Science and Inquiry discussion

Hello! My book THE SPEED OF LIGHT is on sale. I am the scientist who predicted that light is slowing down, a VERY controversial discovery. I hope to add some promotions for the book here soon. Who will be first to review it?

L, there is no entry in Goodreads for a book with the title "The Speed of Light is Changing".

Hi Mod, the title is THE SPEED OF LIGHT. I am very interested in reactions to the book.
The Speed of Light

This will be interesting.

I read your paper on the lunar orbit anomaly. Very interesting!

Hello David and Meenkashi: Thanks for being among the over 5000 who have downloaded my "Calculation of lunar orbit anomaly" article. The Speed of Light is much easier to read, intended for anyone to enjoy. Hopefully even more people will read the book.

Thanks for your enthusiasm. 3 free copies are now available for Giveaway. Each copy will be autographed. Look here:
The Speed of Light
(The book is also for sale on Amazon.)

150 people have responded to the giveaway so far, an overwhelming response. I hope you all get it in your hands.
The Speed of Light

376 people requested the 3 books of the giveaway! Congratulations to those who won!

The Speed of Light

Has anyone been following the hype about BICEP2 "proving" inflation, and the recent papers showing that they just saw dust? This shows that the old "inflation" idea is not really science. Read about it in Chapter 7!

Hey L, I know there have been any number of 'variable speed of light' theories none of which have held up as far as I know. Any chance you can summarize your theory/basis in a paragraph or so?

Thanks.

Also I'm not seeing a table of contents in the sample on Amazon, any chance you could post it?
Any chance you will be releasing this as an E-Book?

Thanks again.

HI Kenny: Thanks for your interest. The alternative to "inflation" is so simple that anyone can understand it:

GM=tc^3

Where G is the gravitational constant, M and t are mass and age of the universe. When t was tiny c was enormous and the universe expanded like a "Bang." Now that t is billions of years c is slowing at a very tiny rate. Unlike "inflation" this makes testable predictions. See the paper:

http://www.planetary-science.com/cont...

The Kindle edition is still in preparation, but here is the table of contents:

1. A Babe in the Universe
2. The Light of Exploration
3. Moons, Apples and Light
4. If You Are Within the Sound..
5. Einstein's Sphere of Light
6. The Only Equation in This Book
7. The Proof in the Pudding
8. The Sun and Moon
9. The Invisible Universe
10.A Theory for Everything?

Thanks! and thanks for the link to the paper, I'll take a look.

I just finished reading the paper. Interesting idea! Few questions/comments, off the cuff:

1.) A greater value for c in the past could play into a number of things; I'm specifically thinking cosmic horizon/homogeneity problem. Your thoughts on this?

2.) In a similar vein, how would a increased value of c account for inflation? The speed of light is not a limit on expansion, so I don't understand the connection here... (I'm not anything like an expert, however!) (I read this into your statement about a "Bang" in your paper's section headed "Cosmological origin".)

3.) If Einstein does hold, then E=mc^2 holds; then a decrease in c should lead to measurable decreases in energy for matter conversion (just about any sub-to-atomic reaction.) Granted, this amount would be tiny over the short term, so perhaps I should say 'potentially testable.' I guess this is more comment than question.

4.) Finally, is E-mc^2 holds, then a decrease in c means that the total energy of the universe is decreasing. This violates conservation of energy (again, I am not an expert, especially in how COE relates to the Universe as a whole, etc.) Moreover, this would imply that the total energy of the universe has already decreased by a staggering amount, since c would have been much higher in the past. Any ideas as to how all might work?


Any ETA for the Kindle edition?

Thanks!

Hello: I won't always have time to answer questions, but today I can:

1) A changing c would explain the horizon, homogeneity and "flatness" problems better than the inflation idea. See the paper by Albrecht and Magueijo (whom I just heard from yesterday) "A Time-Varying Speed of Light as a Solution to Cosmological Puzzles". It's also a free download!

2)It turns out that the universe's expansion rate is closely tied to the speed of light, so when c was greater the universe expanded like a "Bang". See Chapter 6: The Only Equation in This Book.

3) This actually solves the "Faint Young Sun" problem. According to models of the Sun, life should not have evolved on Earth because 4 billion years ago the Sun was much cooler and Earth would have been frozen solid. The Sun turns its fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. If c has changed in precisely the amounts predicted, Earth's temperature would remain in the narrow range necessary for liquid water and life. Our planet is a thermometer! See Chapter 8: The Sun and Moon.

4) Ever wonder what happens to an object's potential energy in relation to other objects as the universe expands? When we add up the total energy of a particle, including potential, kinetic, and Einstein energy E=mc^2, the total is zero! That applies to any particle, from the smallest photon to the biggest galaxy! The total energy of the universe is just zero, which has allowed it to expand from a tiny space to the complexity we observe today. It's the ultimate free lunch! See Chapter 6: The Only Equation in This Book.

The Kindle edition has been in production for a month, and will hopefully be available soon. Enough posting for today--Please read the book.

Hello Daniel and others: I am happy to report that the Kindle edition of
The Speed of Light is finally available!

The NASA Johnson Space Center Astronomy Society loved the book and bought out every single copy. This weekend I am invited to present at the World Science Fiction Convention at Excel Centre in London! In case you can't make it, The Speed of Lightis available on Amazon, for Kindle, and other sites too!

Congratulations.

I just gave my talk at Texas A&M in College Station. I am addressing the North Houston Astronomy Club September 26.The Speed of Light is now available on Amazon, Kindle, and many other places!

Gave another talk (and sold a pile of books) at North Houston Astronomy Society. In case you can't make it to a talk, The Speed of Light is available on Amazon, bn.com, Kindle and many other places!

Can you quit inviting everyone in this group to your readings, please? Since most of us don't live anywhere near wherever you're reading, it's just spam to us.

Next stop in The Speed of Light tour is the Brazosport (Texas) Astronomy Club on Tuesday, October 21 starting at 7:00 PM. Meet at 400 College Blvd, Clute Texas.

October 14 I will be speaking to the San Antonio Astronomical Association. I hope some of you can make this book tour.

L. wrote: "October 14 I will be speaking to the San Antonio Astronomical Association. I hope some of you can make this book tour."

L: I think if I could travel faster than light, I just might be able to make it to your talk. As it is though, I can only attend future presentations. :-)

https://briankoberlein.com/2015/02/14...

L. wrote: "Hello: I won't always have time to answer questions, but today I can:

1) A changing c would explain the horizon, homogeneity and "flatness" problems better than the inflation idea. See the paper..."

I thought the Young Sun problem had already been solved by the fact there was a much hogher concentration of greenhouse gases in the First and Second Atmospheres coupled with heat coming from radioactive decay and the Moon's earlier tidal heating.

It's certainly an interesting idea:
GM = tc^3
but I think we would have noticed if c was changing. According to my book "Measuring the World" (there - I can plug my own books as well!) the metre was fixed relative to c in 1983, because this was more precise than the old method of using Krypton 86 wavelengths. Using light beams, distances have been measured to better than 0.1 parts per billion since 1983. Over the 30 years since the current metre definition has been in operation, according to your equation the change in c^3 would have been 30/4.5 x10^-9. So the fractional change in c would have been about 2x10^-9. This is 20 times larger than we could have detected, for example by looking at a wavelength of a precise electronic transition in a hyperpure substance. since there hasn't been any noise in the physics community to change the definition of the metre since 1983, I conclude that your hypothesis, although interesting contradicts the firm evidence of the constancy of c, at least in the current epoch.

In fact it is more likely that G is varying. In the physics community, this is only known to a precision of 1 part in 10^4 and there has been a lot of speculation already about whether we really understand gravity at high precision.

So, I won't be buying your book. However, if you want to send me a free copy, I'd be happy to review it

John wrote: "It's certainly an interesting idea:
GM = tc^3
but I think we would have noticed if c was changing. According to my book "Measuring the World" (there - I can plug my own books as well!) the metre wa..."

Yep!

I saw enough from his "Calculation of lunar orbit anomaly" link above to know everything I needed to know. I also downloaded the book as part of kindle unlimited or borrowed from Amazon.....It's right up there with all the other such claims. Which is why I posted a scathing response to his other thread and had it deleted as this one probably will be.