Why No One Has Measured The Speed Of Light

[xtreemchaos]

yes agreed i kept in in touch with him from my first days of me learning Astronomy in the late 60s all the way upto his passing. he was friends with a lot of people including some of the best scientist to ever live and rock stars too. sorry you didnt get the chance if you would of sent him a letter he would of wrote back for sure.

 

[Tardian]

i value everybody on this planet as my = and to think anything else would be a disservice to myself. Pat was one of the brightest sparks id ever met .

In my humble experience, the brightest people (measured IQ of 160-200) I ever worked with (a few rare exceptions aside), made the dumbest mistakes.

Hint: I worked as a peak expert of the most difficult part (in the most complex jurisdiction) of the field that Albert Einstein famously once said:

The hardest thing in the world to understand is ...​

My comment, however, did NOT mean to impune Sir Patrick Moore. I merely thought that he would not be the person who I would quote as the source.

Not knowing who uttered the phrase, I would have guessed Paul Davies, Stephen W. Hawking, Richard P. Feynman, or Douglas Adams.

 

[Shrek]

1. Euclidean space only holds over cosmically tiny distances.

The Universe is measured to be flat

 

[xtreemchaos]

The hardest thing in the world to understand is .. .income tax, Einstein. but id say knowing what not to understand because some things are best left quite.

 

[Vya Domus]

The Universe is measured to be flat

Debatable, all measurements to date have show that there is some curvature.

 

[qubit]

Debatable, all measurements to date have show that there is some curvature.

It's the opposite. Curvature around masses like the sun, planets etc, but on the biggest scales it looks flat as far as they can tell. Astronomers continue to refine their measurements to try and detect any curvature, though.

 

[Steevo]

The speed of light is the speed of electromagnetic field propagation through space time. The field appears to act like a superfluid when space time is the only medium it interacts with, which itself seems to act like a superfluid to normal matter except for the existence of gravity, and a Nobel prize and fame to be had for the mathematical relationship that works at quantum and classical levels for this interaction is the prize. It’s the new ultraviolet catastrophe so to speak.

At the end it seems everything is merely a vibration in the space time field that we experience as different physical manifestations from matter, light, gravity to life, love and death from time. Or a very complex procedurally generated simulation.

 

[bug]

I missed this before, but here goes: light speed is not measured, light speed is defined/postulated to be what it is (299,792,458 meters per second) and the rest of the physics is derived from that.

 

[Shrek]

and a Nobel prize and fame to be had for the mathematical relationship that works at quantum and classical levels for this interaction is the prize.

Freeman Dyson believed that gravity may not need quantizing

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Albert Abraham Michelson FFRS HFRSE (December 19, 1852 – May 9, 1931)

This guy not only has my birth date, 12/19, but he was a super genius in his time.

Measuring the Speed of Light with the tools available in that time period was difficult enough. If he was able to do the same 100 years later, he'd be tied up in red tape for years, pay out bribes to city officials and politicians just to get enough room to build his device without a labor union getting involved too.

So yea, SoL is not accurate enough for some folk that like to dismiss evidence just to make headlines and 15 minutes of fame on some youtube channel.

 

[Shrek]

We have now defined the speed of light in a vacuum to be a constant

One wonders what consequences this will have if it turns out to have some variance (unlikely, but still possible)

Variable speed of light - Wikipedia

 

[Vya Domus]

It's the opposite. Curvature around masses like the sun, planets etc, but on the biggest scales it looks flat as far as they can tell. Astronomers continue to refine their measurements to try and detect any curvature, though.

That's just not true, this isn't about local measurements, we're talking about stuff such as WMAP which is still measuring non zero curvature consistent with previous attempts so it can't yet be ruled out as an error.

 

[Shrek]

Most interesting, do you have any references to this?

 

[Vya Domus]

Like I said, it's data from WMAP, section 4.5.

 

[Shrek]

Much appreciated; section 4.5 seems to say Omega_k is zero within errors

 

[mtcn77]

We have now defined the speed of light in a vacuum to be a constant

One wonders what consequences this will have if it turns out to have some variance (unlikely, but still possible)

Variable speed of light - Wikipedia

I've heard the universe has different mass constants in different places. Since it is so big, being a constant might not be such a consistent unit...

 

[lexluthermiester]

Hawking radiation is emanating from black holes specifically

Hawking radiation is only a theory and not a great one. It is very unlikely to be correct.

 

[Mescalamba]

Latest theory was that universe is donut? I think, read it somewhere.

 

[Shrek]

Hawking radiation is only a theory and not a great one. It is very unlikely to be correct.

I'd say the opposite, if the black-hole is to have entropy, it must have temperature (Beckenstein)

 

[lexluthermiester]

The speed of light is the speed of electromagnetic field propagation through space time. The field appears to act like a superfluid when space time is the only medium it interacts with, which itself seems to act like a superfluid to normal matter except for the existence of gravity, and a Nobel prize and fame to be had for the mathematical relationship that works at quantum and classical levels for this interaction is the prize. It’s the new ultraviolet catastrophe so to speak.

I'd say the opposite, if the black-hole is to have entropy, it must have temperature (Beckenstein)

These points assume General & Special Relativity is correct either in part or in full. As G&SR fails to predict or explain a whole host of observations about the Universe, including the Big Bang and how a Black Hole works, it is doubtful that is it correct.

 

[Shrek]

Which part does it get wrong about black-holes? just asking, not trying to make trouble.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

These points assume General & Special Relativity is correct either in part or in full. As G&SR fails to predict or explain a whole host of observations about the Universe, including the Big Bang and how a Black Hole works, it is doubtful that is it correct.

GR predicts existence of black holes and behavior around them just fine. It doesn't predict what's going on past event horizon, except... nothing whatsoever does currently.

 

[mtcn77]

These points assume General & Special Relativity is correct either in part or in full. As G&SR fails to predict or explain a whole host of observations about the Universe, including the Big Bang and how a Black Hole works, it is doubtful that is it correct.

If it were correct, the blackhole would have a reverse impact on the rest of the universe - everything increases entropy, it would reduce it if it shrunk the universe. Nothing suggests anything of its kind imo.

 

[Shrek]

If it were correct it would have a reverse impact on the rest of the universe - everything increases entropy, it would reduce it if it shrunk the universe.

A shrinking Universe does not imply reduced entropy.

GR predicts existence of black holes and behavior around them just fine. It doesn't predict what's going on past event horizon, except... nothing whatsoever does currently.

That's where Hawking radiation comes in; one does not make it past the horizon as one Hawking radiates with the black hole.

 

[mtcn77]

A shrinking Universe des not imply reduced entropy.

No, a shrinking entropy would defy the second thermodynamic law.