Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!fred From: fred@mnetor.UUCP (Fred Williams) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: Re: Re: Light Message-ID: <1260@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 08:53:15 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1260 Posted: Thu Jul 11 08:53:15 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 11:25:57 EDT References: <344@sri-arpa.ARPA> <1157@mnetor.UUCP> <151@prometheus.UUCP> Reply-To: fred@mnetor.UUCP (Fred Williams) Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 42 Summary: In article <151@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) writes: >> >> The speed of light in a vacuum is constant. In a transparent >> material medium light is absorbed by atoms in its path. .. .. ... >> Maxwell's equations still hold in the empty space between >> the molocules, and the speed of light is invariant. >> Cheers, Fred Williams > >The speed of light is a constant in vacuum at given gravitational field density. >In general :-) it speeds up infinitely in a void where no matter exists >(gets lost). Or another way of looking at it is that the photon wave length >goes to infinity as the background gravity field goes to zero. Or another >way of thinking about it is the the framing rate (quantized time) goes to >infinity. > Exactly how would you go about measuring the speed of light with the background gravity field at zero? You would have to have an empty universe. How big would it be? How fast would time be flowing? There is very little that can be defined. >For people living at sea level it (the speed of light) even varies a little >because of the tide and the moon. So remember the laws of physics aren't >LAW they are consensus guesses OR consensus convention, because otherwise >things get complicated. > No one has ever detected variation in the speed of light. True, even relativity is still called a "theory" despite all the evidence to support it. Scientists are rather conservative about things like this. >In fact it kind of looks like gravity acts like it has some of the character- >Gravity is grainy. But grains of what? Well that's another story for >yet another episode in this saga of Reality vs Physics. Who will win?? > Paul What do you mean, "grainy"?!?! You're not one of these people who believes gravity is electromagnetic are you? If that were so there would be no gravity around a black hole. Cheers, Fred Williams