🚀 go-pugleaf

Einsteiniana's contribution to the hypothesis that the speed of light
decreases over the vast stretches of the universe (a silly explanation
of course but still going in the right direction):

http://ldolphin.org/recentlight.html
"However, since a major paper by Andreas Albrecht and Jao Magueijo in
1999, and another one by John Barrow in the same issue of Physical
Review D, the speed of light has come under increasing scrutiny as a
physical quantity that may be varying. These scientists are saying
that if lightspeed was significantly higher at the inception of the
cosmos (about 1060 higher) then a number of astronomical problems can
be readily resolved. Paul Davies statements echo that and he, like
Barrow, considers that lightspeed has declined over the history of the
universe. By contrast, Albrecht and Magueijo contained the lightspeed
change to the earliest moments of the Big Bang and had it drop to its
present value immediately afterwards. In that sense, this recent work
is consolidating the belief that the drop in lightspeed has extended
over the whole history of the universe. This is the position that the
cDK research has advocated since the early 1980's. The cause of the
change in the speed of light has still to be determined, but according
to Lineweaver, one of the prime suspects is that the structure of the
vacuum has been changing uniformly across the cosmos. This is also the
position that the cDK research has advocated since the early to mid
1990's and was formalised a technical paper which has so far been
submitted for publication to two physics journals, one astronomy
journal and one general science journal and none have been willing to
publish it. It is also the key subject of another paper also under
review, entitled "Exploring the Vacuum." Because there is an intrinsic
energy in every cubic centimetre of the vacuum, this energy may
manifest as virtual particle pairs like electron/positron pairs that
flit in and out of existence. As a photon of light travels through the
vacuum, it hits a virtual particle, is absorbed, and then shortly
after is re-emitted. This process, while fast, still takes a finite
time to occur. Thus, a photon of light is like a runner going over
hurdles. The more hurdles over a set distance on the track the longer
it takes for runners to reach their destination. Thus, if the energy
content of space increased with time, more virtual particles would
manifest per unit distance, and so the longer light would take to
reach its destination."

Pentcho Valev wrote:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/w6777w07xn737590/fulltext.pdf
Misconceptions about the Hubble recession law
Wilfred H. Sorrell, Astrophys Space Sci (2009) 323: 205211
"Many advocates of big-bang cosmology believe observations showing the
dimming of distant Type Ia supernovae prove beyond reasonable doubt
that the expanding universe is undergoing acceleration. It is thought
that the acceleration is driven by some unknown type of dark energy.
Although this standard interpretation of the supernovae data is widely
accepted, it could be completely wrong. (...) The observational
techniques used by Hubble led to the empirical discovery of a linear
dependence of redshift on distance. Based upon these historical
considerations, the first conclusion of the present study is that
astronomical evidence in favor of an expanding universe is
circumstantial at best. The past eight decades of astronomical
observations do not necessarily support the idea of an expanding
universe. This statement is the final answer to the question asked in
Sect. 1 of the present study. Reber (1982) made the interesting point
that Edwin Hubble was not a promoter of the expanding universe idea.
Some personal communications from Hubble reveal that he thought a
model universe based upon the tired-light hypothesis is more simple
and less irrational than a model universe based upon an expanding
space-time geometry. The second conclusion of the present study is
that the model Hubble diagram for a static (tired-light) cosmology
gives a good fit to the Type Ia supernova data shown in Fig. 2. This
observational test of a static (tired-light) cosmology model also
proves that it is wholly possible to explain the supernovae data
without requiring any flat Friedmann model universe undergoing
acceleration. The static cosmology does require the Andrews (2006)
anomalous dimming of distant Type Ia supernovae. It is emphasized that
the anomalous dimming effect has nothing to do with a particular
cosmology. The anomalous dimming effect has everything to do with the
intrinsic short duration of supernova light curves and the cosmic
redshift of the supernova light. The intrinsic short duration of a
celestial body is the key concept because the observed redshift-
magnitude relation for the brightest E-type cluster galaxies do not
show the anomalous dimming effect at all."

Do Einsteiniana's highest priests know that the only reasonable
alternative to idiotic Big Bangs, accelerated expansions of the
universe etc. is the assumption that "the supposed vacuum of space is
acting as an interstellar medium TO LOWER THE SPEED OF LIGHT"? They
do, but for the moment that is a grand secret between them:

http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2008/10/30/41323/484
"Does the apparently constant speed of light change over the vast
stretches of the universe? Would our understanding of black holes,
ancient supernovae, dark matter, dark energy, the origins of the
universe and its ultimate fate be different if the speed of light were
not constant?.....Couldn't it be that the supposed vacuum of space is
acting as an interstellar medium to lower the speed of light like some
cosmic swimming pool? If so, wouldn't a stick plunged into the pool
appear bent as the light is refracted and won't that affect all our
observations about the universe. I asked theoretical physicist Leonard
Susskind, author of The Black Hole War, recently reviewed in Science
Books to explain this apparent anomaly....."You are entirely right,"
he told me, "there are all sorts of effects on the propagation of
light that astronomers and astrophysicists must account for. The point
of course is that they (not me) do take these effects into account and
correct for them." "In a way this work is very heroic but unheralded,"
adds Susskind, "An immense amount of extremely brilliant analysis has
gone into the detailed corrections that are needed to eliminate these
'spurious' effects so that people like me can just say 'light travels
with the speed of light.' So, there you have it. My concern about
cosmic swimming pools and bent sticks does indeed apply, but
physicists have taken the deviations into account so that other
physicists, such as Susskind, who once proved Stephen Hawking wrong,
can battle their way to a better understanding of the universe."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com