Did Light Travel Faster in the Early Universe? A New Theory Says, "Yes" -A Galaxy Classic

A brilliant young physicist João Magueijo  asks the heretical question: What if the speed of light—now accepted as one of the unchanging foundations of modern physics—were not constant?

Magueijo, a 40-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology -an alternative to the more mainstream theory of cosmic inflation- which proposes that the speed of light in the early universe was of 60 orders of magnitude faster than its present value.

Solving the most intractable problems of cosmology in one brilliant leap, Magueijo’s varying-speed-of-light theory (VSL) would have stunning implications for space travel, black holes, time dilation, and string theory—and could help uncover the grand unified theory that ultimately eluded Einstein.

Joao Magueijo's radical ideas intend to turn that Einsteinian dogma on its head. Marueijo is trying to pick apart one of Einstein’s most impenetrable tenets, the constancy of the speed of light. This idea of a constant speed (about 3×106 meters/second) -is known as the universal speed limit. Nothing can, has, or ever will travel faster than light.

Magueijo -who received his doctorate from Cambridge, has been a faculty member at Princeton and Cambridge, and is currently a professor at Imperial College, London- says: not so. His VSL theory presupposes a speed of light that can be energy or time-space dependent.

In his fist book, Faster than the Speed of Light, Magueijo leads laymen readers into the abstract realm of theoretical physics, based on several well known, as well as obscure, thinkers. The VSL model was first proposed by John Moffat, a Canadian scientist, in 1992. Magueijo carefully builds the foundations for a discussion of Big Bang cosmology, and then segues into the second half of the book, which is devoted to VSL theory.

Like most radical, potentially seminal thinkers,  Magueijo shakes the foundations of the physics community, while irritating off many of his fellow scientists. VSL purposes to solve the problems at which all cosmologists are forever scratching: those inscrutable conceptual puzzles that surround the Big Bang. Currently many of these problems have no widely accepted solutions.

Could Einstein be wrong and Magueijo right? Is he a gadfly or a true, seminal genius? Time will tell.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

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Einstein’s “Biggest Blunder” May Turn Out to Be His Greatest Success
Einstein Right (Again): Earth Proven to Bend the Space-Time Fabric
Italian Scientists Build World’s First “Atomic Laser” Envisioned by Einstein in 1925
Cosmic "X" or God? -Religion vs Science
Einstein's Big Idea -The Cosmic Engine that Drives the Universe
"Star Trek" Warp Speeds a Reality? Scientists Claim Quantum Tunneling Exceeds Speed of Light

Comments

[Guttu]

This looks like a great breakthrough. If it holds true then we can dream of time machine, space travel and similar futuristic ideas from films. These dreams will come true.

[claudio]

This joung scientis might be right.

What we knew yesterday may not be more valid tomorrow.

Unfortunately these math dissertations have to be proven, even though I understand the difficulty.

Interesting subject however.

Comment correct 'we will ..or....'time will tell'.

Remark : There may be a typing mistake in the speed of the light (Kasey ...others ???). The speed of the light (C) is about 3*10e8 m/sec ...or a little bit less and NOT 3*10e6 m/sec

[JOhn Jones]

I think you might just be onto something here

www.web-privacy.pro.tc

[Dave]

In many ways this should have always been obvious to everyone. We have always known that the speed of light, and really all of our laws of physics, are based upon our current universe and how it operates. So if the conditions of the universe were different, the laws would be different. It also stands that our universe is defined by our current mix of space/time fabric and should that mix be altered, such as around a black hole, then we already know that the speed of light can be altered.

[Ryan James]

Scientists who talk about theory shouldn't deal in absolutes. I personally never believed "light was it, the limit, the absolute." We're microscopic on a scale that's so massive that most people can't fathom it. As humans I think we've merely tasted a single fruit of a much larger orchard.

[stevil]

dethrone einstein? that's just stupid and inflammatory. einstein penned a half inch equation that changed the world as we know it. without einstein, João Magueijo has nothing to stand on. i'm sure the guy is brilliant, but even if einstein is proven wrong in some ways, his contributions will always be the launching point for untold subsequent theory.

[ds]

Is it possible that other elements of space/time etc. could follow the same pattern?

[Sigh]

That's 3x10^6m/s....NOT 3x106

[Stephane]

dethrone is a sensationalist word to use, more suitable to say this new theory could improve upon the discoveries made by einstein. to be honest I think we will all look back and wonder why we (or einstein) thought it would be fixed. the emergent & reactive nature of almost everything we observe makes it impossible for us to say anything is 'fixed' 'forever'. a bit of doubt is always needed to see past the limitations we impose on ourselves.

[Rob]

Einstein mentioned this possibility as have other physicists, this is old news.

[Max]

Merely saying "Light may be variant in speed!" is mundane. Any idea why he thinks this? Does he have any proof? Any observations? Talk about poor reporting...

[Wayne Goode]

This idea is not new; it has been around since at least 1937. The evidence for it is not convincing and the evidence against it is very strong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light

[andronen]

WTF?

what "breakthrough?"

All this guy has is an idea and a pocket full of dreams. Welcome to the Real World, where math and science are dictated by numbers. NUMBERS people, where is this man's data? where is the log of his experiment proving his theory? it's nowhere because all he did was ask "um...what if light wasn't constant?"
"What if the sky were green? what if water was dry?"

he's a hack. besides, Einsteins theories have been recently proven to be for the most part correct.

if light wasn't a constant speed, NONE of the current general or special relativity theories would work.

the fact you're reading my hate-speech means that quantum theory (the science behind data transmission) is correct.

you can hate me but you all know i'm right ;)

[JWATH]

Sort of hard to take serious an article that proposes to challenge Einstein when the author doesn't even know the speed of light (~3.00 x 10^8 m/s). Once again an article written for non-scientists by a non-scientist blowing legitimate science way out of proportion.

[valcanoman]

In August 1987 a Report was prepared by Trevor Norman and Berry Setterfield for Stanford Research Institute International. The title of this report was The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time. The report should still available Lambert T. Dolphin website. You Should Read It. Credit where credit is due!

[Henk]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. See me again in 5 or 10 years with supporting experimental evidence and fellow physicists that agree with him. Einstein's work wasn't accepted overnight either, and for every Einstein there are probably 1000 crackpots. Science is open to new ideas, but big changes need some time.

[ZeMadeiran]

Imagine two vehicles on a motorway. 70mph is equivalent to the speed of light. If your vehicle is stationary and another passes at 70mph it seems to pass very quickly. Now you are traveling at 70 mph yet you are passed by another vehicle at 140mph which again seems like you are stationary.

How does this relate to VSL?

I believe that the Portuguese are truly the masters of Time and Relative dimension in space...

[chizzler]

If you are chasing a beam of light, at the speed of light, the beam of light is still escaping your chase "at the speed of light"..this is a quandry i have always had trouble with. I agree with another poster though, there is no mention of work or experiments recently conducted.

[chizzler]

If you are chasing a beam of light, at the speed of light, the beam of light is still escaping your chase "at the speed of light"..this is a quandry i have always had trouble with. I agree with another poster though, there is no mention of work or experiments recently conducted.

[chizzler]

If you are chasing a beam of light, at the speed of light, the beam of light is still escaping your chase "at the speed of light"..this is a quandry i have always had trouble with. I agree with another poster though, there is no mention of work or experiments recently conducted.

[denmac]

Old news - read Magueilo's 2003 book "Faster than the Speed of Light - The Story of a Scientific SPECULATION" Penguin Books.

An enjoyable read, but clearly in the Speculative realm. The Scientific Method reveals no proof of his concepts - conveniently masked in the chaos of the early post-Big Bang era.

[CaptainObvious]

Of course the speed of light is variable. Light is nothing more than a range of specific frequencies within the electromagnetic spectrum. Similar to sound waves or microwave radiation, light is EASILY manipulated both by gravity (e.g. light bending around a stellar body) and in a laboratory (where it has been slowed to several inches per second under proper conditions). Light does have a constant speed - but only in this part of the universe and only in the present time. To state that the speed of light is somehow ALWAYS fixed is both illogical and inconsistent with how the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum works.

[Henning]

Very interesting! All these findings about speed of light and big bang are so exciting! I hope to hear more from him.

I agree with some other posters here. 3x106 m/s is rather the speed of sound in air at surface level. Speed of light is 300000 km/s (easy to remember, just like the speed of sound) it converts to 3x10^5 km/s which is 3x10^8 m/s in SI-units as others point out here.

[Stefan D.Y.]

I would resist using words such as "heretical" and "dogma" when referring to physics. Let us not forget that once upon a time, physics itself was heretical wherever it contradicted religious dogma. In addition to this diction, I agree with the above commenters who dislike your use of "dethrone." Physicists may bicker and have petty quarrels, but all of us are searching towards the same end: to explain our universe.

As for andronen who claims to have attracted our hate. I must say that physics, and indeed all of science is founded not solely on numbers or experimentation. It would be foolhardy to say that these are the sole basis for our understanding of physics. For instance, String Theory is all numbers and no experiment, and most of our theories began with qualitative and not quantitative examinations of our environment. Is there no room in your physics for such meta-physics as hope, dream, and inspiration? Please, go to school, read some popular science; physics is more than cut-and-dry numbers. As a physicist, I know.

And for Captain Obvious, while sound waves are waves, they are pressure waves and not electromagnetic waves. Your comparison to microwaves, however, was most apt, and you are quite correct that light bends around gravitational sources (begetting the field of gravitational lensing) and has been slowed in labratories to very small fractions of its maximum speed.

As a final remark, please, when you hear of a new theory that may contradict physics as we know it or perhaps an old theory that is being given new life, don't knock it down simply because it hasn't been supported *yet*. Give it a chance. The most exciting thing that could ever happen to physics is that we find out that we're wrong. Think about how much more that would open up our window of inquiry. For instance, that's what we're hoping for with the Higg's Boson in the LHC.

Physics is a search for an explanation of the universe. Try to remember that.

[higgs]

Young really? So was Einstein prepubescent when he came up with E=mc2 at 26?