Frank,
I see some common ground between a relativistic
interpretation of Casimir effect and your suggesting that the speed of
light inside a lattice can slow down to the transmission speed of the
phonon vibration. I think that Naudts' proposal for relativistic hydrogen
may well be the surfer in your analogy where suppression of longer
wavelengths forced time smaller to make the fluctuations fit within their
confinement. We only see that the longer wavelengths seem to have been
replaced with shorter ones but if time changed (Hotsons basic time quantum)
to make the fluctuations appear shorter then everything inside the
suppression area is equally translated. This would be equivalent
deceleration - still a huge dv relative to us but it is we outside the
lattice rushing away at the normal speed of light and coming back only
minutes later (from our perspective) to find the hydrogen or other reactants
at the slower speed of light having aged like the stationary twin in the
twin paradox - It seems counter-intuitive that hydrogen and deuterium are
"accelerated" from our perspective even though they are spatially confined
and measure in degrees kelvin. IMHO this is further evidence of
relativistic effects and equivalent acceleration - the observers remain
spatially adjacent but time slows (energy density is reduced) inside the
lattice. The observer/ surfer/hydrogen atom suppressed inside the lattice
sees no change in it's spatial landscape like the space faring twin it is
unaware that it's world line has changed. It's motion now occurring more and
more on an axis that is unobservable to us and like the returning twin only
measurable when the observer returns to our frame outside the lattice for
comparison.
Regards
Fran
