Is the Speed of Light Constant?

William writes:

There seems to be a great deal of consternation in the physics community about the possibility that CERN detected neutrinos moving (a tiny bit) faster than the speed of light. Now, the results are in dispute.

Does your theory allow FTL? Do you think the Sagnac Effect indicates that light travels at a speed *relative to the source*, rather than at a universally  constant velocity?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagnac_effect)

You talk frequently about the Aether. Do you think light is purely a wave, traveling as kinetic energy in a medium, or does it have some particle characteristics?

Thanks William for the questions.

I am not sure what to think about the CERN results. I have many doubts about whether neutrinos even exist. There is an investment of something like $10 billion dollars, with over 10,000 scientists involved in the CERN operation. With that amount of money and that amount of effort involved from folks committed to relativity, I cannot imagine that the greater than c result will be resolved in anything but Einstein’s favor.

Of course, in our book ("Universal Cycle Theory: Neomechanics of the Hierarchically Infinite Universe"), Steve and I show that there are no true constants in nature, just as there are no true identities a la relativism (All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things). This is a consequence of the infinite nature of the universe. Einstein and the folks at CERN, of course, use finity, the opposing assumption, which is consupponible with the indeterministic assumption of absolutism.

As you surmised, I believe light to be a wave within particles, just like sound is a wave in the particles that make up the atmosphere. The velocity of light, like the velocity of sound, is dependent on the characteristics of the medium that transmits it. That is why light slows tremendously when it travels through water. Aether density in water is much less than it is in intergalactic space. It should be even less in the underground experiment that was done at CERN, so I doubt that the >c measurement will be upheld. By the way, in our UCT book, Steve and I hypothesize that the high density of intergalactic aether allows for >c transmission, producing much of the galactic redshift. The redshift formerly attributed to the Doppler Effect and “expanding space” is really a function of the total distance that light has traveled through intergalactic space. See our interpretation of the “gravitational redshift” determined by Pound and Rebka (1960).

You asked: “Do you think the Sagnac Effect indicates that light travels at a speed *relative to the source*, rather than at a universally constant velocity?” Let me give a demonstration on how the medium works with respect to the velocity of the source. If I dropped a rock into a lake while sitting in a boat at rest, the waves generated would travel at a velocity v toward the shore. If I dropped the rock into the lake when the boat was moving at 100 mph, the waves generated would travel at velocity v toward the shore. The motion of the boat (source) would have nothing whatever to do with the ability of the medium (water) to transmit the waves produced by the rock. On the other hand, if someone in another boat moves toward my boat he will encounter the waves I generated much more quickly. The waves I generated might be 2 meters apart, and take 1 second to form each peak, but because he is coming toward me, he will encounter waves, not at 2 m/s, but at a rate that is somewhat less. If he was going away from me, he would encounter them at >2 m/s.

References

Pound, R. V., and Rebka, G. A., 1960, Apparent Weight of Photons: Physical Review Letters, v. 4, no. 7, p. 337-341.

Sagnac, G., 1913a, The demonstration of the luminiferous aether by an interferometer in uniform rotation: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 708–710.

-, 1913b, On the proof of the reality of the luminiferous aether by the experiment with a rotating interferometer: Comptes Rendus, v. 157, p. 1410–1413.