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From: Mark Cashman <mcashman@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 02:23:23 -0700
Fwd Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 08:28:39 -0400
Subject: Re: Zeta Notso Ridiculous


>  From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>, on 9/25/97 8:59 PM:
>  Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 21:05:09 +0100
>  To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>  From: Sean Jones <tedric@tedric.demon.co.uk>
>  Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: Zeta Notso Ridiculous

>  I am one of the people that believes that the speed of light is not
>  constant. My reasoning for this is simple.

>  When any lesser medium passes through a greater medium it will lose
>  speed due to friction. IE  if a bullet was to pass through water it
>  would slow up a lot quicker that when it passes through air.

>  Well light is a lesser medium and the universe is a greater medium.
>  However the greater medium also possesses within itself greater and
>  lesser mediums. IE "empty space" and a solar system.
>  Therefore if a "point" of light left point A and travelled through
>  "empty space" it would travel faster and further than a other "point" of
>  light that travels through galaxy's would'nt it?
>  We could add further complications into this equation like the effect
>  that black holes have on light.

Thanks for raising this issue, Sean, which I'm sure can generate a number
of misunderstandings.

To the best efforts of science, the speed of light has been demonstrated to
be a constant. In fact, this is at the root of some of the weirder predictions
of relativity, all of which have been tested over and over again, and proven
by repetition and constant challenge to be effectively true. That is one of
the most important foundations for accepting the speed of light as a
constant. If it were not, the various effects observed in relativity, including
the lengthening and shortening of objects traveling at high relative speeds,
would probably not be observed. But they are.

There's no question that the nature of light defies common sense. A photon
of light maintains the same apparent speed whether you travel toward it
or away from it. No other phenomenon in the universe demonstrates this
odd behavior.

Photons are odd objects, which are in some ways like waves and in other
ways like particles. However, they do not experience slowing due to
distance travelled, or any other effect. The only spatial effect which light
shows is variation in wave frequency as one approaches or goes away
from a light source. This Doppler effect is the foundation of the work which
demonstrates the expansion of the universe. Light can also be diverted
or its frequency changed by a number of other things, such as changes
in the density of the medium, gravitational, and electromagnetic fields.
But again, none of this changes its speed.

------
Mark Cashman, creator of The Temporal Doorway at
http://www.geocities.com/~mcashman
- Original digital art, writing, and UFO research -
Author of SF novels available at...
http://www.infohaus.com/access/by-seller/The_Temporal_Doorway_Storefront
------