the speed of light, not one, not any of them, tell us why light travels at 186,281 miles per second here at Earth. From my perspective that determination should come first before we speculate about the speed of light from all sources and in all parts of the Universe. Not a word that I am aware of is provided to document the CAUSE for the speed of light as we measure it here at Earth.

I have considered this issue for many years. I am well aware that any approach that suggests an explanation for the WHY of the speed of light will be met with fierce objections but I do not care. Consider a Star one million times the mass of our sun and explain why such an object would produce light with the same energy factors that our tiny sun does? I contend I have worked out the answer to the speed of light and why we measure it as we do here at earth. The full content of my contentions, which is the only explanation that I know of as ever being offered by anyone, is explained in my Web site. To avoid any suggestion of spam I am not including the location of the site here but you can email me and I Will reply with the data.

In short I propose that sun light leaves the sun at about 112,941 miles per second having excellerated dramatically from the suns equator. It continues to excellerate until it reaches the Earth going about 186,281 miles per second when it passes Earth. It thereafter continues to go faster and faster while it goes out into space until it diminishes and probably fades at about 186,624 miles per second many billions of miles from Earth. This unique quality of light that I offer also acounts for the alleged red shift and other effects in my contention.

I will not be sensitive to your arguments. I am a retired lawyer and I am used to confrontations.

My last reply left out the Web site I referred to because I did not think I should include it. I find that others commonly include web sites.

http://www.SurfingTheSolarSystem.com

Well, Fermat, the explanation to Why a star/sun a million times heavier than our sun, or any star for that matter produces light with the same energy factors ( I will assume that terms like energy factors, excelleration, etc. are lawyerese for frequency/wavelength and acceleration) already exists.

Someone didn't do their reasearch correctly now, did they? And you can be acused (with enormous available proof) that you are actually suborning perjury by your statements, and in the court of science, this makes you guilty of gross ignorance (stupidity in short, since you actually meddled into the matter pretending to know the field), even though your ignorance may be unwillful.

The answer to the question whose answer you claim to be the only one to hold is rouhly a century old, and is called general covariance (homogeneity and isotropy can be derived therefrom). A fella, Einstein, discovered it long ago. And to the best of our observational knowledge, it works.

Furthermore, at the scale of our solar system, we know that there is no variation of the speed of light, and that the mechanism you propose is "null and void". As for the redshift, that has already been explained a century and a half ago, so once again, you are a bit late.

Despite your insensitivity to arguments (you must be a corporate lawyer) you might want to consult the scientific literature from the last hundred years. It is not difficult to do so, since I suppose you are aware that the concept of books and articles has been successfully applied to science too.

And if you are retired, you also have a lot of time to dedicate to such a study, although you seem to lack the wisdom and/or maturity of such an undertaking.In science open mindedness to arguments (or at least to cogent ones) is still the fashion, you know?

Thank you Pasti for your comments.

You must feel very strongly about the subject to voice such bitterness at my view. I am retired. I am pleased to see your caustic response, for another subject it helps to explain why cats have sharp teeth.

You may want to review the history of science your self. You may have historical teachers that thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, or possibly the Solar System which contained some "stars" revolving around each other.

When you feel rested please tell me how we measure the speed of light from any where except here on Earth. I welcome your sparky approach.

Fermat:"Thank you Pasti for your comments."

You're welcome.

Fermat:"You must feel very strongly about the subject to voice such bitterness at my view."

If by this you mean that I feel strongly about those claiming to do science from the point of view "Imprator dixit", then you are right. You might also have noticed that my bitterness was directed towards your approach to "discussing", the subject, and not to the subject itself. The theory you presented is fairly trivial to argue against, based on your expose.

Fermat:"I am retired."

Good for you. You seem to consider this aspect to be very important to you (or to the others) since you keep repeating it. I'll keep it in mind as a mitigating circumstance.

Fermat:"I am pleased to see your caustic response..."

Once again, I am glad you enjoyed it. It's been my lifelong goal to do stand-up comedy for second hand science buffs.

Fermat:"...for another subject it helps to explain why cats have sharp teeth."

What can I say? I am marvelled by your insight. But I am rather sorry to burst your bubble again,but this issue has already been dealt with in both anthropology and psychology. For the purpose of this discussion, you should check out the latter (you should actually already have some rudiments of psychology).

Fermat:"You may want to review the history of science your self. You may have historical teachers that thought the Earth was at the center of the universe, or possibly the Solar System which contained some "stars" revolving around each other."

Well, what can I say, you got me between a rock and a hard place. You wouldn't be talking about the same teachers who wrote laws against heresy (including scientific heresy), would you? And enforced them by burning the heretics at stake? I am glad though that you are a proud descendant of such teachers ("I will not be sensitive to your arguments."-remember?You wrote it)(Hint: This would give you the correct ideea about my causticity!)

And you wouldn't by any chance be talking about teachers like Giordano Bruno, or Copernic, or Kepler, or even Galilei? Or Newton who had to invent his own mathematics in order to describe his own physics?
You are probably talking about imbeciles like Mach, whose "sensitivity" to arguments drove Boltzmann to commit suicide, just to give an appropriate example

Well, I have news for you. But then, it would appear that anything from the last century is news for you, when it comes to science.

Yes, you are right, there have been imbeciles during the history who taught the geocentric system, and they are part of "my" pedigree as well as yours. But science at least had the courage to brake up with "secular power", with such "illuminati", even at the cost of death in many cases (Galileo excluded), and carve its own path.

So, your point is? I cannot believe you actually went into such a poorly thought argument.

Fermat:"When you feel rested please tell me how we measure the speed of light from any where except here on Earth."

Oh, boy. And this time I am really sorry to have to say this, but you are rather square. Does the word (laser) telemetry mean anything to you? And telescope? And chronometer (stopwatch would be the commonly used term)? Let me put it in a form that is easier for you to understand. Hypothetically speaking, suppose that you have a spacecraft roaming the solar system. You can direct a laser beam (pulse acrually) to a mirror on the spacecraft, which will bounce of the mirror and return back to you. And suppose that you have two telescopes on earth that can triangulate the position of your spacecraft in the solar system (that would be an independent measurement of the distance to the spacecraft). You know the distance to the spacecraft, you can measure the time passed from the moment you sent the laser pulso to the moment you beceived it back, and bingo!A bit of elementary mathematics and there is your measurement of the speed of light in the solar system.

Of couse, this is all a hypothetical scenario for you. Nevermind that the method has been in use eversince humans landed on the Moon. You just did not know about it. Nor did the Mars rovers give you any hint. Well, I would say that you need to do your research more thoroughly, before even attempting to develop a new theory/model.

Fermat:"I welcome your sparky approach."

Happy to oblige.

Thank you again Pasti.

Thank you for confirming that the speed of light is measured with instruments located here on Earth. It matters not how we do it or how far away the tools are located, with or without lasers, from the moon or otherwise. The point, which I know would never occur to you is that the final measure is made on the light, laser, or whatever as it enters the Earth enviornment. That is the key. Why do you feel compelled to be so vindictive?

I said I was retired because YOU brought it up in your first tirade- for whatever reason, hintimg that I must be retired. Possibly you meant to say retarded and that would fit your mindset much better.

My contention is not expected to be popular. The prospect is not totally without others thinking there are areas to be considered.

Finally, If sun light has a specific density in the vicinity of the Earth and that density equates to a speed of 186,281 miles per second and the density of light at all points distant from the Earth is less we may speculate that the density of light may be a factor in the observed speed of light. If this conjecture is true then light re-entering the Earths enviornment will be subjected to the Earth region density and reduce the expanded light source back to the speed of light normally measured at the Earths location.
For this reason all measurements of the speed of light will be the same even though apparently made in outer space- which they are not.

I can not prove, at this time, that I am correct in my view or my calculating why the speed of light here at Earth is measured at 186,281 miles per second but neither can you. Calling me an idiot will prove only that you are rude and not capable of objective evaluation of others views.

Jim Wood

Jim, I will answer your questions in a slightly different order.

jjw: ?Why do you feel compelled to be so vindictive?

I am not vindictive, Jim. I just gave you a taste of your own medicine, and pretty much as expected, you didn?t like it very much. And if you re-read your first post any my first reply to it, I am pretty sure that my reason for doing so will become clear. It is not your model, or theory, it is your attitude.

jjw: ?I said I was retired because YOU brought it up in your first tirade- for whatever reason, hintimg that I must be retired. Possibly you meant to say retarded and that would fit your mindset much better.?

No, I didn?t mean to say you were retarded. But let me quote your last two sentences from your first post: ?I will not be sensitive to your arguments. I am a retired lawyer and I am used to confrontations. ?. Besides a certain sad and ironic contradiction that is apparent from what you wrote, it is once again you attitude. No one cares that you are a lawyer, and no one cares that you are retired, when it comes to discussing something like your model, on this forum and in real life science. All that matters is your willingness to discuss your theory, whether someone brings you pro or con arguments. However, when you use a totally irrelevant background to offer weight to your statements in one way or another, expect to be ridiculed. Sure, that will not happen the way I did it, but then let?s ignore the form and focus on the content. The result would have been the same, but just unspoken.

As for the nickname Fermat, I just couldn?t resist it. I believe the reason is obvious.

jjw: ? Calling me an idiot will prove only that you are rude and not capable of objective evaluation of others views.?

Yes, maybe it proves that I am rude. But I am not sure which is worse: being incapable of viewing objectively other?s arguments or being unwilling to do the same. And once again I refer you to the quote above. Hope you do see my point.

And before discussing you theory, it would be nice if you actually posted it in more detail. Or post a link to your website.

jjw: ? It matters not how we do it or how far away the tools are located, with or without lasers, from the moon or otherwise. The point, which I know would never occur to you is that the final measure is made on the light, laser, or whatever as it enters the Earth environment. That is the key. Why do you feel compelled to be so vindictive?

Well, of course it does. Your contention is, in part at least, that light propagates at different speeds close to large masses. If you want to see whether light propagates at different speeds throughout the solar system you just get a space probe close to another massive object (with mass different from the Earth?s), like another planet. Then any effect due to the variation of the speed of light can be measured using this telemetry method (and it has been).
If the fact that the emission/receiving instruments are located on Earth bothers you, the same thing is done with elmg radiation emitted an received by the probe. In this configuration, the experiment is not performed on Earth, and can still determine any differences in speed of light during its propagation.

jjw: ?My contention is not expected to be popular. The prospect is not totally without others thinking there are areas to be considered.?

The issue is not popularity or public support. And as much as I agree with you that there are still isuues in science which are not clear yet, or that might need revisions and further development, I don?t believe this is an issue. If you recall, I never said that the speed of light is a constant within the entire universe. I only said that within our solar system we have observational evidence that it is. And yes, current cosmological theories are based on the idea that the speed of light is constant throughout the universe, which is a reasonable assumption. I am not going to lecture about why it is a reasonable assumption, it would take me too long. But keep in mind that it is also the simplest assumption compatible with general relativity. And if this assumption will be proven to be wrong by observational evidence, it will be recognized as such. Until then, Occam?s razor is the best way to go.
If you want to look at cosmological models with varying speed of light, go to www.arxiv.org and search for author John Moffat(t) (I don?t remember if it is a double t or not).

Jjw: ?Finally, If sun light has a specific density in the vicinity of the Earth and that density equates to a speed of 186,281 miles per second and the density of light at all points distant from the Earth is less we may speculate that the density of light may be a factor in the observed speed of light. If this conjecture is true then light re-entering the Earths enviornment will be subjected to the Earth region density and reduce the expanded light source back to the speed of light normally measured at the Earths location.For this reason all measurements of the speed of light will be the same even though apparently made in outer space- which they are not.?

First of all, you need to be more clear in your statements. What do you mean by the density of light? You seem to be saying that light can have a volumetric density as any solid body. If the latter is the case, you are already into trouble. Due to quantum effects, you cannot determine the volume/size of a photon, and hence such a quantity would be ill-defined.

Second of all, you seem to imply that due to gravitational effects, the speed of light seems to change. Well, I can only tell you that as far as we know, it is not the speed of light that changes. It?s energy changes, but its speed remains constant. And the change in energy would be responsible for red-shifts and/or blue shifts. As I said, at the scale of the solar system these are observationally confirmed facts.

Third of all, I have no idea what you mean by ?reduce the expanded light source back to the speed of light normally measured at the Earth?s location?. Be clearer. An expanded source in physics means a source which is not pointlike, but I am afraid this is not what you meant.

Fourth of all, you don?t seem to have understood the telemetry measurement concept. If your theory were correct, it does not matter whether light measured locally on Earth has the value we know. The whole point is that if the speed of light would vary from here say to Jupiter, based on your conjecture, then the time necessary for light to travel to Jupiter and back would be different from what would be expected if the speed of light were the constant measured on Earth. It?s very simple math, you can do it yourself. And such an effect has simply not been observed.

jjw: ?I can not prove, at this time, that I am correct in my view or my calculating why the speed of light here at Earth is measured at 186,281 miles per second but neither can you.?

Jim, look, the issue of locality of measurement versus the globality of the assumptions underlying the measurement is indeed a ?hot? issue in physics. You seem to be aware of that. But you have addressed it in the wrong context, and at the wrong scale. Among other things, the Doppler shift of the light reflected by other planets would have been detectable. Then there would have been anomalous Doppler shifts from nearby/other stars.
You can start asking your question only at galactic scale, at the scale of The Local Group at the very least. And indeed at that scale there is such anomalous Doppler shift, but it is associated nowadays with what is called dark matter. This info must seem to be very puny to you. In fact, it is rather massive, I just do not have enough time to review it in detail in a post.

This is an interesting forum, many people not familiar with GR and SR (general relativity and special relativity), and a hot argument with the standard theories vs. a new theory (I side with the standard).

Measuring the speed of light first came up to try to detect the ether of space. This was an old theory that says light as a wave, must have a medium to propagate in (the ether) and the medium must have some movement or else we are moving though the medium. Experiments were set up to measure the speed of light in different directions, and by using diffraction, try to cause the slower moving light to lap the faster moving light and cause a diffraction pattern. It didn't work and ether was finally given up on. Light moved at the same velocity regardless of direction.

But it didn't always move at the same speed! Change the medium to air, or water or a prism and the light slowed down. If anyone would like to win a Nobel and contribute to the understanding of light, please come up with a provable theory on the interaction of light as it passes though matter at slower speeds than in a vacuum. BTW that dose mean that light inside the sun is moving slower than in a vacuum as the sun is also matter. Depending on the new theory of the interaction of photons with matter, the flux of material outside of the sun may not be a perfect vacuum and therefore show some slowing of photons, but that would be very slight. and hopefully, that is not the explanation of the einsteinium effect that bends light around stars.

Of course matter has traveled faster than light. Put the light in a heavy oil to slow it way down and compare it with some partials in a vacuum in an accelerator, but that doesn't disprove Einstein, it is just a special case.

As to measuring the size of a photon, it is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, not quantum mechanics that we have to deal with. So we can put some upper limits on the size of a photon. It gets smaller and therefore more penetrating (less likely to react with matter) as it's energy (frequency) increases. But no it is not solid, and it is not matter. It is energy and it carries information in that energy.

Einstein created a set of mathematical laws to better explain what we observed. They do not explain everything we observe, but they were better (more accurate, and simpler) than the laws Newton gave us. So until someone else gives us something even better, we use Einstein?s SR rule set which is the same as Newton's rule set with just a tiny exception at very high velocities and gravities.

But just because we use Einstein's rule set does not mean that all extrapolations from that rule set are true. Time travel still belongs to SiFi because we still have no evidence that reverse travel in time is possible. Everything we know says it is impossible. Time is not a normal dimension like length, width or height. Please understand, you can create a set of equations that seems to fit reality, but still have discontinuities that don't work. Likewise some extrapolations from rule sets are nonsense. We acknowledge that all our rule sets simply have nothing to say about what happens inside a singularity (black hole).

The Universe is probability simpler than we make it now, because our rule set is imperfect or incomplete. But it is far better than the rule set our great grandfathers had. So don't knock it, improve it.

Sparky: "This is an interesting forum, many people not familiar with GR and SR (general relativity and special relativity)..."

Are you sure?

Sparky: "... Experiments were set up to measure the speed of light in different directions, and by using diffraction, try to cause the slower moving light to lap the faster moving light and cause a diffraction pattern. It didn't work and ether was finally given up on. Light moved at the same velocity regardless of direction."

You mean Michelson and Morley used interference. And in the case of their interferometer, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest diffraction.

Sparky: "But it didn't always move at the same speed! Change the medium to air, or water or a prism and the light slowed down."

If you treat light like a wave. But then explain the phenomenology that causes the light to slow down, and more importantly, what causes light to regain its speed when it comes out of a material medium.

Sparky: "If anyone would like to win a Nobel and contribute to the understanding of light, please come up with a provable theory on the interaction of light as it passes though matter at slower speeds than in a vacuum."

The theory exists, why don't you look it up?

Sparky: "BTW that dose mean that light inside the sun is moving slower than in a vacuum as the sun is also matter."

Sparky, the light that the Sun radiates is emitted at the surface, or more accurately in the corona, which is mainly plasma, and as such, it has a density smaller than the air. The picture of the Sun as a ball of fire is not exactly an accurate one.


Sparky: "Depending on the new theory of the interaction of photons with matter, the flux of material outside of the sun may not be a perfect vacuum and therefore show some slowing of photons, but that would be very slight. and hopefully, that is not the explanation of the einsteinium effect that bends light around stars."

It definitely is not the cause of the redshift. A rather simple calculation would tell you that if the redshift of a star were due to intergalactic matter, the density of the latter would be quite high, which is contradicting observation.

Sparky: "Of course matter has traveled faster than light. Put the light in a heavy oil to slow it way down and compare it with some partials in a vacuum in an accelerator, but that doesn't disprove Einstein, it is just a special case."

Sparky, usually when one talks about speed of light in a general context, this means the speed of light in vacuum. And your above argument fails to prove that "light can travel faster than light".

Sparky: "As to measuring the size of a photon, it is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, not quantum mechanics that we have to deal with."

And the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is derived in what context? What is the name of that theory? This is a good one.

Sparky: "So we can put some upper limits on the size of a photon. It gets smaller and therefore more penetrating (less likely to react with matter) as it's energy (frequency) increases."

That would be the day. Based on what? What is your criterion? And if your answer is based on Heisenberg inequalities, think about the precision to measure frequency/wavelenght. A photon cannot be described by a D-Delta function, not even (semi)classically.


Sparky: "But no it is not solid, and it is not matter. It is energy and it carries information in that energy."

Sparky, you already don't know what you are talking about.
If you represent light as a wave of frequency \nu (I am using latex syntax) then it will be a sine or a cosine. You cannot transmit/encode information in something like that.
If you are talking about a photon, a single photon, once again, you cannot encode anything in a photon. You need more photons than one to encode information, and as for a wave, you need modulation.


Sparky: "... we use Einstein?s SR rule set which is the same as Newton's rule set with just a tiny exception at very high velocities and gravities."

OK, now you are making a fool of yourself. SR deals only with (flat) Minkowski space, and as such, gravity plays no role.And at low speeds, newtonian dynamics is recovered as an approximation of SR.

GR deals with curved spacetimes, at any velocities. Since locally any metric with lorentzian signature can be approximated by a minkovskian metric, this means that for spacetimes with small curvature, Newtonian gravity can be recoveres as an approximation of GR. This is "slightly" different than your claim.

Sparky: "Time travel still belongs to SiFi because we still have no evidence that reverse travel in time is possible."

Observationally, no. theoretically, see wormholes, or the Kruskal extension for black-holes.

Sparky: "Everything we know says it is impossible."

Not quite. See above.

Sparky: "Time is not a normal dimension like length, width or height. Please understand, you can create a set of equations that seems to fit reality, but still have discontinuities that don't work."

You do, huh? Would you be so kind as to give me an example of metric with a temporal discontinuity (besides the Big Bang or the Big Crunch solutions)?

Sparky: "Likewise some extrapolations from rule sets are nonsense. We acknowledge that all our rule sets simply have nothing to say about what happens inside a singularity (black hole)."

You are slightly off again. You can extend the theory beyond the horizon or the ergosphere of a black-hole (see again the Kruskal extension, causal structure of a black hole, etc). Wheteher these extensions are off or not,that's another story. Be mor careful in your statements.

You do seem to enjoy tearing things apart. Just one point, the sun is prevent from collapsing due to the internal pressure caused by the energy generated inside the core of the sun. Guess what this energy is sometimes called? photons. I don't do science by your rules, and thank god I am not in your class.

I see too much of this trivial correction going on. If you had worked with chaos theory you would have run up against discontinous equations. Why do you assume that you are the final authority on anything? Open your mind up, there is still lots to learn

Sparky: "You do seem to enjoy tearing things apart."

Not particlarly. But when I discuss science, I prefer to be exact.

Sparky:"Just one point, the sun is prevent from collapsing due to the internal pressure caused by the energy generated inside the core of the sun. Guess what this energy is sometimes called? photons."

Sparky, so is Earth. And while such a balance between light pressure and gravitational pressure is indeed govern the energy production mechanism in the core of stars, this does not mean that photons generated in the inner core escape to the surface, nor does it mean that by the time the nuclear cycle in the core is completed will it collapse (once again, the collapse term in astrophysics means that the star will end up being a neutronic star). Think of Earth: while it has an active inner core, it does not emmit light. It reflects the light from the Sun.

Sparky: "I don't do science by your rules, and thank god I am not in your class."

Well, it's your loss, not mine.

Sparky: "I see too much of this trivial correction going on."

And being exact is wrong because...?

Sparky:"If you had worked with chaos theory you would have run up against discontinous equations."

If by discontinuous equations you mean equations that have to be solved on discontinuous domains, then I have news for you. They are present in all domains of physics. Including GR.

Sparky:"Why do you assume that you are the final authority on anything? Open your mind up, there is still lots to learn."

I do not claim to be the final authority on anything, and I am more aware than you might know about how much is left to learn. But you made some elementary mistakes while claimimg expertise. In my book, you can't have them both. And further more, knowing more than you do in a domain is not exactly a sin. It might be uncomfortable to you, but that's your problem. As you said, "...there is still lots to learn."

I have been invited to provide a little more explanation for my views on the speed of light. This should be prefaced with my confession that I am not educated in the areas you gentlemen are and I accept the likehood that if I was I would believe the world to look exactly the same as you see it. Also I do not contend that any past theory is false or faulty. That is beyound the scope of my knowledge. If we all thought the same there would be little progress.

Light has been a source of facination for me from the very first reading I did of Newton's work. I am curious about such things which to me appear to present a mystery, possibly not. When I learned (thought I did) that there was no adaquate explanation for why light travels at the specific speed around 186,281 miles a second in a vacume, and not having the benefit of the knowledge you share with Einstien I looked for my own answers.

I use words like density to discuss light because I think they are appropriate to explain my views. Light being esentially pure energy seems to self propell throught the universe with no apparent contribution of any other energy source. That itself is a curious prospect.

My contention is that light does have a density and can be expanded or compress in the same manner that a gas is compress, except we use mirrors and 'magnifing glasses' to do it instead of pumps. We know we are compressing the light because we can observe and measure the heat produced by the effort. light leaving the sun is as dense as it will ever be and from that point onward is always less dense. This "density" will decline as the light moves througout the Solar System. This light, as I see it, can be compared to a gas being released from a container. It will continue to expand until it disapates, much the same as light diminishes with distance.

We must always keep in mind that the easpansion is sphereical. The speed of light is in part a product of the density of the light and the rate of the expansion of light. This, if correct, is a natural control of the potential speed at which the light will travel because the rate of expansion is means by which light speeds up. This would mean that light in the vicinity of Earth is clocked at 186,281 miles per second while the expanded light a Jupiter will be less dense and capable of traveling faster.

The first hurdle here is to explain why we measure light returning to us from Jupiter at the same speed we measure light passing us here at Earth. I contend that the reflected light leaving Jupiter is traveling faster as it leaves but while it travels back to Earth is is slowed and slowly compressed alond the way so as to meet us here at Earth traveling at our enviornments speed. This would apply to light originating from any source, including distant stars. This gives us a nice comfort zone and the conclusion that the light speed is fixed always.

In my book I try to provide some better thoughts on this point but this is the essence. I also try to predict the probable sped of light from the sun going out through the Solar System. At Earth my method does provide the 186,281 miles per second figure and that at the very least is a curious calculation. I am well aware of my limitations in this area of science but I am inclined to feel it may be an asset. Using my own way of doing calculations I have also made claim to discovering a mathemativcal means of predicting the mean equatorial surface velocity of a planets rotation in miles per second, an item which was a primary purpose of my hobby.

All in all I have some outlandish ideas but some of them I can prove mathematically- but not using killometers or grams to measure anything because I found that to be unproductive. Miles will seem unscientific but it works very well with time. Example: Earth at 7926.6 miles diameter divided into the sun's circumference of 2,714,342.4 equals 342.45 and the square root of that is 18.5, the miles per second of the Earths obital speed around the sun. You can do that same test with kilometers and get the same ratio result but we know 18.5 kilometers is meaningless in this workup. I unravel a lot this way. This was a product of my spare time using the data published in various textbooks by others because I observed nothing (excpet errors in the published data at times)

Thank you for your attention: My web site is:

http;//www.SurfingTheSolarSystem.com

Jim Wood

Thank you for your attention.

Well professor Patti, my memory of the Michelson and Morley experiment was from my freshman physics course 34 years ago. It was an important introduction to those wondering about the speed of light, and deserved mentioning. As to people not understanding GR and SR, read the early posts and the questions they asked. As for your understanding of GR and SR that was not questioned though you took offense when none was meant. GR and SR are very deep subjects as they require us to look at the universe in ways that seem a bit unnatural at first. I expect you have been studying it a bit longer and deeper than I.
But this thread was not meant to be a doctorial theses, it was meant to explain what is known and what is not known about the speed of light. To make it interesting, one can add in the things that seem strange (matter can travel faster than light, but only if you rig the race), and questions knowledgeable people still have about light. Think of the recent experiment where they froze light for a few seconds. This is what makes science interesting and leads to more scientists. Who would want to become a scientist if they knew they would have to face a tigeress like you every day? I am not trying to be a better scientist than you, I am just interested in science.