“Theconstancy,orotherwise,ofthespeedoflight” DanielJ.Farrell&J.Dunning-Davies, DepartmentofPhysics, UniversityofHull, HullHU67RX, England.
[email protected] Abstract. Newvaryingspeedoflight(VSL)theoriesasalternativestotheinflationary model of the universe are discussed and evidence for a varying speed of light reviewed.WorklinkedwithVSLbutprimarilyconcernedwithderivingPlanck’s black body energy distribution for a gas-like aether using Maxwell statistics is consideredalso.DoublySpecialRelativity,amodificationofspecialrelativityto accountforobserverdependentquantumeffectsatthePlanckscale,isintroduced and it is found that a varying speed of light above a threshold frequency is a necessityforthistheory. 1 1. Introduction. SincetheSpecialTheoryofRelativitywasexpoundedandaccepted,ithasseemedalmost tantamount to sacrilege to even suggest that the speed of light be anything other than a constant.ThisissomewhatsurprisingsinceevenEinsteinhimselfsuggestedinapaperof1911 [1] that the speed of light might vary with the gravitational potential. Interestingly, this suggestion that gravity might affect the motion of light also surfaced in Michell’s paper of 1784[2],wherehefirstderivedtheexpressionfortheratioofthemasstotheradiusofastar whose escape speed equalled the speed of light. However, in the face of sometimes fierce opposition, the suggestion has been made and, in recent years, appears to have become an accepted topic for discussion and research. Much of this stems from problems faced by the ‘standardbigbang’modelforthebeginningoftheuniverse.Problemswiththismodelhave