>The assumption that half a dozen "constants" of fundamental physics really
>are constants is coming under increasing question.
>
>There are so odd that the question is increasingly asked whether they are
>not to be explained statistically, that out of all the various
>possibilities, only a narrow range of constants are the set that could
>permit life, and our own intelligence to evolve - the anthropic perspective.
Channel 4 (UK) has just run an hour-long programme on the advocates of a variable speed of light.
http://www.channel4.com/equinox/ein_summary.html
It undermines the essentially mechanical features of the prevailing model of the universe which depends so critically on the exact size of a number of "constants", posits everything being determined by the precise configuration of a big bang 15 billion years ago.
The density of matter at the beginning of the (this) universe must be defined to 100 decimal places to predict the delicate balance in which the universe is gently expanding, rather than collapsing in on itself, or expanding just a little faster with the result that the galaxies would not be in visible sight of each other by now.
In working through his calculations of the basic theory of the universe which assumed that the speed of light was fixed, Einstein saw that it led to a collapsing universe. Because at the time he believed the universe was stable, he added a "cosmological constant", lambda, to provide an additional repulsive force.
When meeting Hubble in 1932 he accepted that the universe is expanding and described this constant as his greatest blunder.
But in recent years his self-criticism has been questioned. In the 90's evidence emerged that the speed of the expansion of the universe is accelerating. So the cosmological constant has been reexamined.
Another problems is that the uniformity of the background cosmic radiation implies that all the matter visible to us was within energy contact with itself from the beginning of the big bang. ie all within one light horizon. Our current light horizon has a diameter of about 30 billion years, ie double the 15 billion years from which a big bang is supposed to have occurred. We cannot have information on anything that may lie outside this.
For the big bang theory to explain the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation all the present observable universe must have been within one light horizon 15 billion years ago.
However Joao Magueijo, a Portugese astronomer working at Imperial College London, together with Andy Albrecht, has proposed a model in which the light horizon could have been much larger. That is if the speed of light at that time had been much faster, and has been falling.
This proposes that the speed of light is a maximum light at any one time, but that it may fall.
This would allow us to abandon the big bang, at least in its crude form. As one contributor to the programme said, "Inflation is a scientifically acceptable way to invite divine intervention."
[In marxist words, inflation, the big bang, is an external cause brought in to explain what is more likely to be a dialectical process with its own internal contradictions.]
Working through models of the universe with a variable speed of light since 1996, Magueijo and Albrecht propose that it also implies that you do not need to posit conservation of energy. The universe could have been held in balance by the creation and destruction of energy. The energy, when destroyed, going into the formation and proliferation of matter. Thus there could have been a puncuated origin to the known universe if a sudden drop in the speed of light led to the rapid formation of matter which has accelerated out into the universe we can now observe.
Two years ago, John Webb from the University of South Wales, investigated the transmission of light through gas clouds from the most distant objects we can observe, quasars. The spectrum of the light was different if it passed through a very distant gas cloud, compared to passing through a closer gas cloud. This could be explained by the electrons on the gas clouds being different, OR by the speed of light coming from the most distant ie oldest sources, having at that time, being faster. This experimental observation has still to be confirmed.
The programme went on to discuss the possible real significance of Einstein's abandoned cosmological constant. The suggestion was that this represents the energy inherent in original space (the "void" - which of course is not a void). This energy can be assumed to be vast. It can be thought of as analogous to gravity but opposite to gravity in that it pushes things apart. In the model, the energy in lambda depends on the speed of light but can also cause a drop in the speed of light. The model appears to suggest some reciprocal interaction between the two energies. A sudden drop in the speed of light could have caused the big bang.
The researchers have not yet proposed a test for the model. There appear to be many features that are speculative. Nevertheless it appears to me to be the start of a paradigm shift, and opens the door to a different model of the universe, less mechanically deterministic, and more described by the dynamic inter-relationship of forces, in a way that is more compatible with a dialectical approach.
The web page of Magueijo, which has references to articles he has published with John Barrow, is
http://euclid.tp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~magueijo/vsl.html
Chris Burford
London