Newsfalsh:

The Swiss Academy of Sciences reportedly, as reported by an unnamed source who is close to the source, has given permission to the Cern scientists to uncalibrate an instrument, in a famously desparate attempt to save all future physics research from financial doom.

You see, to build a glass hoola-hoop for a billion Euros, and not come up with anything would really damage the public's support and good will toward cutting-edge scientific research.

The person in the Academy who came up with this save is rumoured to be recommended for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. She had earned a Ph.D. in Criminology, Marketing and Conspiracy Theories, by combining the three disciplines in a paper which was subsequently used in creating the high-speed particles in publications.

You know, they have been trying for a "Unified Field Theory" for about 100 years, and science has become more about getting funding than it is about actually doing science.
I'm not a scientist, just a casual observer, but it seems to me that someone somewhere maybe in Quantum Mechanics, maybe in Relativity, forgot to carry the 2 and threw the whole thing off just enough that you wouldn't see it but you still wouldn't get the answers you are looking for.
The speed of light is not a constant, it has been slowed to 35 MPH and then stopped in a laboratory. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1124540.stm
Early methods of measuring the speed of light showed a progressive slowing down, until the 60s when the atomic clock became the new standard, the funny thing about the atomic clock is that it uses light to measure the speed of light, so now you have a rubber ruler.
What would this do for Relativity?

Not quite!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock


Besides,the Energy-Equation works!

Is Einsteins theory of relativity in jeopardy?

That depends. Everything is relative.

the atomic clock is based on the decay of an atom, has nothing to do with the speed of light...

Atomic clocks measure only the relative 'local' space-time.

By using two clocks. One stationary 'relative' to you and one 'accelerated' to relative light or as close as possible...

Each clock will measure the rate of decay based upon its time scale (dialation).

the measurements will not be the 'same' relative to your acceleration rate time scale. (one will be 'right' one will be 'slow').

It has nothing to do with the speed of light but it has everything to do with the production of light in the microwave frequency as the electrons make a quantum leap from one energy state to another. This process is not decay. However, there is more than one type of atomic clock.

Well I take umbrage here. I both agree, and disagree with the first statement.

Science is not about getting funding. It is about doing science and uncovering and digger deeper into the knowledge of nature.

Human nature is such that of course there will always be individuals who either make bad decisions, or allow flights of fantasy to effect there choices, or perhaps even some unscrupulous enough to bilk the NSF and other such funding agencies, however from being involved with many of the technological advances from the past century of physics I can tell you it must indeed be the exception and not the rule.

The proof is in the so called pudding. I work in Radiology Software, PACS or Picture achieving and communications systems. The advances in imaging technology have been a direct result of the science done right. The physics involved at times is as old as 100 years, but many times as new as the last 20. The advances of MRI, CT, PET, and Xray technologies has been vast, and all due to real science being done right. Particle physics has moved forward the science at an astounding rate, and this cannot be argued against.

Its my opinion that string theory is a failed endeavor and was never really physics to begin with, and it falls into the category of wishful thinking and a zealous, almost religious search for TOE, that however cannot and should not cloud peoples judgment from the empirical science of particle physics.

Sorry guys, it's been a while since I read about the atomic clock, I don't know why I thought it had anything to with measuring the speed of light. It is based on the decay wavelength of a Cesium 133 atom, It's a glorified quartz clock, just much more accurate.
But my original premise still stands, if light can be attracted by the gravity from a black hole, then light is not a constant.
If light can be stopped and stored:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/us/scientists-bring-light-to-full-stop-hold-it-then-send-it-on-its-way.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/13/science/sci-light13
...then speed light up:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/jul/20/technology2
...then the speed of light is not a constant.
So much for accurately dating the age of the universe with lightyears.

I have read articles, though I can't find them now, that light travels much faster just after the big bang. But all I can find at the moment is that that universe itself expanded faster than the speed of light

I didn't say that quantum mechanics or relativity didn't work, just that they might have been thrown off just enough that they are un-unifiable, possibly because of scientists' preoccupation with the speed of light being constant.

I disagree.

Light is a constant.

Space and time is warped, so from our perception of it, it may not seem to be a constant.

But it is a constant.

However there is no such thing as "speed of light" except that which is relative to a universe full of areas of warped time and space.

i still want someone to explain how time is warped.... can you warp an inch, or a gallon?

Well that is actually a very good question and one that I have asked a lot.

Here is my ideas about that.

Time as a separate entity does not actually exist so you can't really say that it is warped, because it is a relative measurement.

Time and space are one thing, you cannot separate them.

Everything is actually energy in different forms. Matter is a form of condensed energy. Space is sort of like a fabric (of energy) and matter, when it condenses, distorts the fabric of space because it sucks it in. When the fabric of space is distorted, matter, light and energy move differently relative to each other.

So light appears to bend because space is bent.

yes, i agree with that explanation, but i also see the need to do these calculations without the time reference. I'm thinking that is a problem with red shift calculations, because gravity effects light. if it can bend light, as black holes do, then it can slow it down or speed it up also....IMO

You ask first about 'time' and then ask about measurements of distance and volume. This may be a tangent, but I just want to point out that conversations about the nature of time on these boards often seem to confuse time itself with our measurement of it. We both know that "distance" is not "miles", that miles are a measurement of distance, and "hours" are not "time". My apologies if that is completely irrelevant to your point.

If by 'warp' you mean "change" then yes, you can change distance, mass, and time by approaching relativistic speeds. Its heady stuff and off the top of my head I don't remember whether you would consider that the metric itself is changing.

There is a universal contant. We often call it c. Its around 3x10^8 m/s.

It is the speed of light in a vacuum.

We believe that: in a vacuum, light always travels at c. In a vacuum, if light ever appears to travel at something other than c, we find that something odd is going on, and its not the speed of light that is changing, but time and space that is changing.

Your links and comments reflect well known facts, some of which are irrelevant to these claims.

Remember: in a vaccum.



Your logic escapes me. Surely you aren't so arrogant as to think that professional scientists are so stupid they don't know that the actual speed of actual light in varying circumstances can vary.





You are straw-manning the claim.

to me, time is nothing but a unit of measurement..nothing else...thats why it can't be bent, warped, or slowed down... just our perception of it can be...

What do you mean "to me" ? Are you saying that don't care about reality? That you've just decided what time is, and all that time can be - and you've decided that time can be nothing else, so you reject all lines of reasoning based on alternative concepts of time?

Do you feel the same way about distance? That distance does not exist, though maybe miles do?

The fact of the matter is we can take a dozen atomic clocks in the same lab. Sit them side by side and confirm they all work identically. Send 6 to the top of a mountain, and send 6 down to sea level. Bring all twelve back to the lab, and confirm that they once again are all working the same way.

The two sets will have measured different amounts of time having passed, and all of the clocks from the same set will measure that difference in exactly the same way.

I suppose in your view, 'time' is not effected by the earth's gravity, since 'time' does not exist... yet somehow.... what? The unit of measurement was changed? The 'amount of time' that we measured was changed - but thats only a measurement? Not actual time?

Gravity doesn't slow light or speed it up, it stretches space/time. If light travels through stretched space/time or expanded space/time due to expansion, it has a different road to travel. It's speed doesn't change.

time and distance are the same thing, no matter what you "think" reality is... how long or how far, what is the difference? both are a perception, as how we see it. the "amount" of time is based on what we are taught on what time is. someone on another planet would measure these differently. your thinking they are a set value when they are not. i think your thinking inside that box that scientists tend to stay in, a comfortbility zone maybe. but but your who you are, and thinking the way you do doesn't mean you are wrong, just no way to prove anything that you are saying, like mine opinion also...

You seem, maybe, to keep mistaking the measurement with the thing being measured.

Its true that someone from another planet would use different units to measure time - but if they are measuring the same events in the same frames, they would measure the same actual time. Scientist are well aware of the difference between a quantity+unit, and the reality that the quantity+unit represent.



The thing that I said about atomic clocks at different heights can be proven, without much difficultly.