A century after Albert Einstein published his most famous ideas, physicists commemorated the occasion by trying to demolish one of them.
Yesterday astronomers were to tell experts gathering at Warwick University in England 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.
fundamental
"The findings suggest that there is a more fundamental theory of the way that light and matter interact; and that special relativity, at its foundation, is actually wrong," Murphy said.
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.
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," Murphy added.
Murphy's team did not measure a change in the speed of light directly.
light from quasars
Instead, they analyzed flickering light from the far-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 that the way certain wavelengths of light are absorbed has changed.
electromagnetic force
If true, it means that something called the fine structure constant -- a measure of the strength of electromagnetic force that holds atoms together -- has changed by about 0.001 percent since the Big Bang.
The speed of light depends on the fine structure constant.
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.
His conclusions are based on work carried out in 2001 with John Webb at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
disputed
Other astronomers disputed the findings, and a smaller study using a different telescope last year suggested no change.
Murphy's team is analyzing the results from the largest experiment so far, using light from 143 bright stellar objects.
Einstein's burst of creativity in 1905 stunned his contemporaries. He published three papers that changed the way scientists viewed the world, including the special theory of relativity that led to his deduction E=mc2.
The Physics2005 conference, set up by the Institute of Physics as part of its Einstein Year initiative, runs until Thursday.
In a market in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, customers flock to Ache Moussa’s stall to have their long plaits smeared with a special paste in an age-old ritual. Each strand of hair, from the root to the end, is slathered in a traditional mixture of cherry seeds, cloves and chebe seeds, the most important ingredient of all. Users say the recipe makes their hair grow longer and more lustrous. Local and natural hair products are gaining popularity across Africa as people turn away from commercial cosmetics. Moussa applies the mixture and shapes the client’s locks into a gourone — a traditional hairstyle consisting of
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
‘APOCALYPTIC : An UN official said that Lebanon was ‘the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints,’ and a conflict that involved it would draw in Syria and other nations Israel on Wednesday said that it does not want war in Lebanon, but could send its neighbor “back to the Stone Age.” The border between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants since the attack on Israel by Hezbollah’s ally Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which triggered the war in Gaza. Fears those exchanges could escalate have grown in the past few weeks as cross-border attacks intensified and after Israel revealed it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive, prompting new threats from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said