"Moorad Alexanian" wrote:
> AUG 15, 2001
> Cosmic Laws Like Speed of Light Might Be Changing, a Study Finds
> By JAMES GLANZ and DENNIS OVERBYE
Without prejudice to the potential importance of this discovery (if it holds
up), the suggestion that c might be changing is an unwarranted extrapolation. The
fine structure constant determines the strength of the EM interaction, & while it
would indeed be surprising to find that that it's changed in the way described
here, there are ways of making sense of that. In relativity, OTOH, c is a
conversion factor between different units for space-time intervals: 1 sec =
300,000 km. Thus a change in c would be like a change in the conversion factor
between Celsius & Fahrenheit.
Of course a changing c isn't impossible. But it would mean that we'd have to
abandon not just a theory of a particular interaction but special relativity,
which defines the framework within which all local physics has been understood for
a century. (& this wouldn't mean "Back to Newton" since all of the phenomena that
SRT explains better than classical physics would remain.)
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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