Still Faster Than Light

Like an Earth-centered cosmos, a fixed speed of light is a scientific edifice that shows signs of cracking. Neutrinos are mysterious particles that pass through matter nearly undisturbed. Millions of them pass through our bodies each second. Wolfgang Pauli first predicted their existence in 1930, but his prediction was so revolutionary that he did not present it until the Solvang conference in 1933. Not until 1956 was the existence of Pauli's neutrinos proven. Recently neutrinos were found to transform between their three flavours spontaneously.

In September the OPERA collaboration reported that neutrinos have been clocked traveling slightly faster than light, Neutrinos Pass Through Light Barrier. This result challenges the Physics we read in books, that nothing travels faster than light. Fortunately, neutrinos don't read books.

Other physicists have challenged the OPERA results, but in a new set of experiments this month the group verified their findings. Some of the OPERA group would not put their name on the initial report, but their doubts have slowly been erased. zmore tests by other groups will be needed to prove the superluminal neutrinos. As readers of this blog know, there is a body of evidence that light itself slows with time. The speed-of-light barrier is slowly breaking down.

Darkness Can Not Drive Out Darkness

Another Nobel Prize Winner: This Sunday, October 16, Washington's Martin Luther King Memorial will be dedicated. The ceremony would have happened earlier, but the surprise earthquake in September caused postponement. Even the US Eastern seaboard is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Because of the delay, we visitors to DC have been able to preview the monument. Behind a 30-foot King statue is a marble wall filled with his quotes. One of King's bits of wisdom could apply to physicists puzzling about "dark energies."

"Darkness can not drive out darkness, only light can do that."

The answer to apparent acceleration of the universe has not been found in hypothetical "dark" energies. Such speculations are rejected by the public and will harm the reputation of physicists. Redshifts of distant objects are roughly proportional to recession velocity divided by the speed of light, v/c. The non-linear redshifts of Type Ia supernovae, which just won its discoverers their own Nobel, is more plausibly due not to v accelerating, but to c slowing down. The answer to the mystery is not in the dark, but in light.

In 2009 the Nobel Peace Prize committee inexplicably rewarded a man with no record of peace, leading to much ridicule. This year's award goes to Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, and Tawakkol Karman from Yemen. All three women have faced and continue to face formidable opposition. Karman, the first Arab woman to win the Prize, has been detained and harassed by mobs with clubs. Women who face such challenges deserve the Nobel Prize.

Illusions

More doubts about a repulsive "dark energy" arise every day. In a new paper accepted by Physical Review D, Christos Tsagas of Aristotle University in Greece suggests that apparent acceleration of the universe could be an illusion. The cause would be our galaxy being part of a "dark flow". Such a flow would make expansion of the universe appear nonuniform, creating the illusion of acceleration. The paper builds on work by Alexander Kashlinsky here in NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

This blog reported Kashlinsky's work back in September 2008, Going With the Flow. That year Kashlinsky reported that clusters of galaxies, including our Milky Way, appear to be moving at 600 km/sec toward some unseen attractor. What kind of enormous object could cause this flow is unknown, but it could be a super-sized ultra massive Black Hole. Old models of cosmology can not even account for the Black Holes within galaxies. Such immensely massive objects, along with the illusion of acceleration, are predicted by GM=tc^3 and a changing speed of light.

Cluster

Washington DC was rainy last night, but today's weather is lovely. The Canada-America-Mexico Physics conference is in the Liaison Capitol Hill hotel, within sight of the Capitol Building. Photos coming soon.

Proponents of "dark energy" claim that it's existence is proven, even if not a single sample exists. For proof they cite a complex chain of reasoning. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, only the truly enlightened can understand the evidence. Everyone else, even other scientists, can only quote the meme that DE must exist.

The September 29 issue of NATURE contains this paper:

Gravitational redshift of galaxies in clusters as predicted by general relativity

"The theoretical framework of cosmology is mainly defined by gravity, of which general relativity is the current model. Recent tests of general relativity within the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model have found a concordance between predictions and the observations of the growth rate and clustering of the cosmic web. General relativity has not hitherto been tested on cosmological scales independently of the assumptions of the ΛCDM model. Here we report an observation of the gravitational redshift of light coming from galaxies in clusters at the 99 per cent confidence level, based on archival data. Our measurement agrees with the predictions of general relativity and its modification created to explain cosmic acceleration without the need for dark energy..."

Despite the many press releases about "dark energy," doubts continue to grow. While data may fit a universe with DE, the same data also corresponds to no DE at all. Hypotheses of a repulsive "dark energy" has not led to theory, just a divergence of speculations that erode the reputation of science. While there will be no samples of DE, there is evidence of a changing speed of light.

Neutrinos Pass Through LIght Barrier

Neutrinos are shadowy particles that can pass right through the Earth. For a long time they were thought to be massless, now scientists know that neutrinos have a tiny mass. Neutrinos were found in three flavors: electron, muon and tau. Recently neutrinos were found to change from one flavor to another. These discoveries were not part of the Standard model of particle Physics.

CERN is known for the giant Large Hadron Collider. Built to discover the theorized Higgs boson, LHC has so far failed to find the Higgs. Scientists are beginning to doubt that the Higgs exists at all. If the Higgs boson is not found, the Standard model will be in jeopardy. Other experiments at CERN may be just as important for Physics.

Today researchers from CERN will announce that neutrinos can travel faster than light. From Nature.com:

Particles Break Light Speed Limit

The OPERA detector is located 1400 meters underground and 730 km from CERN. OPERA is designed to detect neutrinos emanating from CERN experiments. By timing neutrino travel over this baseline, researchers can say with confidence that they have exceeded the speed of light. For a long time that speed was considered an inviolable constant. As followers of this blog know, c is slowing down. All things change with time, and someday a constant speed of light will be seen as just a stipulation.

Moon Tree

This tree in Monterey, California was grown from a seed carried by Apollo 14. Stuart Roosa carried the tiny seed as he orbited the Moon in the Command Module. After being raised at a nursery in Placerville, the seedling was planted here in 1976. The little seed has grown very quickly! Redwoods are the tallest living things on Earth, with the tallest known specimen reaching 114 meters.



The person by the tree had the honour of doing experiments with Lunar Sample 14003,96. This was a contingency sample brought back by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell from the surface. Shepard later turned the sample handle into the famous golf club. Apollo 14 was also one of the missions bringing a Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment. Data from LLRE is direct evidence that the speed of light is slowing down. From small seeds grow great trees.

The Farthest Quasar

In the June 30 issue of NATURE, astronomers report discovery of the most distant quasar ever found. Once these enormously bright lights were called quasi stellar objects because scientists had no idea how distant or bright they really are. ULAS J1120+0641 dates from a time 12.9 billion years ago, about 770 million years after the Big Bang. This quasar emits 60 trillion times as much light as our Sun! It is powered by a Black Hole of 2 billion solar masses.



Dating from a time when few stars existed, this quasar is far too old to have formed from a collapsing star. It's central Black Hole must have formed from direct collapse shortly after the Big Bang. Size of a primordial Black Hole is related to the speed of light. Discovery of this massively powerful quasar is one more bit of evidence that c was much faster in the early Universe.