SPEED OF LIGHT CHALLENGE proposed by
physicists, according to New Scientist 23 November 2016 and ScienceDaily 25
November 2016. Many theories in physics and cosmology, including Einstein’s
theory of relativity are based on the belief that the speed of light in a vacuum
is always constant. In the late 1990’s this assumption was questioned by João
Magueijo of Imperial College London, because of a problem with the Big Bang
Theory, known as the horizon problem. If the speed of light, and all
electromagnetic radiation, has always been the same, then the universe is too
big for it to be evenly heated in the time since the Big Bang. The ScienceDaily
article explains: “As an analogy, to heat up a room evenly, the warm air from
radiators at either end has to travel across the room and mix fully. The problem
for the universe is that the ‘room’ – the observed size of the universe –
appears to be too large for this to have happened in the time since it was
formed”. The current explanation for this problem is a theory called “inflation”
which claims the early universe started out very small and then suddenly
underwent a period of extremely rapid expansion. However, this theory requires
the invention of an “inflation field” – a temporary set of conditions that
mysteriously came into being sometime soon after the beginning and then, equally
mysteriously, ceased. To overcome this problem Magueijo suggested the speed of
light was much faster in the past. He and a colleague, Niayesh Afshordi at the
Perimeter Institute, Canada, are now proposing a means of testing this theory
using measurements of the cosmic background radiation. On the basis of their
theory they have made a prediction about a measurement known as the “spectral
index”, which relates to small variations in the cosmic microwave background
radiation, currently being studied by instruments on satellites. According to
ScienceDaily “Their figure is a very precise 0.96478. This is close to the
current estimate of readings of the cosmic microwave background, which puts it
around 0.968, with some margin of error”. Magueijo commented: “The theory, which
we first proposed in the late 1990’s, has now reached a maturity point - it has
produced a testable prediction. If observations in the near future do find this
number to be accurate, it could lead to a modification of Einstein’s theory of
gravity. The idea that the speed of light could be variable was radical when
first proposed, but with a numerical prediction, it becomes something physicists
can actually test. If true, it would mean that the laws of nature were not
always the same as they are today."
Links: New Scientist, ScienceDaily
ED. COM. We would like to remind Magueijo, along with both creationists and evolutionists who are tackling some of the problems brought up by modern cosmology theories, that the theory of decreasing speed of light was not first proposed in the late 1990’s. In the early 1980’s, Australian Barry Setterfield and his colleague Trevor Norman from the Flinders University in Adelaide proposed this theory. This editor attended one of his lectures on the subject in 1983, and Barry Setterfield had been working on it for several years before that. Setterfield did not pass the Politically Correct barrier as he was a creationist. Since then he has developed the theory further, and his research and reports can be read at: http://www.setterfield.org/. It will be interesting to see what the results of Magueijo’s and Afshordi’s proposal turn out to be. However, their theory is still based on the Big Bang, which has other problems, so we caution anyone from getting too excited about it. Instead, we advise cosmologists and physicists to start with the word of the Creator, who said “Let there be light” in the beginning. (Ref. radiation, cosmos, astronomy, physics)
Links: New Scientist, ScienceDaily
ED. COM. We would like to remind Magueijo, along with both creationists and evolutionists who are tackling some of the problems brought up by modern cosmology theories, that the theory of decreasing speed of light was not first proposed in the late 1990’s. In the early 1980’s, Australian Barry Setterfield and his colleague Trevor Norman from the Flinders University in Adelaide proposed this theory. This editor attended one of his lectures on the subject in 1983, and Barry Setterfield had been working on it for several years before that. Setterfield did not pass the Politically Correct barrier as he was a creationist. Since then he has developed the theory further, and his research and reports can be read at: http://www.setterfield.org/. It will be interesting to see what the results of Magueijo’s and Afshordi’s proposal turn out to be. However, their theory is still based on the Big Bang, which has other problems, so we caution anyone from getting too excited about it. Instead, we advise cosmologists and physicists to start with the word of the Creator, who said “Let there be light” in the beginning. (Ref. radiation, cosmos, astronomy, physics)
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