Speed of LIght may have changed........

With all these changes in relativity going on, perhaps the conclusions and press release were issued before the paper? :lol:

Or perhaps the paper was released before the press release but gossip in the media travels faster than electrons on the abstract services

I knew you were going say that, I read it before you typed it! :lol:

Don't say anymore Leo! You're disturbing the space-time continuum!

If anyone's interested, this story comes from a string of papers published since, I think, 1997. They are all on the arxiv.org/ website. The earliest one I downloaded was arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/9709227 . There are a lot I looked at, and if anyone wants, I'll dig up the URLs I still have.

BTW, they don't mention the speed of light, but mainly the fine structure constant, or other fundamental constants (all linked though).

Owen

Actually, it's not possible for the speed of light to change. The metre is defined on the basis of the speed of light in a vacuum being exactly 299,792,458 metres per second.

So, if light starts to travel faster, the metre just gets longer! (It's not possible for the second to get shorter, as it is defined on another physical basis - a caesium atom and 9,192,631,770 Hz).

Actually, it's not possible for the speed of light to change. The metre is defined on the basis of the speed of light in a vacuum being exactly 299,792,458 metres per second.

So, if light starts to travel faster, the metre just gets longer! (It's not possible for the second to get shorter, as it is defined on another physical basis - a caesium atom and 9,192,631,770 Hz).

However, a change in the fine structure constant will effect the caesium atom so that will effect the second so the speed will change!