Variable Speed of Light Theories

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GREAT Question.

First off, it is clear if an object experiences acceleration, something has happened to it, we call that something “velocity”:

\LARGE v=\int a(t)dt

The magnitude of the velocity is speed, so I’ll use the term speed in the direction of motion.

Let’s take a gendanken example where there is little gravitational potential to affect the clock ticks since under GR clock ticks are affected by gravity…

We have two rocket ships near each other, and on fires its engines and the clock in the accelerating rocket ship acquires more velocity/speed according to the equation above. It accelerates to a very high speed and then cuts off it’s engines and coasts and the clocks between the two rockets go out of sync. Now the moving rocket turns around, fires its engines and decelerates to a net zero velocity relative to its original hypothetical “rest” velocity. It’s clock will have ticked slower over the course of the journey as evidenced by comparing the time on the clocks of the rocket that didn’t fire its engines and the rocket that moved relative to the start of the experiment. Agree or disagree?

Ok, but now a subtlety. And this is a testable prediction, at least in principle. Suppose both rockets were accelerated for long time such that their velocity (according to the above equation) is very high relative to the start of the experiment.

Now let on rocket decelerate to the original “rest” velocity and let the other rocket simply cut off it’s engines. The clock of the resting rocket will tick faster than the moving rocket.

Deceleration is really acceleration in the opposite direction, so hypothetically we can’t be decelerating (accelerating in the opposite direction) such that the clock in that rocket starts ticking at an infinity rate! It will reach a minimum rate at which it no longer ticks faster. When it reaches that miniumum, it is at an absolute zero velocity. That’s how we know.

Now, this is a real data dump and maybe I need to draw up diagrams for clarity, but this is the way I conceive of inferring an absolute coordinate system. This leads naturally thoughts of an aether that is based on the zero-point energy of vacuums. If there are slight positional variations in the zero-point energy density throughout space, this suggest also an absolute coordinate system. Vacuums aren’t technically “nothing”.

Anyway, thanks for the question, it motivated me to think about this more carefully.

Also, not trying to totally diss Einstenian relativity since it’s main pillar is the Lorentz transformation which can be deduced from the approximations known as classical electromagnetic theory of Maxwell. I’ll try to derive the Lorentz Transformation (sometimes called the Lorentz-Einstein) transformation as an exercise from Maxwell’s equations since it shows the origin of the idea by Lorentz.

However, I believe the neo-Lorentzian ( which is a variation from Lorentz’s original idea) may be the right kind of relativity. That is to say, I suspect there is an absolute clock, and the relativistic effects are just making clocks tick slower, not that time, in the absolute sense actually flows slower. Rather than “time dilation”, I think the term “clock slowing” is a more accurate term.

Anyway thanks for the conversation.

The clock of the moving astronaut ticks slower than the frame of the launch pad when adjusted for gravity since the higher altitude makes the clock tick faster.

Going back to the clocks. We can compare the tick rates of clocks.

89

Maybe Sal should start a creationist GPS company…

That’s a pretty succinct lay description of what GPS is about. Maybe you should look into it.

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Ron Hatch is a neo-Lorentzian who was instrumental in making GPS systems work, and his Hatch filter is part of GPS. I had to give Hatch a charitable hearing to understand what he was saying. For example, he was discussing satellite perigee, and if one chooses to mis-hear what he is saying, one could write him off. Nevertheless this is the one of the pioneers of GPS who is not an Einsteinian but a neo-Lorentzian, and he relates how his Hatch filter inspired some of his dissent from the Einsteinian version of relativity:

FWIW, I don’t think Hatch believes in the Electric Universe. He refers to Sagnac!!! BAD. Sagnac interferometers are not in intertial frames!

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I don’t understand how you infer neo-Lorentzian theories as support of YEC. Having an absolute frame of reference isn’t going produce a model wherein our universe could have arisen in 6 to 10 thousand years.

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93

Depends which flavor, but if the speed if light is tied to ZPE (Zero Point Energy) which some theorize that it is, then that admits variable speed of light. The ZPE and aether appear to be related.

The gendanken experiment above shows that moving bodies seem to have an accounting system that tells them how fast they are going in the absolute sense, that’s why the clocks rates are different and we can have a good guess as to which object has undergone acceleration.

That said, what makes thing hard to analyze is the assumption of expanding space related to the FLRW Big Bang hypothesis. If we assume superluminal velocities (as postulated by inflation, as Lawrence Krauss predicts for the end of the universe), then how do we apply Lorentz transformations (of Einsteinian relativity) to the superluminal cases like this?

But in any case, disruptive ideas based on experiments and observations that over turn dogma, in general would be good for YCC even if we can’t point to something specific right now. It’s my intuition this will be fruitful in the future, much better than the search of dark matter.

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The age of the universe will still be in the billions of years, so I don’t see how disruptions help your case.

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95

So the scientific case for YEC is a big bunch of nothing right now. Got it.

This intuition is quite rare in the scientific community, as far as I can tell.

But neither one of us can predict the future, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meanwhile, I suggest that we hew closely to the data and knowledge that we do have so far. And as you have just stated, this data and knowledge currently rule out YEC.

Best,
Chris

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96

You will only see a difference between frames. If you stay with those clocks when moving through a gravity well you will not see the tick rate change at all.

What will the passengers in the rocket see? If they had a hypothetical telescope that could observe the clock in the defined rest frame they would see that clock’s tick rate change while their clock on the rocket would not change its tick rate.

So which clock is right? They both are. Both clocks accurately measured the passage of time in each frame of reference

The astronaut would say that the clock in mission control ticked slower, and he would be right.

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Thank you for the comment as it forced me to give a more succinct characterization.

There is a maximum clock rate, when that is achieved the frame is at velocity zero in the absolute sense, and hence this infers an absolute or privileged reference frame.

This integral alone, suggests there should exist in principle an absolute zero velocity/speed:

\LARGE v = \int a(t)dt

v = 0 can be inferred when the clock rate reaches a maximum. The fact that our super-colider/particle accelerators have slower tick rates in particles with relativistic speeds relative the the sidereal day tick rates. The spinning Earth is kind of a clock. The super collider/particle accelerators sit on the Earth clock, and the particles that are accelerated to near the speed of light have slower ticks. The implication is if we decelerate the particles (as in accelerate in the opposite direction of travel), the clock rates increase. But there will be a point if we keep accelerating in the opposite direction, the clock rate will then start going slow again as it starts to reach speed near the speed of light, but in the opposite direction-- this implies an absolute zero velocity in principle.

Anyway, in a few days, I plan to write something on the Lorentz transformation that was incorporated into Einstein’s SR, but which can have an alternate interpretation in Lorentzian or neo-Lorentzian SR.

The Lorentz transformation is probably more fundamental than Einstein’s SR and can shown to be derivable from Maxwell’s equations if we assume speed of light is invariant in all frames. I finally think I found a powerpoint slide on the net that shows the derivation I did for a homework assignment 12 years ago that involved a D’Alamberitan, but have since forgotten. It’s very beautiful, and it has relevance to the present question whether there in principle exists a condition where:

v = 0

But I to clear some cobb webs out since I’ve forgotten so much!

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The clock rate is the same within all frames. The only scenario I can think of where you could see a maximal difference between frames is at the event horizon of a black hole. The clock right at the event horizon would be ticking at the standard rate according to an observer at the event horizon. Clocks well outside the black hole’s gravity well would appear to be running at near infinite speeds. The observer outside the gravity well would observe the clock at the event horizon to be moving at almost 1/infinity, or nearly stopped. Both observations would be correct. There is nothing in physics saying that one observer is more right than another.

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This appears to be an assumption that not many physicists would accept.

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Haven’t considered this. So you are seeking a net zero velocity. Perhaps if God ran these simultaneously, that net just might be achieved. Would the universe then be suddenly full of light? Seems so intuitively. And this would not be a problem given

image

…wherein a(t), the universe scale factor, can super inflate simply based on coordinate expansion. Are you going to make your ideas (and some math) public soon?

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Hi, I plan to discuss here at DPC (Discourse Peaceful Science). I found experimental evidence in the literature AND I now realizing I’m not alone.

Some historical facts:

Larmor and Lorentz published on time dilation BEFORE Einstein. This is evidenced by the fact the key transformations in Einstein’s Special Relativity are called LORENTZ transformations, not Einstein transformations, or at best Lorentz-Einstein transformations.

Larmor argued that despite time dilation, there had to be an absolute clock. The experimental evidence accords with the existence of an absolute zero velocity.

I’m presently having to clear my schedule to do a write-up of some of my ideas along a derivation of the Lorentz transformation from classical electromagnetic theory on the assumption of the constancy of the speed of light in all reference frames – that would be the classical Lorentz relativity.

The neo-Lorenztian relativity apparently allows a little flexibility, BUT if the speed of light is tied to the properties of space, and the properties of space can vary, particularly the zeropoint energy, the the speed of light can be variable. That is to say, the zeropoint energy is not necessarily isotropically the same for all time and all locations.

The absolute zero velocity also accords with the idea of the speed of light being constrained by zero point energy and the clock rates affected by the velocity of objects travelling through the zero point energy. Also, there is a maximum clock rate beyond which the clocks can’t tick faster!

There are also contradictions that appear in timing of Supernova light curves supposedly due to Lorentz time dilations which I’ll cover also.

God bless.

102

I would certainly be interested in a presentation of Larmor’s argument and supporting evidence.

Admittedly, physics is not my field. However, I don’t see how you can determine which frame is the frame without any movement. For any frame you give us I can find a frame that is moving with respect to that frame. You act as if experiments done on Earth indicate some sort of absolute frame, but the Earth, solar system, and Milky Way galaxy are all moving relative to other frames. Gravity extends out infinitely, so there is no place in our Universe that is not affected by the acceleration of gravity.

So how do you determine the “zero” frame where the speed of light is absolute compared to other frames?

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103

Sorry for the late reply, but part of answer your question in a respectable manner entailed me having to review my own understanding of the matter from first principles. The following derivation was my reconstruction of a homework assignment in my first day of class in grad school 12 years ago that relates Special Relativity with the even the more elementary theory of electro magnetism.

A calculus teach pointed out a few typo-mistakes in my derivation, but otherwise liked it as a potential pedagogical tool:

Reviewing Special Relativity and Lorentz Trasformations, Relevance to Alternate Cosmologies - #25 by stcordova

You act as if experiments done on Earth indicate some sort of absolute frame

We’re probably close to the absolute zero velocity, and that claim is experimentally testable.

However, I don’t see how you can determine which frame is the frame without any movement.

Correct!!! We need movement to find out if our absolute speed relative to space is close to zero. It centers around this formula of Special Relativity (by Lorentz):

\large t' = \gamma \Delta t

where
\LARGE \gamma = \frac {1}{\sqrt {1 - \frac{v^2}{c^2} }}

the present point of contention is the meaning of “V” in the above Lorentz factor \gamma

The way I interpret the meaning of V is not the same as how others here might interpret V.

I want to diagram the experiment that will show that V is best interpreted in relation to the absolute zero V_{ref} = 0 other wise this leads to absurdities.

Absolute zero V_{ref} implies velocity relative to vacuum space which is really “something”, not nothing, and this something has properties like \mu_0 and \epsilon_0, and I speculate it may be possible that even these “constants” may not be constant after all.

The speed of light depends on these “constants”, but most, if not all variable speed of light theories would entail variability of these “constants” which may be argued are even more fundamental than light itself.

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As I said, I agree with that statement.

Let’s say we have to space craft with a relative velocity of 86.66% the speed of light.

The Lorentz factor \gamma using the formula:

\LARGE \gamma = \frac {1}{\sqrt {1- \frac{V^2}{c^2}}} = 2

for that relative speed of light. If one space-craft’s clock is ticking half as fast as another spacecraft’s clock, then the spacecraft with the slower clock is the one moving faster in the absolute sense – because it had a net positive acceleration over time.

Symbolically using the classical approximation:

classical_velocity

And saying there is one spaceship at V = 0.

There are thought experiments involving two moving space stations with 2 spacecraft launching from these space stations that will show the necessity of the existence of V_{ref} = 0 to give sensibility to the Lorentz factor.

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How do you determine if you have zero velocity compared to the vacuum of space?

From what I understand, this would mean that the speed of light would have been higher or lower in all frames of reference, and by the same amount. The speed of light would still be the same in all inertial frames, its just that the speed would be different from what we measure now.

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106

Using clock tick rates of clocks accelerated to high speeds in different directions somewhat like the Hafele Keating experiment with cesium clocks flown on airplanes, but done with space craft.

Ideally the experiment happens far from gravitational influence since gravity creates General Relativity effects on top of Special Relativity effects and nullifies simple Lorentz transformations.

In lieu of that, consider two space stations with 2 spacecraft in each station.

[I know the following is confusing, so I’m trying to create an animation to clarify]

Accelerate one station (call it Rabbit) to 86.66% the speed of light relative to the unaccelerated space station (call it Turtle). Pretty much every one agrees that the Space station Rabbit’s clock will tick twice as slow than Space station Turtle’s clock.

Now let rabbit launch it’s two space craft in opposite directions with one spacecraft flying toward Turtle, and let each space craft be accelerated the same amount but in opposite directions such that one of the spacecraft launced by the Rabbit Station (call the space craft Rabbit-toward-Turtle) becomes stationary relative to the Turtle space station. What happens to the clock on the Rabbit-toward-Turtle spacecraft? Does it tick at the same rate as the Turtle Space station, or does it slow down even more than the Rabbit space station. I say the clock on Rabbit-toward-Turtle has the same tick rate as the Turtle Space Station. So what happens to the space craft acclerating in the same direction as the Rabbit space station but travelling at even higher velocities? It’s clock slows down even more! This thought experiment shows that there are situations where shooting spacecraft in opposite directions do NOT necessitate clocks on the space craft both slowing down to the same rate – in fact it’s possible one clock speeds up and the other slows down (as illustrated by the space craft launched from Rabbit station). Hence this assymetry suggests there must be a Vref = 0 in principle.

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Ok. You start with two spacecraft that aren’t moving with respect to one another. However, how do you determine if both spacecraft are stationary with respect to the vacuum of space? Also, gravitational fields extend out infinitely, so there are gravitational forces everywhere in the vacuum of space.

We could also say that the Turtle clock ticked twice as fast while the Rabbit clock ran at the normal pace. In fact, observers in both frames of reference would observe clocks that ran at the normal rate. If they had a telescope powerful enough to observe the clock on the other spacecraft, the people on Rabbit would observe the clock on the Turtle ship changing speeds while the clock on the Rabbit spacecraft operated at the normal rate. An observer on the fast moving rocket would measure all the same constants and passing of time as someone on the Turtle space station, except for the observation of acceleration. It seems that you are arbitrarily choosing which clock is the standard clock.

108

Okay, this requires a huge facepalm emoticon. Sorry Sal, this experiment in no way, whatsoever, shows that there is an absolute reference frame. You are confusing yourself.

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