Post by thread:[EE]: ON THE CONSTANCY OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT

> >Note that the site compiler and some, but not very probably not all, of the > >papers' authors have strong Christian beliefs and may well be considered to ... > These are all Creation Science (sic) / Religious nutter websites and I > venture to suggest they have no place being proposed as 'scientific > studies' on this List. Haven't looked at them all. Some obviously are what you expect them to be. Very surprised to hear that ALL are. Their source aside; do you have problems with their methodology or analysis of the available data? However, I have some good "hard Science", sure-not-to-offend-one's-religious-sensibility references which I'll write up and post shortly. These deal with the quasar / quantised light observations that I mentioned in passing. IF these numerous but delicate and well studied and analysed observations turn out to be for real then expect the WHOLE of Physics as we know it to have its foundations removed in due course (not to mention the infrastructure). Jury may be in by year's end I hear. > And what does the speed of light have to do with > PICs in any case? Quite a lot, although not of immensely practical application. Note that the tag was (and is) [EE]: which seemed to be appropriate. I thought about using [OT]: but [EE]: seemed better. IF the speed of light is varying or has been varying it has major EE implications, although none that will immediately change how we think of PICS (however that may be).. Note that the yet to be referenced quasar measurements deal with the fine structure "constant" Alpha. Alpha = 2 x Pi x e^2 /c / h e = electron charge c = (prepare for jump to) light speed h = Planck's constant (he hopes)(or would were he alive) Pi = you know 2 = just some guy, you know. Which one (if not several) of these "constants" do you think is varying if anything is ? Me - I plump for Pi, with 2 as a close second guess :-) Would arguably cause less hair tearing in the scientific community than e, c or h :-) RM -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads

THE SKY IS (PROBABLY) FALLING Chicken Little > These are all Creation Science (sic) / Religious nutter websites So - **** CERTIFIED CREATION SCIENCE FREE **** **** REFERENCES FOLLOW **** (Religious beliefs of individual Scientists involved (are unknown and not inquired after :-) All good solid science :-) NB: This link makes interesting reading if you don't want to wade through all the following stuff. www.astro.psu.edu/users/cwc/fsc/index.html#brief (at Penn State's Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics) _______________ Core info: 1 "An international team of astronomers has found evidence that one of the fundamental constants that describes the physical world is not constant at all, but has been increasing over the billions of years since the Big Bang". Nature 2 IF found to be true, this discovery will completely destroy all current cosmological models, stand particle physics on its head and force the re-examination of much of our understanding of atomic structure (and life, the universe and everything). The implications for many fields of science are vast. The effect on day to day life should be truly minimal :-) Me ____________________________ Essentially, the fine structure "constant" Alpha gives signs of being non-constant . As Alpha is the ratio of several fundamental constants it implies that one or more of these has also been changing. Alpha is implicated in approximately 102% of our understanding of cosmology. Alpha = 2 x Pi x e^2 / (h x c) e = electron charge h = Planck's constant c = speed of light Pi = now THAT would be an interesting change 2 = And THAT even more so :-) __________________ One of the many "nice" results of alpha falling even ever so slightly (1 part in 10,000) is that it would mean that the Higg's Boson does not exist. The Higg's Boson is the current Holy Grail of particle researchers searches. It is predicted to exist within a certain energy range and so far the majority of the range that it should exist in if it does exist at all has been searched by current particle accelerators to no avail. The remaining energy range will be explored by accelerators currently under construction or planning. BUT if alpha has done as alpha appears to have done then the energy range for the Higg's Boson is already below our existing upper search range and it has not been found and so (almost certainly) does not exist. This alone does nasty things to the current particle physics and cosmological models (M theory and others). Another result is that expansion of the early universe would have happened "ridiculously fast" (hence the interest of the otherwise non-here-mentioned CS people) BUT this helps explain certain energy symmetries which we observe in the "real" Universe which are currently inexplicable by any theory we have been able to dream up if the speed of light has always been the same value. It's sobering (I hope) that our apparent understanding of the universe falls apart so thoroughly if ONE of its constants is found to have changed by one part is 10,000. ___________________________________________________ ************************************* **** **** **** This is the best overall reference. **** **** **** ************************************* Some following are simpler or more complex or delve into the implications. THE QUASAR ABSORPTION LINE FINE STRUCTURE EXPERIMENT Here is a good (no, I'll say EXCELLENT) if not layman level, then relatively simply and clearly written explanation (with pretty graphs to boot). Also has a number of good references. Here's their simple overview http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/cwc/fsc/index.html#brief And their top level page is at http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/cwc/fsc.html Provenance: Based upon the Physical Review Letter entitled "Further Evidence for Cosmological Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant" J.K. Webb (1), M.T. Murphy (1), V.V. Flambaum (1), V.A. Dzuba (1), J.D. Barrow (2), C.W. Churchill (3), J.X. Prochaska (4), A.M. Wolfe (5) (1) University of New South Wales, (2) Cambridge University (3) The Pennsylvania State University, (4) The Carnegie Observatories, (5) University of California, San Deigo This work funded in part by NASA [[Can't be helped :-) ]], National Science Foundation, John Templeton Foundation _________________________________________________ Space.com article. Populist but reasonable cover. <www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/constant_changing_0108 15.html> _________________________________________________ Nature http://www.nature.com/nsu/010816/010816-8.html Note the interesting one they word things in order to avoid saying "may" or "possibly" _________________________________________________ Physics News Update The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/1999/split/pnu410-1.htm Number 410 (Story #1), January 13, 1999 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein _________________________________________________ The next 3 papers are from ARXIV.ORG http://www.arxiv.org "This archive is based upon activities supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Agreement No. 0132355 (7/01-6/04) with Cornell University." Full text copies of papers cited are available at the below urls. ___________________________________________________ The Cosmological Evolution of the Nucleon Mass and the Electroweak Coupling Constants Authors: Xavier Calmet, Harald Fritzsch Report-no: CERN-TH/2001-334, LMU 01/15 Journal-ref: Eur.Phys.J. C24 (2002) 639-642 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0112110 Starting from astrophysical indications that the fine structure constant might undergo a small cosmological time shift, we discuss the implications of such an effect from the point of view of particle physics. Grand unification implies small time shifts for the nucleon mass, the magnetic moment of the nucleon and the weak coupling constant as well. The relative change of the nucleon mass is about 40 times larger than the relative change of alpha. Laboratory measurements using very advanced methods in quantum optics might soon reveal small time shifts of the nucleon mass, the magnetic moment of the nucleon and the fine structure constant. Full-text: PostScript, PDF, or ___________________________________________________ Time-Varying alpha and Particle Physics Authors: T. Banks (Rutgers and UCSC), M. Dine (UCSC), M. R. Douglas (Rutgers and IHES) Comments: 7 pages, latex, JHEP.cls Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.Lett. 88 (2002) 131301 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0112059 We argue that models in which an observable variation of the fine structure constant is explained by motion of a cosmic scalar field, are not stable under renormalization, and require massive fine tuning that cannot be explained by any known mechanism. ___________________________________________________ Implications of Gauge Unification for Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant Authors: Paul Langacker, Gino Segre, Matthew J. Strassler Comments: 13 pages, uses JHEP.cls Report-no: UPR-0973-T Journal-ref: Phys.Lett. B528 (2002) 121-128 http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0112233 Unification of the gauge couplings would imply that time variations of the fine structure constant are accompanied by calculable and very significant time variations in the QCD scale parameter $\Lambda_{QCD}$. Since $\Lambda_{QCD}$ is the dominant factor in setting the hadron masses, estimates made by simple variations of the fine structure constant may not provide meaningful limits. There may also be related variations in Yukawa couplings and the electroweak scale. Implications for the 21 cm hyperfine transition, big bang nucleosynthesis, and the triple alpha process are discussed. We find that the first of these already provides strong constraints on the underlying theory. It is emphasised more generally that time (and space) variations of fundamental couplings and their correlations may be a significant probe of ultra-high-energy physics. ___________________________________________________ > These are all Creation Science (sic) / Religious nutter websites and I > venture to suggest they have no place being proposed as 'scientific > studies' on this List. Hopefully the above will redress that concern. Russell -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads