Can We Test the Speed of Light Using 'Lensing' from Supernovae? (arxiv.org) 112
Long-time Slashdot reader RockDoctor writes: One of the key assumptions of Relativity — both Special and General — is that the speed of light is a constant in all non-accelerating reference frames. As a key assumption, it is also one of the things that gets the kooks, wingnuts and fanatics all riled up, because they have proven that it's wrong, though those pesky scientists refuse to listen to their spittle-flecked presentations.
Back in the real world, real scientists also wonder if the assumption is justified, then try to work out how to test it. One idea for performing this test has just been published — that of using the gravitational lensing of distant supernovae to try to interrogate the speed of light in the distant past.
When a (relatively) nearby galaxy lenses a (relatively) distant galaxy, it is common for multiple images to be formed. If a supernova occurs in the distant galaxy, then supernova images will be seen in the different images, but typically at different times (on Earth) because the light paths from different images are of different lengths, and were of different lengths in the past.
The Chinese-Polish team of authors have studied the possibilities of making such observations and suggest that the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, "a wide-field survey reflecting telescope with an 8.4-meter primary mirror, currently under construction, that will photograph the entire available sky every few nights") should detect several thousand gravitationally-lensed distant quasars, and so yield around 50 gravitationally-lensed distant supernovas per year. This is estimated to "produce robust constraints on the speed of light at the level of delta-c/c;= 0.005" (half a percent) in a decade of operations.
Which will shut the wingnuts, lunatics and kooks up. Not.At.All.
Back in the real world, real scientists also wonder if the assumption is justified, then try to work out how to test it. One idea for performing this test has just been published — that of using the gravitational lensing of distant supernovae to try to interrogate the speed of light in the distant past.
When a (relatively) nearby galaxy lenses a (relatively) distant galaxy, it is common for multiple images to be formed. If a supernova occurs in the distant galaxy, then supernova images will be seen in the different images, but typically at different times (on Earth) because the light paths from different images are of different lengths, and were of different lengths in the past.
The Chinese-Polish team of authors have studied the possibilities of making such observations and suggest that the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, "a wide-field survey reflecting telescope with an 8.4-meter primary mirror, currently under construction, that will photograph the entire available sky every few nights") should detect several thousand gravitationally-lensed distant quasars, and so yield around 50 gravitationally-lensed distant supernovas per year. This is estimated to "produce robust constraints on the speed of light at the level of delta-c/c;= 0.005" (half a percent) in a decade of operations.
Which will shut the wingnuts, lunatics and kooks up. Not.At.All.
Since when? (Score:2)
it is also one of the things that gets the kooks, wingnuts and fanatics all riled
I must be way behind on the kook news; since when was the speed of light in a given medium not constant per observer?
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Dr. Rupert Sheldrake - delusion and dogma in science: (The science delusion). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHUaNAxsTg
Discussing the variance of "Big G" i.e. Gravity as well as the measured variance in the speed of light. Nevermind the data, it's stepping on my dogma.
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Of course that doesn't mean everything he says must automatically be wrong. So please make precise references that illustrate your point and don't expect others to do that job for you.
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Science is supposed to follow the scientific method. Hypothesis, test, etc. Follow the data. Today, you have scientists acting just as dogmatic as religious cult leaders. So, yes, we have a serious problem. There is data that shows anomalies with "Constants" such as Big G, speed of light... Some people start finding data that does not fit the models and they're burned at the stake for not conforming to the bullshit dogma. Questions are good. Science needs challenges. It's the only way to advance.
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Re:Since when? (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy who thinks that science is wrong because it can't explain absolutely everything? And quite coincidentally he has a hypothesis of everything of his own? I don't think he really understands what science is about.
Of course that doesn't mean everything he says must automatically be wrong. So please make precise references that illustrate your point and don't expect others to do that job for you.
The problem is having faith in the result before the experiment is done. There's been argument over the years about if physical constants are constant and if physical laws have been consistent over time. Anyone who asserts they are or aren't without experimental data to back up their position is equally bad, and not actually using the scientific method or in any way practicing science.
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Can you provide experimental data for them being "equally bad" and not actually using the scientific method or in any way practising science?
Oh you're so funny. If you reach conclusions before the experiment is even started you are by definition not using the scientific method or practicing science. Matter of fact doing so is the experimental data that proves you aren't.
Thanks I needed the laugh.
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This.
There's really nothing to get upset about here.
Scientists are probing the universe at different times in order to determine if the speed of light has changed over the billions of years.
It's a necessary question that we'd like to answer.
Sure, there are spectators speculating on the outcome of the game before the fucking anthem has even started, but that's not something that's necessarily batshit crazy.
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The problem is having faith in the result before the experiment is done. There's been argument over the years about if physical constants are constant and if physical laws have been consistent over time. Anyone who asserts they are or aren't without experimental data to back up their position is equally bad, and not actually using the scientific method or in any way practicing science.
So far as I'm aware, those physical constants have held up to all experimental evidence we have today. So accepting them as constants is reasonable for all other work. Until someone provides repeatable proof that they're not constant, this will not change. Kind of like the expansion of the universe and the fact that space itself is expanding. That one blew a lot of assumptions out of the water. So it's not that science is wrong, it's that people who assume that alternate facts can explain something with no
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The problem is having faith in the result before the experiment is done. There's been argument over the years about if physical constants are constant and if physical laws have been consistent over time. Anyone who asserts they are or aren't without experimental data to back up their position is equally bad, and not actually using the scientific method or in any way practicing science.
So far as I'm aware, those physical constants have held up to all experimental evidence we have today. So accepting them as constants is reasonable for all other work. Until someone provides repeatable proof that they're not constant, this will not change. Kind of like the expansion of the universe and the fact that space itself is expanding. That one blew a lot of assumptions out of the water. So it's not that science is wrong, it's that people who assume that alternate facts can explain something with no basis is equally valid to experimentally derived theories that are delusional.
Tell it to the guy who submitted the article with a rather obvious axe to grind. Personally just on cosmology's version of eschatology, I have seen heat death, big crunch, endless expansion, quantum fluctuation cycle and big rip (steady state was alreadyon the way out when I got interested). I may be leaving something out it's not my field. The one thing they all have in common is how remarkably belligerent their supporters have been.
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Anyone who asserts they are or aren't [constant] without experimental data to back up their position is equally bad
There is no data to prove a constant, only a preponderance of evidence. However, we have no data disproving the constant, and it only requires 1 repeatable test, so the one saying they aren't constants need to come up with some proof.
TL;DR the naysayers in this case are the ones that need to step up.
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I don't have a horse in this race except perhaps a desire to see new and interesting physics but it didn't take much effort find papers.
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph... [arxiv.org]
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Science tells us things that are useful and give us rules that appear to function under the appropriate, if sometime unspecified, assumptions,
So we know that as long as we don't go too fast, among other things, a constant force will produce a predictable acceleration for a given mass.
But science is new in the grade scheme of things. Until Michael Servetus in the 16th century, people believed that blood just swished back and forth in the body. Until Joseph Priestly we did not have
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Except Einstein did have evidence. It may not have been 100% conclusive but it's not like he pulled it out of his ass either. There was getting to be an awful lot of data suggesting the prevailing wage theory of light was wrong, and Einstein provided a theory that fit all the particle-based data.
Oh yeah, and he was wrong too. The whole idea of duality didn't come around for a couple decades after he described the photoelectric effect. And you know what he did? He arbitrarily claimed that God doesn't pl
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When the medium is moving relative to the observer: Fresnel frame dragging [wikipedia.org].
Or did you mean to sound smarter and more informed than you actually were?
P.S. This whole article is a bunk. It's a long-standing test of symmetries of nature to test if speed of light is constant (as a function of location in universe, or as a function of time). Sure, there are kooky ways to go about challenging it, but there are legitimate ways to test it that had more sensitivity than these methods. See: Is the fine-structure cons [wikipedia.org]
Re:Since when? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am kind of curious how determining if physical laws are constant over time or variable became the province of "Wingnuts and kooks".
Sounds like Rock Doctor has issues.
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The "wingnuts and kooks" were identified as those who claim to "have proven that it's wrong."
Not those still seeking to determine the answer to the question through a rigorous experimental design and (yet to be collected) results.
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The "wingnuts and kooks" were identified as those who claim to "have proven that it's wrong."
Not those still seeking to determine the answer to the question through a rigorous experimental design and (yet to be collected) results.
That's one way to read it. I read it as the author thinks anyone who disagrees or has an opinion on the matter different than his, is one or the other perhaps both. It was hard to get past his fuming especially since there had been experimental evidence that purported to show alpha (fine structure constant) had variance in the past, currently there's results from a team at Los Alamos claiming to show the variance. Others have indirect isotope evidence claiming to constrain it. Personally given the sheer com
Go find out (Score:2)
Why not go find out and then let us know? It's not like you're crowd funding here, just wait until you have news.
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No we can not... (Score:2)
Wait, in all *NON*-accelerating reference frames? (Score:2)
Re: Wait, in all *NON*-accelerating reference fram (Score:4, Informative)
The speed of light is a constant, time and space change under the Lorenz contraction in a way that keep light fixed.
(Technically, light only happens to travel at C in a perfect vacuum. C is not otherwise related to light.)
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Well yeah, that's what I figured... so what's this about so-called non-accelerating reference frames then?
Why bother saying that if it isn't equally true for any reference frame, whether it is accelerating or not?
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Typical science writer error.
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We assume as little as possible to deduce as much as possible. This is the general principle we follow. In special relativity, Einstein started by assuming the velocity of light, and the laws of physics generally, are the same in all inertial reference frames. At this point, he is not trying to produce an exhaustive list of when it is OK to say the speed of light is the constant 'c'. He wants to make the absolute minimum of assumptions to make his conclusions.
So can we say the speed of light is absolu
Insults (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess insults are part of science now? Or is this just someone with an expensive speech comm degree writing about science who has been radicalized to hate anyone who disagrees with current theory. As another poster suggested go test the hypothesis and let us know without resorting to insults. If you can manage that.
Re: Insults (Score:5, Insightful)
When insults are the only things listened to, expect to listen only to insults.
Sorry, you can't blame science writers for copying a broader trend. Blame the trend, or better still fix it.
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Scuse me whilst I laugh. Isaac Newton drove a colleague to madness and suicide. Boltzman fared little better against Mach's fans.
Besides, science has never been about Truth. If you want Truth, theology is down the corridor. There are no treasure maps and X never, ever marks the spot. Science is about finding out why you're wrong. It's a heuristic, not an algorithm. It's about progress, not perfection. It's about prediction and falsification, not truth.
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When idiots revel in ignorance... (Score:2)
When idiots revel in ignorance, what is left?
It is increasingly common to hear people spouting nonsensical pseudo science, or phrases such as "I'm entitled to my opinion" that flys in the face of well proven science, Flat Earth, water powered cars, creationism and such nonsense is common place.
When somebody will not listen to reason arguments, actual facts, resort to abuse, murder and even terrorism. They are kooks, idiots and morons. If that accurate description offends then change, learn the scientific
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Chuck is famous for his peanut butter disproof of evilution.
Worth a watch on youtube if you haven't seen it before.
Peanut butter the atheists nightmare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Oh yes, ""Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter KÃrper" (in English, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", in which he refers extensively to Maxwell's work and the asymmetries "which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena" (Perrett and Jeffery's translation of 1923). Einstein cited his sources perfectly adequately in the form of the time, even if subsequent writers haven't been so careful in their commentary on his work.
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So, what you are saying is - "Why can't you explain this to me using a car example?".
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Re: Riled up and not a kook. (Score:3)
This has been explained countless times.
Vectors aren't additive that way.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g... [gsu.edu]
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g... [gsu.edu]
https://opentextbc.ca/physicst... [opentextbc.ca]
In a nutshell, relative velocity alters space and time. It's the Lorenz Contraction. This throws in the extra term into the equation.
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Wouldn't work.
Time and space don't exist, and even spacetime is just an emergent phenomenon.
You can't eliminate the terms, even if you hide them inside other terms.
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Of some relevance - at around the time that Maxwell was generating his work on electrodynamics, the problems of travelling faster than the transmission speed of longitudinal waves in a medium - sound wave in air or water - were also starting to bec
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Actually the problem you describe was raised by a a few experiments in the second half of the 19th century which showed that the speed of light did not change if you moved towards or away from the source. Then Lorentz came up with a mathematical formula which allowed light opposite directions still equal to c and not 2c. But it was difficult to give meaning to it. Poincare went quite far in making a coherent 'traditional' model while Einstein made a revolutionary model, even if a lot of the math was the sam
Or determine the elemental composition of bodies. (Score:2)
Same question as everyone else (Score:2)
Uh, what? Whick kooks have "proven" that it's false? And why is anyone paying any attention to them, even to debunk it? There's something very big missing from TFS (and the TFA, which I uncharacteristically read).
Re:Spittle??? (Score:5, Informative)
https://newrepublic.com/articl... [newrepublic.com]
He's as much of a conman as those dipshits who spout the electric universe bullshit... which i'm sure we'll be seeing on this thread in no time.
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Ok, So you're the one calling a Cambridge University researcher and seasoned, highly published professor a conman. He's simply found data and asked the question. Why doesn't it jive with our models of how the universe works????? hmmmmm???? It's a worthy question. Instead of sending ad hominem attacks, why don't you take a more erudite path of considering the question?
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 85 scientific papers and 13 books. He was among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders
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Which study? He took measurements from the British government scientist findings and plotted them. There was variance. He asks the question why. Then people attack him. I don't know the answer to his question. But the data seems sound. It pokes holes in some of our scientific models. Maybe we need new models to take account for these data variances? I don't know, but it's a damn good question!!!
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That scientists can be assholes is not a new thing. They're humans after all and these things are well within the capabilities of humans.
For example Albert Einstein himself was quite the asshole, endlessly debating quantum physics with other scientists like Niels Bohr, asking questions after questions, with the intention of Reducio Ad Absurdum, that Bohr could
Re:Spittle??? (Score:5, Informative)
Rupert Sheldrake hasn't done any real science in 30 years [rationalwiki.org].
Re: Spittle??? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a biologist. I don't get my astrophysics from biologists any more than I get my biology from astrophysicists.
Re:Spittle??? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're sucking the dick of his dogma,while complaining about people preferring reality to bullshit. Grow the fuck up, use that wilted brain you supposedly have in your head, and clean the bullshit out of your eyes.
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Why? I wasn't thinking him important enough to be worth mentioning. Indeed, until he got mentioned here, I thought he'd died, or gone onto breakfast TV, or some horrible fate of unbeing.