From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Wed Oct 06 1999 - 06:38:57 MDT
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991005114024.htm
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Source: University Of Toronto (http://www.utoronto.ca)
Contact: Steven De Sousa , News Services Officer
Phone: (416) 978-6949; Email: steven.desousa@utoronto.ca
Date: Posted 10/6/99
Speed Of Light May Not Be Constant, Physicist Suggests
A University of Toronto professor believes that one of the most sacrosanct
rules of 20th-century science -- that the speed of light has always been the
same - is wrong. Ever since Einstein proposed his special theory of
relativity in 1905, physicists have accepted as fundamental principle that
the speed of light -- 300 million metres per second -- is a constant and that
nothing has, or can, travel faster. John Moffat of the physics department
disagrees - light once travelled much faster than it does today, he believes.
Recent theory and observations about the origins of the universe would appear
to back up his belief. For instance, theories of the origin of the universe
-- the "Big Bang"- suggest that very early in the universe's development, its
edges were farther apart than light, moving at a constant speed, could
possibly have travelled in that time. To explain this, scientists have
focused on strange, unknown and as-yet-undiscovered forms of matter that
produce gravity that repulses objects.
Moffat's theory - that the speed of light at the beginning of time was much
faster than it is now - provides an answer to some of these cosmology
problems. "It is easier for me to question Einstein's theory than it is to
assume there is some kind of strange, exotic matter around me in my kitchen."
His theory could also help explain astronomers' discovery last year that the
universe's expansion is accelerating. Moffat's paper, co-authored with former
U of T researcher Michael Clayton, appeared in a recent edition of the
journal Physics Letters.
CONTACT: Bruce Rolston
U of T Public Affairs
(416) 978-6974
bruce.rolston@utoronto.ca
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