On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 10:37 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Dec 02, 2016 at 01:03:49PM +0100, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> Russell, >> >> I don't follow you... If you have time to dumb it down a bit, I would >> appreciate it :) >> >> Best, >> Telmo. > > One of the things that Einstein was popularly known for is that the > speed of light is constant, regardles of who you are (more precisely > what inertial reference frame you occupy). Of course this leads to all > sorts of crank claims about Einstein being wrong, because the > speed of light is slower in glass than it is in a vacuum (say). > > > This work goes on to talk about allowing c (usually called the speed > of light) to vary as a function of time, slowing down from infinity at > the origin. Hence the attribution "Einstein was wrong". > As a > scientist that would be very sloppy and attention seeking - but > hopefully this was a journalistic override. > > The only thing fundamental are changes to dimensionless constants - > the fine structure constant \alpha being a classic example. For > something like c, if we redefined to meter and second to be suitably > varying functions of time, then we can damn well make c vary any way > we want. It is not fundamental - just a trick as it were.
Ok, got it! Cheers Telmo. > > Cheers > >> >> >> On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 11:26 PM, Russell Standish <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > On Thu, Dec 01, 2016 at 04:26:25PM +0100, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> >> >> I am not sure why he says that Einstein was wrong, as I am not sure >> >> Einstein ever asserted that space-time or gravity was fundamental. >> >> To say that Einstein is wrong looks like a cliché in fashion, today. >> > >> > It's code speak for saying the speed of light is not a constant. It's >> > more a bone to throw to the media to stir up interest, than a real >> > scientific statement. >> > >> > Of course, since the speed of light is just a conversion constant >> > beween our time units and our space units, we are always free to vary >> > the speed of light. It is just a nonlinear reparameterisation of our >> > coordinates. Verlinde's proposal is much, much more than that. >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >> > Principal, High Performance Coders >> > Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] >> > Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> > "Everything List" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> > email to [email protected]. >> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Principal, High Performance Coders > Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] > Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
