Incorrect assumptions about the speed of light

I keep reading posts on the newsgroup about the speed of light being absolute
and maximal.
I believe it is worth pointing out two current opposing opinons

1. the speed of light is not constant and is changing along with the universe
and space, time, gravity. A provocative idea currently quite hotlly contested
but one which does explain the unevenness of space.

2. particles exist which have been measured at moving faster then the speed of
light however they cannot slow down to slower than the speed of light.
therefore a more correct statement is "an object moving faster than the speed
of light can never decelerate to slower than the speed of light - and an object
moving slower than the speed of light cannot accelerate to faster that the
speed of light"

Both of the published opinons are in keeping with the general theory of
relativity.

clear skies

You know, what bugs me is; if you are driving at the speed of light, and turn
on your headlights, well...
rat
~( );

email: remove 'et' from .com(et) in above email address

In article , t
(Ratboy99) writes:

You know, what bugs me is; if you are driving at the speed of light, and turn
on your headlights, well...
rat
~( );

Yeah, but you get to blue shift the red lights to green.


Jim
"A Bad Night With A Telescope
Beats a Good Night Doing Anything Else"

"Skylook123" wrote in message
...
In article ,
t
(Ratboy99) writes:

You know, what bugs me is; if you are driving at the speed of light, and
turn
on your headlights, well...
rat
~( );

Yeah, but you get to blue shift the red lights to green.

But I've got manual shifting. Did you ever try to work a clutch at that
speed?

bad groan

Chuck Taylor
Do you observe the moon?
Try the Lunar Observing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-observing/

(Skylook123) wrote in message ...
In article , t
(Ratboy99) writes:

You know, what bugs me is; if you are driving at the speed of light, and turn
on your headlights, well...
rat
~( );

Yeah, but you get to blue shift the red lights to green.

Red means stop.
Green means go.
Yellow means speed up until the red shifts to green. :-)


Clear skies!

--
------------------- Richard Callwood III --------------------
~ U.S. Virgin Islands ~ USDA zone 11 ~ 18.3N, 64.9W ~
~ eastern Massachusetts ~ USDA zone 6 (1992-95) ~
--------------- http://cac.uvi.edu/staff/rc3/ ---------------

According to Ratboy99 :
You know, what bugs me is; if you are driving at the speed of light,
and turn on your headlights, well...

This still works, assuming you're driving _nearly_ the speed of light. If you
went the speed of light, your mass is infinite and all that jazz, but just
under: when you go that fast, your perception of time is much slower than when
"still" in your frame of reference.

When the light comes from your headlights, it may seem to go nearly the same
speed as you to an outside observer, which would make you think that it seems
to barely move to you. However, it will still go "the speed of light" to you
because your perception of time is so much slower; it can move farther between
a length of time in your perception.

--
eth'nT
http://www.hydrous.net
aim: courtarro

I was afraid it would be something like that.

When the light comes from your headlights, it may seem to go nearly the same
speed as you to an outside observer, which would make you think that it seems
to barely move to you. However, it will still go "the speed of light" to you
because your perception of time is so much slower; it can move farther
between
a length of time in your perception.

--
eth'nT







rat
~( );

email: remove 'et' from .com(et) in above email address

Arobinson319:

I keep reading posts on the newsgroup about the speed of light being absolute
and maximal.

Well, it certainly isn't absolute; photons have been slowed down to
speeds of a few meters per second, perhaps less, in experiments
conducted in the past several years.

I believe it is worth pointing out two current opposing opinons

1. the speed of light is not constant and is changing along with the universe
and space, time, gravity. A provocative idea currently quite hotlly contested
but one which does explain the unevenness of space.

I regret that membership in the American Association for the
Advancement of Science is required to read this entire article from 27
August, 2003, but here is an extract:

"...Known as Lorentz invariance, that principle implies that all
particles of light , or photons, travel through empty space at the same
speed regardless of how much energy they pack. In recent years,
however, various quantum gravity theories have suggested that because
of the underlying frothiness of spacetime, Lorentz invariance might not
hold, in which case light of different wavelengths would travel at
slightly different rates. Researchers might be able to measure the tiny
speed differences by studying light from enormous extragalactic
explosions known as gamma ray bursts--or so theorists predicted in
1998.

"But the new studies put the kibosh on that tantalizing idea. Floyd
Stecker, a theoretical astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space F light
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues studied gamma rays from
the hearts of the galaxies Markarian 421 and Markarian 501, some 450
million light -years from Earth. En route the rays pass through a haze
of infrared photons that fill intergalactic space. If Lorentz
invariance were violated, the gamma rays would zip right through the
haze. According to special relativity, however, the highest energy
gamma rays should collide with the infrared photons to make
electron-antielectron pairs. This process should soak up gamma rays
above a well-defined cutoff energy--just what the researchers observed,
Stecker reports in a paper to be published in the journal Astroparticle
Physics .

"Gamma rays from the Crab Nebula also bear out Einstein's theory,
gravitation theorist Ted Jacobson and colleagues at the University of
Maryland, College Park, report in the 28 August issue of Nature . The
rays come from extremely energetic electrons spiraling in the magnetic
fields inside the gargantuan cloud of gas. If Lorentz invariance were
violated, the electrons would slam up against a virtual speed limit
slower than the speed of light . From the energy of the gamma rays,
however, Jacobson and colleagues deduced that the electrons were
traveling within a 10-billion-billionth of the speed of light --even
stronger evidence that Einstein was right."

2. particles exist which have been measured at moving faster then the speed of
light however they cannot slow down to slower than the speed of light.
therefore a more correct statement is "an object moving faster than the speed
of light can never decelerate to slower than the speed of light - and an
object moving slower than the speed of light cannot accelerate to faster that the
speed of light"

It has been my understanding that some particle -- especially in the
jets emitted from certain QSO's -- may give the appearance of moving
and superluminal speeds, but that they do not. This oversimplification
(my fault, entirely) will no doubt be explained by a more knowledgable
reader.

Both of the published opinons are in keeping with the general theory of
relativity.

*****

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

Well, it certainly isn't absolute; photons have been slowed down to
speeds of a few meters per second, perhaps less, in experiments
conducted in the past several years.

That's group velocity, not phase velocity.

Davoud wrote in article ...
Arobinson319:

I keep reading posts on the newsgroup about the speed of light being absolute
and maximal.

Well, it certainly isn't absolute; photons have been slowed down to
speeds of a few meters per second, perhaps less, in experiments
conducted in the past several years.

snip

At this point I just refer people to Tung http://astro.isi.edu/
As in – Albert Einstein is now just Einstein
Isaac Newton is now just Newton
Brian Tung should be just Tung
Keeping along the same track –
Rob Mollise should be just Uncle
And I should be That Waffling Pratt from over the Pond
;-)

--
Simon
51:31N 0:38W
http://www.cookie-pool.co.uk/Pool1.htm
http://www.maidenhead.astronomical.s...care4free.net/
http://www.popastro.com/home.htm