Starship Asterisk*

gmPhil wrote:A slightly silly question, maybe, but... If light/information was transmitted instantaneously, how different would the night sky look? e.g, would the Big Dipper still look like it does to us, or would it be a different "shape"? Presumably some stars known to be near the end of their life would no longer show at all.... Has anyone compiled a picture of the night sky under such conditions? This would (in a sense) represent the stars and other objects as they are in relation to us right now, rather than as they were X light years ago when the light from them left them.

Chris Peterson wrote:
If there was no limit on the speed of light, you'd introduce some secondary effects.

neufer wrote:If there was no limit on the speed of light,
you'd introduce one very large primary effect:

All wavelengths would be infinitely long

[i]Blink and you'll miss it, a million times over [b](Image: John Renstenzefa/Superstock)[/b][/i]

---

---

A nano-sized bar of glass encased in silver allows visible light to pass through at near infinite speed. The technique may spur advances in optical computing.

Metamaterials are synthetic materials with properties not found in nature. Metal and glass have been combined in previous metamaterials to bend light backwards or to make invisibility cloaks. These materials achieve their bizarre effects by manipulating the refractive index, a measure of how much a substance alters light's course and speed.

In a vacuum the refractive index is 1, and the speed of light cannot break Einstein's universal limit of 300,000 kilometres per second. Normal materials have positive indexes, and they transmit at the speed of light in a vacuum divided by their refractive index. Ordinary glass, for instance, has an index of about 1.5, so light moves through it at about 200,000 kilometres per second.

No threat to Einstein

The new material contains a nano-scale structure that guides light waves through the metal-coated glass. It is the first with a refractive index below 0.1, which means that light passes through it at almost infinite speed, says Albert Polman at the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. But the speed of light has not, technically, been broken. The wave is moving quickly, but its "group velocity" – the speed at which information is travelling – is near zero.

As a feat of pure research, Polman's group did a great job in demonstrating the exotic features of low-index materials, says Wenshan Cai of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the work.

Practical applications might also be in the offing. The metal component that reduces the refractive index also increases absorption, so the light can't travel far, says Polman. Still, the material could be used to transmit light rapidly over the very short distances in optical integrated circuits, he says.

• Physical Review Letters 110(1) 013902 (02 Jan 2013) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.013902

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
If there was no limit on the speed of light,
you'd introduce one very large primary effect:

All wavelengths would be infinitely long

And, of course, there would be a multitude of other major effects, given the prevalence of c as an element in the value of major constants, as well as an element in many fundamental theories. Basically, the Universe as we know it would fall apart completely if the value of c were to change significantly.

neufer wrote:Certainly a Big Bang Universe would never be able to cool off without radiation.

However, I would think that non-relativistic quantum mechanics would work fine in a steady state universe.

Atoms, molecules, dust, planets, "black" dwarfs & neutron stars should all get along fine without radiation (or magnetic fields), IMO.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
Certainly a Big Bang Universe would never be able to cool off without radiation.

However, I would think that non-relativistic quantum mechanics would work fine in a steady state universe.

Atoms, molecules, dust, planets, "black" dwarfs & neutron stars should all get along fine without radiation (or magnetic fields), IMO.

Perhaps. I wasn't really referring to a universe without radiation, but commenting on how many other constants and theoretical equations depend upon c being a finite constant.

Chris Peterson wrote:
What would happen to the rest mass of an electron?

Chris Peterson wrote:
What about energy-mass equivalence?

Chris Peterson wrote:
I think all of quantum mechanics, relativity, and subatomic physics would fall apart if c were infinite. That's why I proposed allowing the speed of light to be infinite, but not c. I think that would be a better fit to your radiationless universe.

Beyond wrote:
Hmm... if the light of the universe was only tachyon, the Romulans couldn't hide in their cloaked ships. But... would there be any Romulans in the first place? Or... even any Humans

• Or... even any Reptilians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<David Vaughan Icke (pronunciation: IKE, born 29 April 1952) is a British writer and public speaker, known for his conspiracy literature. At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.

Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis in The Biggest Secret (1999), which identified the Brotherhood as descendants of reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. He argues that the reptilians are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš. Icke argues that they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the reptilians can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form. They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy. Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.

Icke writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons, arguing that they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human, he writes. They have a powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye, " and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood. Richard Kahn and Tyson Lewis argue that the reptilian hypothesis may simply be Swiftian satire, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them.>>

saturno2 wrote:You can increase the speed c in particle accelerators or by passing light through
of special materials. But for short distances.

neufer wrote: The most noticeable such constant: the fine structure constant ~ 1/137 => 0.000

The world gets along just fine with a small fine structure constant;
having a zero small fine structure constant would make little difference.

Markus Schwarz wrote:

neufer wrote:
The most noticeable such constant: the fine structure constant ~ 1/137 => 0.000

The world gets along just fine with a small fine structure constant;
having a zero small fine structure constant would make little difference.

Having a vanishing fine structure constant means that there would be no electric charge.
Thus, it would make a big difference compared to the world as we know it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant wrote:
<<In physics, the fine-structure constant (usually denoted α) is a fundamental physical constant,
namely the coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction.

Being a dimensionless quantity, it has constant numerical value in all systems of units.

Arnold Sommerfeld introduced the fine-structure constant in 1916.

The current recommended value of is 1/137.035999074(44).>>

(A value of zero is NOT recommended )

Chris Peterson wrote:
You can change the speed of light, but you can't change c, which is a universal constant.

• A forward slash or vertical line will often suffice: c ¢