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This article in "Guardian"
looks like usual nonsense which uneducated
reporters write about science in the mass media.

On the philosophical question stated below,
a recommend the book by Steven Hawking
"Brief History of Time".

Steven Hawking is a serious physicist, but he wrote
a good book on the subject for the "general public",
(which means that the book contains no equations,
only English words and pictures) actually
it is a bestseller for many years.

Alex.

On Fri, 6 May 2005, Robert Eno wrote:

> At the risk of initiating an off-topic metaphysical discussion, this begs
> the question:
>
> What is time?
>
> Robert
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Peter Fogg" 
> To: 
> Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 3:03 AM
> Subject: Time slowing down?
>
>
> > This article was originally published in Britain's 'The Guardian'
> > newspaper.
> > This excerpt comes from Melbourne's 'The Age'
> >
> > http://www.theage.com.au/news/Science/Experts-challenge-Einstein-over-speed-
> > of-light/2005/04/11/1113071911054.html
> >
> > copied here since the online version may require registration before
> > access.
> >
> > "A century after Albert Einstein published his most famous ideas,
> > physicists
> > are commemorating the occasion by trying to demolish one of them.
> > Astronomers were to tell experts gathering at Warwick University in
> > England
> > overnight to celebrate the anniversary of the great man's "miracle year"
> > that the speed of light - Einstein's unchanging yardstick that underpins
> > his
> > special theory of relativity - might be slowing down.
> > Michael Murphy, of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University,
> > said:
> > "We are claiming something extraordinary here. The findings suggest there
> > is
> > a more fundamental theory of the way that light and matter interact; and
> > that special relativity, at its foundation, is actually wrong."
> > Einstein's insistence that the speed of light was always the same set up
> > many of his big ideas and established the bedrock of modern physics. Dr
> > Murphy said: "It could turn out that special relativity is a very good
> > approximation but it's missing a little bit. That little bit may be the
> > doorknob to a whole new universe and a whole new set of fundamental laws."
> > His team did not measure a change in the speed of light directly. Instead,
> > they analysed flickering light from very distant celestial objects called
> > quasars.
> > Their light takes billions of years to travel to Earth, letting
> > astronomers
> > see the fundamental laws of the universe at work during its earliest days.
> > The observations, from the Keck telescope in Hawaii, suggest the way
> > certain
> > wavelengths of light are absorbed has changed.
> > If true, it means that a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic
> > force that holds atoms together has changed by about 0.001 per cent since
> > the big bang. The speed of light depends on this measure. If one varies
> > with
> > time then the other probably does too, meaning Einstein got it wrong. If
> > light moved faster in the early universe than now, physicists would have
> > to
> > rethink many fundamental theories.
> > Dr Murphy's conclusions are based on work carried out in 2001 with John
> > Webb
> > at the University of NSW. Other astronomers disputed the findings, and a
> > smaller study using a different telescope last year suggested no change.
> > Dr Murphy's team is analysing the results from the largest experiment so
> > far, using light from 143 bright stellar objects."
> >
> > - Guardian
>

   

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