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- brstilson, on 01/06/2009, -3/+437Cubert J. Farnsworth: That's impossible. You can't go faster than the speed of light.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Of course not. That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208. - Dumbledorito, on 01/06/2009, -1/+285Yeah, yeah, just give us Warp Drive, already.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -9/+197It's spam article from a power user, there's no theory in the link and nothing is actually explained. And the thought of C not being a constant has come up long before this. So buried for being pointless.
- trogdor282, on 01/06/2009, -9/+183Article is crap. He's saying that the speed of light is not constant. He thinks light was faster back in the day.
Also, I hate how it says "this would make Einstein wrong". If this is right it would mean Einstein is slightly less right, just like Einstein made Newton slightly less right but still 99.999% correct in most situations. - Epitaph, on 01/06/2009, -3/+127@MWeather: sorry, but that's too simplistic. Einstein's alterations of the well known physical formulas are just... tweaks. They basically say "you forgot to factor in relativistic factors". If c were proved to be changing, then E = mc^2 might end up being something like E = m(c/n)^2 where n(t) is some value, dependent upon the age of the universe.
- anexanhume, on 01/06/2009, -3/+101This is no different than what Einstein did to Newton. Einstein just showed that Newton's mechanics were a generalized form of relativistic equations. Not having read his book, the article leads me to believe that this would only show that Einstein's speed of light is a generalized form of the varying speed of light.
No one is being dethroned. As Newton aptly put it, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
Despite what Einstein did, Newton remains one of the greatest scientists to ever walk this earth. No one can change that about Einstein either. - Bloake, on 01/06/2009, -0/+84It doesn't really talk much about his theory...
- superterrorizer, on 01/06/2009, -4/+87So, what you're saying is: we should build a space helicopter.
- BullHunter, on 01/06/2009, -17/+94So if Joao Magueijo is correct and light travelled faster than the speed of light.... then would it be dark where the light travelled?
- DiscoUnderpants, on 01/06/2009, -0/+74Ummm this is neither new nor does it mean that we can travel faster than c now. It has been proposed to attempt to solve some problems of early cosmology. Even if this were the case Einstein would not be dethroned. This would just be an extension.
- grungegbunny, on 01/06/2009, -3/+77People once said the same thing about Newton.
- replaysMike, on 01/06/2009, -2/+62If the speed of light is slowing, can that explain why I'm always late for work?
- bixby1, on 01/06/2009, -4/+58There's a small rip in the space-time continuum.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -6/+54Nope. Same thing only faster.
"Speed of light" is like saying "speed of car". If the speed of light was faster then, then that was the speed of light at that time. - Chahrlie5, on 01/06/2009, -2/+49BURN THE HERETIC!!!
- exec0extreme, on 01/06/2009, -1/+46I have little faith in a blog that can't print the speed of light properly... It's 3 * 10^8 m/s
- imikedaman, on 01/06/2009, -4/+49I'd dethrone Einstein and change our understanding of the universe forever, but I'm a bit busy at the moment. Sorry.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -0/+42Dethrone Einstein? Right. That's like saying Einstein dethroned Newton... or Descartes. They all have their respective fields and discoveries, and their place in history.
- Andrals, on 01/06/2009, -1/+41Cubert: Nothing is impossible. I understand how the engines work now. It came to me in a dream. The engines don't move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it.
Bender: That's a complete load.
Cubert: Nothing's a complete load. Not if you can imagine it. That's what being a scientist is all about. - burketo, on 01/06/2009, -3/+39"This idea of a constant speed (about 3×106 meters/second)"
eh, more like 3 x 100,000,000 meters/second.... - alex7575, on 01/06/2009, -3/+38Its all relative...
- rotundo, on 01/06/2009, -0/+33@grungebunny - "dethroned" seems an overstatement. It was shown that his theory of gravity was very slightly imperfect, but that was only a small part of his contribution to math and science. The rest of his work stands strong. And even his gravitational theory is still used for all but the most extreme calculations -- space routes are still planned (to my knowledge) using newtonian physics.
Newton has a just place as one of the greatest mathematicians and scientists who ever lived. - grungegbunny, on 01/06/2009, -1/+33I look forward to seeing what evidence he presents.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -1/+32RUN FOR IT, MARTY!
- 30thElement, on 01/06/2009, -3/+33@DDBdestroyer. Light doesn't have mass, just momentum. And light does "slow down" in a way due to gravity, its a form of redshifting and is why time goes slower the deeper you go into a gravity well.
Second, Einstein would still be completely right even if this guy is right. c is based on the electromagnetic permittivity of space (epsilon (electric permitivity) multiplied by mu (magnetic permitivity) gives you 1/c^2). I'm assuming that this guy is saying that space was more permeable shortly after the Big Bang, and therefore light traveled faster. He's not saying anything about the current speed of light, so E=mc^2 would hold using the current value of c for the current time. I don't really agree that space would be more permeable after the Big Bang, because I would assume that space would be more dense so light would go slower. But he has a PhD, and I don't even have my Bachelors yet. - Godlike, on 01/06/2009, -1/+31Who do you think? The Libyans!
- wbtittle, on 01/06/2009, -0/+28Newton didn't get dethroned. Any who thinks he did really needs to go back and take a physics course. Newtonian physics still predicts reality quite well. In the same way Einstein won't be dethroned. Refined to be sure. Addendums, changes, absolutely.
The theories allow us to make predictions and more importantly devices. People thinking Einstein will be dethroned don't understand science.
What really may happen is that another scientist will stand on Einstein's shoulders (although I think there are already a couple standing on his). - foofoobee, on 01/06/2009, -0/+27It's not a matter of "dethroning". Einstein furthered our understanding of the universe, but did not completely replace Newtonian mechanics, which are still plenty useful today. Someday, someone else will give us another giant leap forward, but that doesn't mean all of Einstein's theories will go out the window. Science is a cumulative effort.
- iamnos, on 01/06/2009, -0/+25Yeah, caught that too:
I assume they meant 3x10^6, but that's still wrong. I'd accept 3x10^8. - Junkey, on 01/06/2009, -4/+28Proof or gtfo
- Jeff750, on 01/06/2009, -1/+25Colonel Sandurz: Prepare ship for light speed.
Dark Helmet: No, no, no, light speed is too slow.
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed, too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed.
There is always something faster! - inactive, on 01/06/2009, -3/+27As much as it would be awesome if he were right, I can't help but think he's similiar to the nullity guy.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -0/+21"Magueijo shakes the foundations of the physics community, while irritating off many of his fellow scientists."
That variable light speed guy really irritates me off. He needs to shut up his mouth. - feedmecereal, on 01/06/2009, -2/+22Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
- vawksel, on 01/06/2009, -2/+22There's no real content in this article! The whole thing could be summed up as: "This man thinks differently." -- and that's it.
- Asrrin29, on 01/06/2009, -3/+21Light does not have mass, the energy of a moving photon is affected by gravity the same way the rest energy present in the mass of an object is affected by gravity. I would like to see the full technical write up for VSL to see how plausible it is, because making the speed of light variable would break a lot of symmetry and also might potentially give a preferred frame of reference if not careful, and this is the stuff that would make it bad science.
- BobSutan, on 01/06/2009, -0/+17Alcubierre already did. Building the damn is the tricky part.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_metric - Bukowsky, on 01/06/2009, -37/+54nobody will ever dethrone Einstein.
- mynameisjudge, on 01/06/2009, -2/+19Uh. What's up with that graphic?
- JohnCoyote, on 01/06/2009, -0/+16According to THE ARTICLE he's not the first to propose it.
- asskey, on 01/06/2009, -0/+16No it is just moving at the speed of light. Inside and outside the ship's reference frame.
The speed of light is constant in all reference frames. If that makes your brain hurt you should try thinking about quantum stuff for a bit... - Godlike, on 01/06/2009, -2/+17So it would be not car where the car didn't uh... huh?
- jizmak, on 01/06/2009, -0/+15I'd like to think that they tried to type "^" but they missed the Shift key, producing "6".... and then they left out the 8 afterward.
- androothebear, on 01/07/2009, -2/+16no one cares that you're an Atheist.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -1/+14Alcubierre Drive (aka Warp Drive).
The concept of warp drive came from a Mexican physicist named Miguel Alcubierre. - capodeltutto, on 01/06/2009, -0/+13Einstein said that someone most probably would...
- jason210, on 01/06/2009, -0/+13if you are going the speed of light, headlights are the least of your worries.
- ultraseamus, on 01/06/2009, -2/+15Umm... light does not travel at a constant speed, the speed at which light travels can be reduced significantly. By holding environmental variables at constant values (like in the vacuum of space) the speed of light is a constant. A small technicality, but so many people stated that the speed of light was constant, I felt the need to clarify.
- MajorMansteak, on 01/07/2009, -1/+13Where we're going, we won't need Pants.
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