B Speed of Light Lowered in Vacuum: Consequences for Relativity?

PaulElu
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Hello !
A few days ago, I came across this article
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-30944584

And I was wondering if it has any consequences with the relativity ? I mean, in my mind, light velocity is supposed to be constant in vaccum, c0 = 3e08 [m/s] approximatively...

What do you think ?

Paul.
 
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It has no consequences for relativity. If you track down the paper they are referring to the last sentence of the abstract effectively says so, pointing out that structured waves do not, in general, travel at c.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6224/857
 
PaulElu said:
Hello !
What do you think ?
That article is (rather grotesquely) misdescribing the actual work and the conclusions drawn from it. This is a common problem with popular press descriptions of scientific work... it's as if they didn't even bother reading the abstract, which says "Our work highlights that, even in free space, the invariance of the speed of light only applies to plane waves.".

You will find a link to the actual paper here and much discussion of this and similar experiments in other threads here.
 
Thread 'Can this experiment break Lorentz symmetry?'

Thread 'Can this experiment break Lorentz symmetry?'

1. The Big Idea: According to Einstein’s relativity, all motion is relative. You can’t tell if you’re moving at a constant velocity without looking outside. But what if there is a universal “rest frame” (like the old idea of the “ether”)? This experiment tries to find out by looking for tiny, directional differences in how objects move inside a sealed box. 2. How It Works: The Two-Stage Process Imagine a perfectly isolated spacecraft (our lab) moving through space at some unknown speed V...
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Thread '1-Way Speed of Light'

Does the speed of light change in a gravitational field depending on whether the direction of travel is parallel to the field, or perpendicular to the field? And is it the same in both directions at each orientation? This question could be answered experimentally to some degree of accuracy. Experiment design: Place two identical clocks A and B on the circumference of a wheel at opposite ends of the diameter of length L. The wheel is positioned upright, i.e., perpendicular to the ground...
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Thread 'How can a black hole absorb matter?'

According to the General Theory of Relativity, time does not pass on a black hole, which means that processes they don't work either. As the object becomes heavier, the speed of matter falling on it for an observer on Earth will first increase, and then slow down, due to the effect of time dilation. And then it will stop altogether. As a result, we will not get a black hole, since the critical mass will not be reached. Although the object will continue to attract matter, it will not be a...
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