Part Two: The Speed of Light May Be Slowing Down

(More from the GM=tc^3 thread at Counterparts, whose moderators have much bigger brains than arxiv. The thread originator is nice enough not to draw too much attention to this writer. Some refer to "Krasinsky's Theory," though the linked paper and illustration came from this blog. In his papers, Krasinsky doesn't favour changing c. Someone should check the order of magnitude.)

PART TWO

Measurements of the distance between the Earth and the Sun have become increasingly precise in recent decades.

But a mystery has emerged, indeed several mysteries.

The astronomical unit (AU) is the mean distance from Earth to Sol. Astronomers use the AU as a baseline in calculating the parallax distance to nearby stars.

Recent experiments seem to indicate that the AU itself is growing.

By analyzing radio echoes from the planets, G.A. Krasinsky et al measured a change in the AU at about 7 cm/yr. (See G.A. Krasinsky and V.A. Brumberg, "Secular increase of astronomical unit from analysis of the major planets motions, and its interpretation," Celest. Mech. & Dyn. Astron. 90:267, 2004.) Other astronomers working independently have found a change of about 5 cm/yr.

Unlike Luna's slow drift from the Earth, growth in the AU can not be explained by tidal effects (gravitational tugging).

Recently Krasinsky and others have published a summary of Various anomalies that have been observed in the orbits of space craft placed in Solar orbit over the decades.

*"Fly-by anomaly." It has been observed at various occasions that satellites after an Earth swing–by possess a significant and unexplained velocity increase by a few mm/s.

*"The Pioneer Anomaly." An unexplained acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft as they approached the Sun.

If one factors in the slight change in AU over time, these anomalies essentially vanish. Moreover, tiny discrepancies in the measured distances to distant galaxies and quasars also vanish if a similar adjustment is made factoring in time.

Huh????

Why would there be any correlation between the Earth-Sun system drift and those of distant galaxies and quasars?

Lacking any gravitational explanation for the tiny growth, and taking into account that a similar observation seems to apply outside our solar system as well, Krasinsky and colleagues have suggested a radical solution.

The speed of light is slowing down over time.

Here is a somewhat technical explanation from Krasinsky:

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In summary, If the value of c was slowly reducing, the time for radio waves to return would increase over time, making the AU appear to grow. But Krasinsky and colleagues have also drafted a theorem to determine the size of the effect.

GM = tc^3

to solve for c we use:

c(t) = (GM)^{1/3} t^{-1/3}

Using 14 billion years as the age of the universe, and factoring an AU of 149 million kilometers, that distance will appear to increase by:

-(149E9 meters)/(42 Gyr) = 3.5 cm/yr

This 3.5 cm change in AU per year is in the ball park of the effects being observed in our Solar System, the distance anomalies to distant objects and even the behaviour of black holes.

To refine these results we just need a more accurate age for the universe. Our present estimates are a bit fuzzy, and range from 13-16 billion years. More accurate data for t will yield more accurate measures.

Radiometric data depends on the speed of light. A changing c will affect all such measurements in approximately the same proportion.

This hypothesis is not only simple and elegant, if it holds up to further scrutiny it will eliminate the need for the increasingly serpentine Inflation Theory, dispense with the need for Dark Energy and provide a unified explanation for various anomalous observations of different parts of the universe. There is no need for Inflatons (particles that make space bigger) or Scaler Fields (a headache-inducing concept I won't bother explaining)or any of the other mathematical hoops the Big Bang model has had to jump through since 1980.

In any significant measure, the need for these Ptolemaic elaborations go away with the application of GM = tc^3.



The predictions of Inflation Theory have also failed to match observations of angular correlation between objects in the universe. According to the Inflation model, the universe should be topographically flat. If you plot the corresponding angles of various objects in the universe on a large scale, the result would be a neat "s-curve."

Neither the COBE or WMAP sattelites have found such a relationship. Instead, the corresponding angles flat-line as they would if the topography of the universe was curved. If the value of c decreases over time, the space-time curvature would correspond to actual observation much better.

Lunar Laser Ranging data (derived from lasers being bounced off a mirror left behind on the Moon by the Apollo program) correlate to the change in AU, as do observations of Type Ia supernovae just outside the galactic disk. As measurements become more accurate, the similarity of all these anomalies to each other is becoming clearer.

This theory is falsifiable by fine-tuned measurements over time, while Inflation Theory has become increasingly a dead-end avenue.

When the chips are down, c may be demoted from the status of a fundamental constant to some kind of hypervariable.

Ah, science marches on.