Quantum vacuum as origin of light speed?

[lightarrow]

What do you think of the article published in the "European Physical Journal D" with the title:

"The quantum vacuum as the origin of the speed of light" ?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjd/e2013-30578-7

 

[Bill_K]

It's also here.

 

[greenflash]

abstract says "the propagation of a photon is a statistical process at scales much larger than the Planck scale. Therefore we expect its time of flight to fluctuate." How much statistical fluctuation (what % of c) do they predict?

 

[Bill_K]

The link I quoted is to the complete paper, not just the abstract, so you can read it for yourself. They predict that the variance of the propagation time T for a photon over a distance L is σ_T ≈ 5 10^-2 fs.m^−1/2

"We note that the fluctuations vary as the square root of the distance L of vacuum crossed by the photons and are a priori independent of the energy of the photons."

 

[ftr]

The link I quoted is to the complete paper, not just the abstract, so you can read it for yourself. They predict that the variance of the propagation time T for a photon over a distance L is σ_T ≈ 5 10^-2 fs.m^−1/2

"We note that the fluctuations vary as the square root of the distance L of vacuum crossed by the photons and are a priori independent of the energy of the photons."

So how does the theory match your post # 4 in this thread



https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=642675

 

[Bill_K]

That other post was to correct a misunderstanding someone had about SI units.

This theory is total crackpottery. According to an earlier paper by the same authors, their theory also does away with general relativity.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I wouldn't necessarily say crackpottery, although I might agree with "fringe". It at least makes an attempt to be consistent with existing measurements.

That said, I can't see how they can introduce a dispersion this large and have astronomical VLBI measurements work at all. HBT might also be a problem.