Given that the universe is supposed to have expanded faster than c under presesnt cosmological studies I wouldn`t be too surprised if it turns out that it didn`t exceed c afterall....
Seems like someone already had that idea...
from
POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN THE CHANGING FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT AND THE ACCELERATING UNIVERSE VIA SCALAR-TENSOR THEORY | International Journal of Modern Physics D:
quote:
POSSIBLE LINK BETWEEN THE CHANGING FINE-STRUCTURE CONSTANT AND THE ACCELERATING UNIVERSE VIA SCALAR-TENSOR THEORY
YASUNORI FUJII
Nihon Fukushi, Handa, Aichi, 475-0012 Japan
In 1976, Shlyakhter showed that the Sm data from Oklo results in the upper bound on the time-variability of the fine-structure constant: |[(a)\dot]/a|10-17 y-1, which has ever been the most stringent bound. Since the details have never been published, however, we recently re-analyzed the latest data according to Shlyakhter's recipe. We nearly re-confirmed his results. To be more precise, however, the Sm data gives either an upper-bound or an evidence for a changing a: [(a)\dot]/ a = -(0.44 0.04) 10-16 y-1. A remark is made to a similar re-analysis due to Damour and Dyson. We also compare our result with a recent "evidence" due to Webb et al, obtained from distant QSO's. We point out a possible connection between this time-dependence and the behavior of a scalar field supposed to be responsible for the acceleration of the universe, also revealed recently.
Also AFAIR the fine structure constant does change as you approach high energies i.e the immediate post big bang universe...
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