Friday, September 25, 2009

Gravitate Towards Light Speed?

A well known scientist, known for, among other things, his willingness to question the status quo, said before his death this January:

Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR — at least, not in favor of SR. Indeed, far from upsetting much of current physics, the main changes induced by this new perspective are beneficial to areas where physics has been struggling, such as explaining experimental evidence for non-locality in quantum physics, the dark matter issue in cosmology, and the possible unification of forces. Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau.

(Tom Van Flandern, Meta Research). Yes, taking physics to the next plateau is a noble purpose indeed, and it must be done if humanity is to exist long term in this cosmos.

One of the tenets of Ecocosmology is that species like ourselves who live on planets near central stars must develop physics, technology, and spacecraft that can attain light speed or near it, or morph into species which do not need to live on habitable planets near central stars.

And like Van Flandern pointed out, it has been pointed out on this blog that our current physics must reach another plateau, free from some of its current impairments, if we are to move to a new habitable planet near a central star.

Perhaps the breakthrough will come during the study of gravity which we really still know little about, compared to what we need to know.

No comments: