The speed of light, has it been found to be faster than before?

Question

A few years ago, there was information presented about the speed of light not being constant. It got faster, out by the edge of the observable universe. I believe that it was observed by the xray telescope we have in orbit. I have tried for some time to find the source of this information.

Answer 1

I read the same or a similar article. This cite doesn't answer your question but it does dicuss the possibility that the speed of light is variable----once again, everything you know is wrong.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6092.html.

Answer 2

Less then ten years ago, I read an article in an established magazine, or it might have been on line. The article described the possibility, that during a measurement test, a light beam entered the test chamber, and was noticed to have left before it fully entered. This would have described the light beam as having length. But outside of that, speed of light is a constant. It may bend, it may refract, it may reflect, it may pick its ear...but it will do it at 186,282.3959 (sky and telescope 1972) miles per second (within a couple of feet). To help clearify things a little from previous answers, sound travels approx 1100 feet per second, or about 750 miles an hour. (sea level..blah blah). If a jet is flying Mach 2, and sound is Mach 1, the sound will always arrive after the jet. the jet may fly overhead and leave the area before you hear the sound, depending on how high up it is. (effect is explained in one of my earlier answers)

I just skimmed over the article linked from a prior answer, to me a lot of big ideas and big words from somebody basically unknown (compared to Einstein). Citing distances too far for us to comprehend except in theory, by forces that we cant understand, except in theroy. Fact: we have the capibility to measure a start/stop time of something starting at one place, and stopping (going by) a finish point. Fact.....theory.......hmmmm

Answer 3

There have been theories proposed that the speed of light is not constant over long time periods or long spacial distances, but no real evidence that this is true has been found. However, the creation science people are very fond of these theories because it allows them to say the universe could be only 10,000 years old, like the bible says, instead of the billions of years old it would have to be if the speed of light is, and always has been, everywhere the same.

Answer 4

This has been a subject of investigation for some time. There is not yet any significant evidence that the speed of light has changed; people are still looking. We will probably not know for sure until a "theory of everything" is developed and established as valid.

Answer 5

First, the SPEED of light (whatever that may be) is always the same.

The speed of light relative to the observer and relative to the environment seems to change.

Light passing through glass or water seems to change in speed, but that is RELATIVE to an observer in the air. If the observer was in the glass a part of the glass or water, the speed of light would be the same as if it were in air.

Speed of light is optimumly measured in a vaccum and the most complete vaccum would be at the egde or beyond the edge of the universe. Because, in theory, there was be no matter there.

Inside the sphere of the so called "big bang" there is matter. There is, as the old timers referred to it, the Aether. Light travelling through the Aether as observed by you in th Aether would seem to change once it leaves the boundary. But this is relatavistic thinking.

Light, however, always travels at the speed of light. If you send a ship out at half the speed of light and turn on a laser pointing "forward" the beam of light travels at the speed of light.

Light does not seem to behave like sound.

If you see a jet plane traveling towards you at mach 2, the sound you hear is behind what you see. You hear the engines noise AFTER the actual position until the jet is over your head, at which point you hear and see the jet at the same time, but as it travels away the sound you hear grows older faster than what you see. Sound travels mach 1 but the jet travels mach 2, so the sound is behind what you see, except when the jet is directly overhead.

Nothing we have found or know is able to travel faster than light. That speed seems to be the maximum factor in our relative realm of physics.

It may, however, be possible to traverse space and time and thus technically exceed the speed of light in space travel.

If you had such a machine. A teleporter. You could go from the Earth to Mars in the blink of an eye.

It takes, at best, around 8 minutes for light and radio waves to reach Earth from Mars. Such a ship would "vanish" from orbit around the Earth and instantaniously appears in orbit around Mars a split second later. The light from that ship would take 8 minutes to reach Earth once it was in orbit. But the ship, Relative to an observer on Earth, would have gained 8 minutes of extra time travelling in that one direction, which you lose when you come back.

When you come back, you still see the light for 8 minutes. So a transporter ship can see it's own light 8 minutes in the past when it returns to Earth. Maybe. Some people aren't sure about that one!

It's like travelling from New York to California. You leave NY at 12 noon, it takes 4 hours to travel and you arrive in California at 1 pm.

But that's changing relatavistic standpoints.

If you phone at 12 noon and say "I'm bording now" it is 9 am in California and it takes 4 hours for your voice to "arrive" in Los Angeles with "I'm here now" even though your watch now says only an hour has past.

If you could transport yourself from here to Alpha Centari and immediatelly phone yourself it would take 4.2 years for that radio phone message to reach Earth. If you went there for a weekend you'd be home in two days and then 4 years and 3 or 4 months later you'd hear the phone ring, pick it up and hear yourself saying "I've arrived!"

If radio waves or light works during such a transport is not known, because you are either travelling through another dimension, steping outside of our time-space contiumum or going into and through another universe during the transport, if such a process is possible and many, including Einstein, think it could be possible!

BUT in our Time-Space conimum or universe, light is the fastest known thing and it always travels at the same rate bit it through nothing, normal space, atmosphere, water or glass, BUT relative to the observer's position it may SEEM to alter speed slightly.

This is the process of refraction.

A predicatble phenomenum.

From what I understand, two laser beams sent, one directly to a photo cell and another to a photo cell through 2" of glass, both of which are the same distance, the one through the glass will shift position and arrive slightly slower than the one through air. But this is a predicatble phenomenum of relatviity.

But of course I barely undestand this process.

Answer 6

The "speed of light" is IN FACT a fixed "constant"...and no, it has not changed. As a matter of fact, the speed of light is the fastest velocity ever measured. The galaxies to which you are referring, have been measured as crossing into the "red-shift" which has a velocity that is "close" to the speed of light...but does not exceed it. The speed of light is and always will be the fastest velocity measured.

Answer 7

Actually, some galaxies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light. The trick is that they aren't really moving, per se, but instead, the space between us and them is expanding.

Answer 8

No. Speed of light (c) is constant.