Was the Speed of Light Faster in the Early Universe? -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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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

[Denbert]

Big fan, first time poster. Excelent article, the only issue I have is with the speed of light expressed as "about 3×106 meters/second." 3 x 106 = 318, which is even less than the speed of sound. The speed of light in meters per second is on the order of 3.0 x 10^8.

[Derrick]

Casey - how do you "irritate off" your colleagues ;)

Dan those lucking editors!

[Michael]

Barry Setterfield, a Creationist, made the proposal back in 1981. Did João Magueijo consider the possibility light moved faster then? Setterfield has been gathering conclusive evidence and lecturing on it for decades. It's nice to know some physicists will follow evidence instead of hiding behind a cherished dogma. If light traveled faster in the past, that would mean the universe is a lot younger than thirteen-billion years. Hmmm, I find it very interesting.

[T. Murray Rumpelstiltskin]

Mike Hunt, creationist, saw the face of Jesus in his pancake. Did João Magueijo consider the importance? One wonders when scientists will see the light!

In all seriousness - here's a Wikipedia link and quote:

___________________________________
Creation science > Astrophysics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science#Astrophysics

An older creationist idea, proposed by creationist astronomer Barry Setterfield, is that the speed of light has decayed in the history of the universe. More recently, creationist physicist Russell Humphreys has proposed a theory called "white hole cosmology" which suggests that the universe expanded out of a white hole less than 10,000 years ago; the apparent age of the universe results from relativistic effects.

___________________________________

[insert joke here] - ba, boom, boom, boom, smash!

[Narendra Nath]

i for one agree whole-heartedly witht the idea of VSL. There has been a measurement done using Large scale radiotelescopes in Australia, looking at the light signals cominf from a distant galaxy 12 billion years away. It showed that the speed of light was distinctly higher than the currently accepted value. Another measurement on the ratio e/m also shows a different value for the early universe. Einstein predicted the constancy to be true only if the space was homogeneous. It may well mean that the space was inhomogenous at that time of early universe. Another way of looking at this problem comes from the generation of mass /energy through distortions in space/time respectively. The ealry universe from birth till about 1 billion years may well have been the time of turbulence in the space/time continuum, in order to evolve the universe, as per the design of intelligence of the Creator!

[claudio]

CONFIRMED the speed of light : The speed of light in meters per second is about 3.0 x 10^8.

Agreed with VSL theory.

NOTHING is constant and stationary in this very universe.
The gravity was in its early infancy some 13 Billions Y agò and we do not know much about the speed of light in thoese early days.

We do not know about the light behaviour within black holes.

It has been said that the light cannot escape the tremedous gravity force of the B.H. therefore it can be inferred that the speed of light outside the BH and in general is depending also on the gravity force.

More : everybody knows about the 'Abel Lensing' that was pictured quite some time agò and that means the light bends near large masses (e.g large stars or Galaxies Clusters (e.g.ABEL)) .

FAQ The light ' bends only ' or also its speed is influeneced by large masses (gravity) when it passes nearby ?????

Regards it is an interesting topic-article.

Rather interesting Theory that in my simple view makes a lot of common sense (Logic...inference)

[Amuro Ray]

It is a constant in human history, that our paradigms sooner or later, ended broken. But as always, only fools affirms or denied things, science doubt.

[Narendra Nath]

i agree with the comments of Amuro Roy. My own comments earlier also carried the same spirit.

[Xavier Terri Castañé]

Because Lorentz Contraction, Dr. Joao Magueijo said in FASTER THEN THE SPEED OF LIGHT that quantum mechanics and Lorentz Transformation are not compatible.
It seems to me that Dr. Joao Magueijo would like my new "Lorentz transformation". It's called 'transformaciones relacionales' and can be found on open e-prints viXra.org, Relativity and Cosmology (34, 63, 64, ...)

P.D.: "New Lorentz's transformations" are not the same that old Lorentz Transformation. We never will return to Newton absolute space.What do you think about 'teoría conectada'?