That i havent heard about yet...but i have heard chuck talk about an australian physicist that believes the speed of light was slowing down. He stated that originally the speed of light was the same as the speed of gravity but has slowed to its current speed
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"That i havent heard about yet...but i have heard chuck talk about an australian physicist that believes the speed of light was slowing down."
And this physicist would be who, exactly? And what kind of evidence would he have of this?
And do you have any idea the problems that would be caused if such a thing were true?
"He stated that originally the speed of light was the same as the speed of gravity but has slowed to its current speed"
This is fucking hilarious. And the best part is, you'll never have the slightest clue why I find it so amusing.
Rapture Ready posters are for the most part extremely stupid. However, for those criticizing Caver for "the speed of gravity" it's actually an accepted concept in physics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity
"[T]he speed of gravity refers to the speed at which a gravitational field propagates"
Experiments show it to be the same as the speed of light, as predicted by General Relativity. I have no idea whether Caver's summary of the idea of the "australian physicist" is accurate, but he/she doesn't deserve ridicule for using the term 'speed of gravity'.
That i havent heard about yet...but i have heard
Seriously, is that the way you want to begin a sentence?
The best part: The poster is correcting another Raptard that posted TIME was slowing down.
From the same thread:
"They have now proven that time is slowing down....literally. And at a measurable and predictable rate. It was first proven over 50 years ago by a Christian and he was laughed almost out of the academic world. Now, since they have gone to the Cesium Wold Clock, any number of people have proven it.
And....if you take the rate of slow down back to historic and beyond times....guess how old the world is?"
Apparently, we can use time to measure time to show time is slower than time used to be back in time. So if you go in reverse and speed time up at the appropriate rate, then obviously the age of the world is...
Fuck if I know. I don't speak face-melting stupid.
General Relativity -- is he one of Bush's high command in Iraq?
And I wonder...this Aussie physicist...wouldn't be Crocodile Dundee, would it? Maybe his cousin, Crock O'Shit.
OK, time is slower than 50 years ago, I'll buy that.60 years since it was faster!
speed of gravity
????????
@Shadow Panther,
The speed of gravity = The speed of light
@Night Jaguar has already made this point: Both the graviton("particle" of gravity) and the photon(particle of light) are massless and thus much travel at c=3x10^8m/s. The 9.8m/s/s you were referring to is the acceleration by the force gravity between a relatively small object and the earth, if you were to use this in space you would generally be incorrect, since you need to use the general equation F = (G*M1*M2)/R^2.
As for the "slowing" of the speed of light, he may be referring to the recent MAGIC result that showed that the high energy counterpart of a gamma ray burst was 4 minutes slower than its lower energy counterpart in reaching the detector.
http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2009/11/right-again-einstein.html
If you read the article, you'll also see that the new Fermi telescope recorded the opposite. Which in turn frustrated fans of the Loop Quantum Gravity a bit. Sorry, I'm rambling, but even though Caver is an idiot, I do see what he/she was getting at.
What?
So much stupid, so little time.
READ THE COMMENTS BEFORE COMMENTING
The 'speed of gravity' is a well accepted concept in physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity ). To those saying gravity is a force not a speed the exact same thing can be said about electromagnetism. Let's say you have two oppositely charged particles at a distance from one another and you displaced one by a tiny amount further from the other charge. Then the force between them gets weaker. However, the result isn't felt immediately by the other charge. It takes time for the information to be sent to the other charge. The speed it takes for this information to get across is generally referred to as the speed of light. The analogous case can be made with gravity. The 'speed of gravity' is the speed in which gravitational information travels. Indeed one of the first problems people had with Newton's law of gravity was that the supposition that this information traveled instantaneously (i.e, infinite speed) and therefore had a spooky "action at a distance".
Eventually Newton's law of gravity was superseded by Einstein's theory of general relativity. The theory predicts that the speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light. Experiments measuring the speed of gravity are consistent with this.
Again, Rapture Ready posters are for the most part complete morons. However, if you criticize Caver for using the term 'speed of gravity' you are only exposing your own ignorance.
Acceleration due to gravity: 9.8 m/s squared.
Speed of light: 299,792,458 m/s
Feeling stupid?
"an australian physicist that believes the speed of light was slowing down."
Can't be the Australian scientist I know of, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kruszelnicki
Or as I call him, 'The Aussie Brainiac', who I always listen to without fail at 3-4 AM on BBC's Radio 5 (on Rhod Sharpe's programme), when he does his science phone-in. His popularising of science in all fields & media is unparalleled, and I wish there were more of him (cloning, anyone?!).
"He stated that originally the speed of light was the same as the speed of gravity"
*facepalm*
Things fall at over 3 million meters per second? Wow, no wonder I can't catch the toast before it hits the floor.
To the science nerds on here pointing out the speed of gravitons, do you really think that someone from RR really understands the difference between the "speed of gravity" and the speed of toast hitting the floor?
Its typical creation nonsense that the speed of light slowed down , and surprisingly stabalised at its current rate back in the 1960s. Looking at the actual statistics used it becomes apparent that better equipment moved the result closer to todays value .
Look up Barry Setterfield.
Dammit FSTDT, stop being scientifically stupid.
The speed of gravity is the same as the speed of light. Information does not travel instantaneously, it travels at that of the speed of light as established by special relativity.
So if the sun were to suddenly disappear, the Earth would still be in orbit for 5 minutes or however long it takes light to reach the Earth.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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