Starlight

What exactly do you mean by changing the alpha, the energy? I am speaking of relative velocity. The speed of light has been slowed considerably in laboratory experiments and its different in a vacuum than in say earths atmosphere.Additionally were doing a 'thought experiment', and so generally speaking the universe expanded faster than light with the photons (particles or waves?) inside, so I will stand by my statement as it was written in layman terms and as a thought experiment. But thanks for your reply. I do have a off topic question if your a qualified astronomer cosmologist etc. Does the big bang math or empirical experiments say that this is the only universe spawned, or is it possible that meta verses to sprang from the BB?: {> Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.

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I am speaking of relative velocity. The speed of light has been slowed considerably in laboratory experiments and its different in a vacuum than in say earths atmosphere.

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Actually you claimed that c - which is the speed of light in a vacuum - wasn't constant. Please try and get your terminology right.

No - it's complex and I just put that in for any other scientists who happen to read it. It doesn't matter No, it hasn't, although I admit it is often reported in this way. The speed of light is always the same. When it appears slow in air, water, glass, etc, all that is happening is that photons are being abosrbed and re-emitted by the constituents of the medium through which the light is passing. This absorption and re-emission takes time, and makes it appear that light is slowed. But the photons travel from emission event to absorption event at the normal speed of light. In 'delayed' light experiments, the same thing is happening, with just an extended period between absorption and re-emission.In 'faster-than-light' experiments, it is the shape of a light pulse that appears to move faster than light, not the individual photons. They all still travel at the speed of light. Thought experiments and laymans' terms are fine but they are not an excuse to just make up shit... Many of us believe, and certain ideas/theories strongly suggest, that there are not only multiple 'universes' but multiple types of multiple universes.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

Hi Rev, As cavediver said, it's complicated. However here's a link that explains what alpha is and what *affects* it has on the speed of light. Alpha constant

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Fine structure constant alpha is in fact a dimensionless combination of three other fundamental constants: alpha = e/hc (e - electron charge, h - Planck constant, c - speed of light). A recent publication in Nature suggests that this variation of alpha should be interpreted in terms of a changing speed of light. The claim that speed of light might be changing received huge publicity in mass media. However, it is well-known in scientific circles dealing with the problem of variation of the fundamental constants that only dimensionless constants (like alpha) should be considered in this context. Speed of light, in contrast, is a dimensionful constant. Recent works by Duff and Flambaum explains why [they] are wrong and cannot lead to any conclusion about a changing speed of light. However, changing speed of light is meaningless just from consideration of the problem of measurements, regardless of how people try to get around it.

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I don't fully grasp it that well myself either, so any questions you have should be directed to cavediver, or someone else with more knowledge of this than I do.But I hope it helped.- Oni

I may of used c but you know exactly what I meant, so deal with it please! You know this kind of BS gets old fast. In some experiments light has been slowed.Nevertheless, try to get into the spirit of debate instead of trying to muck things up. If I were writing a scientific paper I would have been more precise, it wasn’t I was responding to a member and considering a thought experiment. Nevertheless,thanks for your reply even if it is a bit hostile.; {>* In a Bose-Einstein condensate, the speed of light has been made to go as slow as 17 meters/second. Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.

Why not? That's precisely what Gedanken experiment are for especially if being used to visualize an experiment or work through one! That was what I suggested. I wasn't making it up just for fun. Well I would disagree I am correct for all practical purposes. That's kind of like saying time dilation isn't real time travel. As I said in the reply above "In a Bose-Einstein condensate, the speed of light has been made to go as slow as 17 meters/second". When it takes a second for light to go 17 meters call it what you will result is the same, so I stand by my statement, and thanks for your reply...; }> Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.

Hmmm....well....never mind...; {>ps no one (qualified to answer)* has an answer about the standard big bang model and many universes?* The reason I am asking for a PhD or someone qualified to answer the question is that I am in a bit of a argument with a PhD and the answer to big bang question would either win it for me or crush me out of existence like stepping across the event horizon of a non rotating black hole.... Edited by RevCrossHugger, : No reason given.

Thanks for your reply onifre.; {>

The speed of light through different media is different. The speed of light through air is different from the speed of light through glass which is different from the speed of light through water. This is why it looks like your straw is broken in half. The constant c refers purely to the speed of light through a vacuum, so despite us being able to adjust the medium through which light is moving such that we get different speeds has no bearing on c, so your argument is still wrong. The constant c is actually a constant, especially as it pertains to starlight. Many people on here try to make sure people understand what they're talking about. Your comment made us wonder if you understood what c is, so they, quite helpfully, let you know where you're wrong. People correct misinformation regardless of whether it comes from a theologically inclined person, from an athiest, or even from a Phd. Someone pointed out where you were wrong, if you think that's BS, maybe you need to stop and consider why you're here. This is a debate forum, so no matter what you say, there is probably going to be someone who disagrees with you.

Hi Rev, The speed of light or (c) is constant. It does not change in a vacuum.What you are talking about, like with the Bose-Einstein theory - (which you got incorrect. Einstein and Bose did not slow down the speed of light, they proposed the thoery.) - is a medium set up to slow it down. As with air, or our atmosphere. The one propose by the Einstein-Bose condensate is a Super-atomic cloud/medium.Here's an article from Harvard on the experiment itself. Physicist slow down spped of light

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Light, which normally travels the 240,000 miles from the Moon to Earth in less than two seconds, has been slowed to the speed of a minivan in rush-hour traffic -- 38 miles an hour.

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An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together at super-low temperatures and super-high vacuum, they lose their identity as individual particles and act like a single super- atom with characteristics similar to a laser.

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Such an exotic medium can be engineered to slow a light beam 20 million-fold from 186,282 miles a second to a pokey 38 miles an hour.

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This so-called Bose-Einstein condensate was not actually made until 1995, because the right technological pot to cook it up in did not exist. Vacuums hundreds of trillions of times lower than the pressure of air at Earth's surface, and temperatures almost a billion times colder that that in interstellar space, are needed to produce the condensate. Temperatures must be lowered to within a few billionths of a degree of absolute zero (minus 459.7 degrees F), where atoms have the least possible energy and all but cease to move around.

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Hau and her group started with a beam of sodium atoms injected into a vacuum chamber and moving at speeds of more than a thousand miles an hour. These hot atoms have an orange glow, like sodium highway and street lights.

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Laser beams moving at the normal speed of light collide with the atoms. As the atoms absorb particles of light (photons), they slow down. The laser light also orders their random movement so they move in only one direction.

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Hope this helped,- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.Edited by onifre, : No reason given.

The Big Bang model, the current model for the expansion of the universe, is only for our universe.Multi-verse hypothesis/theories are not covered in the Big Bang mdel.- Oni

The instantaneous velocity of a photon is either c or zero. When the percentage of time of travel for the photon being zero is 99.99999433% during an interval the mean velocity is 17 m/s.it's not at all the same. Do you think you'd get off on a speeding ticket for doing 120 mph by telling the judge that you'd only been driving for 32 minutes and sat waiting for the ticket for 28 minutes for an average speed of 65 mph?Edited by lyx2no, : Opps! Hit the wrong button again. No edit.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

Rest assured, I have taught enough undergrads, grads, and PhDs big bang comsology, relativity, string theory, etc. I think I'm just about qualified for you So quit with your shit - you really have no clue about any of this, evidenced by your idiocy regarding the speed of light. If you are not interested in learning, then everyone here will just give you the respect you deserve...

A few questions. In my post #57 I say that a photon has a velocity of either c or zero.

• Is this technically true? I mean, when a photon is absorbed, does it still exist, or is it a whole new photon that is emitted?
• What distinguishing features do photons have: energy, polarization (2 types) anything else?
• When an electron absorbs a photon of energy x and t psec later emits a photo at energy (x-y) and a second photon at energy y, are these 2 separate photons or the first photon now in two parts?
• Or are there, like, zillions of virtual protons hanging around inside of an electron waiting for assignment? This last being an entirely made up question from the fuzzy stuff in one of my brains darker corners.

Thank you.Edited by lyx2no, : Last question.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

That popping noise you heard was my head exploding.