End of the Universe?

 A Far Away Galaxy In Collapse

Early in 1979, Australian undergraduate Astronomy student Barry Setterfield thought it would be interesting to chart measurements of the speed of light since Dutch astronomer Olaf Roemer first measured it in the late 17th century.  Barry's  data included 163 measurements using 16 different methods spanning 300 years.

Early measurements tracked transits of the moons of Jupiter when it was near  Earth compared with observations when it was farther away on the other side of its' orbit.   The distance varies by 186 million miles over the year and the time varies by 16.66 minutes for near and far transits so this data could be used to compute the speed of light.

17^th century astronomical clocks were calibrated by stars daily.  Some wooden clocks were amazingly accurate as a result of constant tinkering with the horological technology of the time. The gears were made from South American hardwoods, that are oily and have the strength of mild steel.  With regular calibration they told near perfect time! 

These observations are repeatable and have been done by astronomers over hundreds of years, thousands of times.  Early astronomers kept meticulous notes and sketches still in existence.

Setterfield expected to see recorded speeds grouped around the accepted value for light speed, 186 thousand miles per second.  Half of the historic measurements should have been higher and half lower per the usual pattern seen in studies of this kind.  That was not the case.

The derived light speeds from the earliest of the measurements were consistently higher than today!  And, the older the observation, the greater the speed of light!  This is shocking in a universe where recent studies indicate expansion is accelerating!

Setterfield worked with statistician Trevor Norman, Ph.D, and demonstrated the speed of light was higher 100 years ago and it was seven percent higher in the 1700’s!  Dr. Norman confirmed the measurements were correct and the statistical confidence greater than 99%!

Setterfield and Norman published their results at Science Research Institute in July 1987 after extensive peer review.  It would be easy to dismiss two relatively unknown student researchers if theirs were lone voices with historically anomalous data, but that was not to be the case.

Since the SRI publication in 1987 researchers from Russia, Australia, Great Britain and the United States have published papers in prestigious journals questioning the constancy of the speed of light, long thought to have been a standard like many we in physics.

Meanwhile, theoretical work suggested the speed of light was 10^10^th  (One followed by ten zeros.) times faster than now immediately after the “Big Bang,”  1.86 x 10^15 miles/second which can be said to "approach infinity" subjectively.   Such a value is consistent with and confirming of the Setterfield, Norman work.

Presented such data physicists review the math reference books for some function and equations that fit the data and then turn it around to see what operators and expressions, are required and pick which could cause the data.  This is why we talk about 32 sub atomic particles many of which are only mysteries.  A math expression has told us there must be 32. And, the reason the curriculum for the Ph.D. in physics is virtually identical to the Ph.D in mathematics.

In this case the values plotted on a curve approximate the math function of the cosecant squared and there are very interesting implications on the nature of time and space for talented mathematicians and physicists to ponder.  But, for the moment we can say the fact of vanishing here and appearing at some place on the other side of the universe not only seems possible, but likely if our speculations have any substance!  This is travel at far greater than "Light Speed."  It simply jumps our rules, which means our rules need work.  Such is the reality of physical science.

The night sky is a trip through time in billions of years.  At the very least what we are speculating is that it expanded from origin by 10^10^th, 10 billion times according to some astronomers.  And, even more profoundly:  Time and the velocity of light are intertwined; the equations say at infinite light speed time “approaches zero!”  All speculative, but where are we if we are not dreaming? 

There have been challenges to the first Hubble red-shift idea, particularly by Dr. William Tifft who found shifts not to be uniform, per Hubble, but in quantum-like bands with nothing between.  And, that same banding has caused physicists to propose "Vanishing here and re-appearing there," "quantum leaps."  This is consistent with the sharp banding in a spectrogram where electrons move from one orbital to the next that way making "sharp" spectrographic bands and not "diffuse" bands they make when navigating through atomic space as we do in our space, i.e. by moving from here-to-there in a way that would make a mushy spectrogram,  This is an important clue to the nature of our universe. By Occam’s razor the simple fact-of-the-matter could be, “It’s happening so fast we cannot see it.”  Fine, but film records do not show anything so nothing is there as they are utterly continuous.

Are "quantum leaps" in stepped “c's” as indicated by math or is the math a consequence? According to the Setterfield Hypothesis declining light speeds would cause changes in the quantum states of atomic structure within these galaxies, including quantum shifts in the light emitted which is what  Dr. Tifft found!   His work has been confirmed by many astronomers!  We live in a far more bizarre universe than anyone has yet speculated in print.

Where time is tied to the velocity of light, symbolized by the letter "c," does this suggest there was no time before the Big Bang?  And, if we are from a time zero universe where everything happened all at once, could it be that everything has already happened?  And we are only a "movie" in the space-time  playback system?  A movie with no Oscar, but the prize of playing for 15 billion years?

Could we, as the Schroedinger-Heisingberg equations suggest, navigate time by changing our "when" much as electrons  change their address, vanishing at one and appearing at another while making only "sharp" lines on a spectrograph?   In a universe where nothing is wasted, but only changes form for the navigation of time. It may well be required to keep the "energy/mass" books balanced.

Setterfield believes after the creation of the universe, light speed declined following the cosecant squared curve.  Why?  He believes in the mid 1960's light speed reached a point where it was flat and reasonably constant.  He believes the speed still varies in waves, sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the accepted standard.  

This is the part we question as it seems so "un-universe-like" where such trends get on paths that are virtually ballistic, like a thrown ball or an artillery round which will ordinarily be on a planet, not in space.

After Dr. Tifft's initial publication, several astronomers devised experiments in attempts to challenge his concept. Among them two Scottish astronomers, Bruce Gutherie and William Napier from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh when they observed 300 galaxies in the mid 1990s. And, found confirmation of quantum banding in red-shift data.

They also had difficulty publishing their ideas and data. It has been reported the prestigious Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics refused publication until an additional set of observations of 97 spiral galaxies confirming the work came over the transom!  A sophisticated Fourier analysis of the initial 302 early data points, and a subsequent tranche of 399 data points strongly confirmed quantum shifts that could not be ignored by the science journals.

Despite this and additional observations by Bell in 2003, many scientists are still reluctant to vacate the theory red shifts are all caused by Doppler effects and have continued to claim the red-shift quantum data results by Tifft and others are due to research and data insufficiencies or errors.  

This is a weak counter argument at best, but so much astronomy rests on said shifts they do not want to lose those pillars of the science.  Anyone who has worked at that level will know dealing with all the personalities and quirky egos is at least as difficult as slogging through the higher math or herding cats.

It is intriguing to note the first measurement of light speed by Olaf Roemer in the late 17th century was actually done to disprove the Aristotelian belief that light speed was infinite.  Overwhelming and repeatable evidence of over 50 years accumulated before the scientific hierarchy of the time accepted evidence which was clear, compelling and quite unimpeachable gives a clear picture of the editorial inertia in science journal publishing.

A sample of the net values and range of data points is:

In 1738: 303,320 +/- 310 km/second (303,010 to 303,630)

In 1861: 300,050 +/- 60 km/second   (299,090 to 300,110)

In 1877: 299,921 +/- 13 km/second   (299,908 to 299,934)

In 2004: 299,792 km/second (the accepted constant)

From 1738 to 1861 the rate of decline was 26.6 km/sec.  From 1861 to 1877 it was 8.06 km/sec and from 1877 to 2004 it was 1.02 km/sec so not only is the speed of light declining, but the rate of decline is declining!

Over the 300 years from 1700 to 2000 it declined 2.3% and at that rate it will approach zero by 6500 AD,   We will likely not be extinct by that time so we will likely witness the end of the universe expansion and its’ reversal after 224 more generations of our species.

We can only speculate on the nature and experience of a contraction which would take another 14.5 billion years to accelerate everything to the speed of light and reverse the Big Bang into “The Big Crunch” or some such.  We will then have another “big bang”  and do it all over again!  But wait, there is another scenario:

Long before the end of our part of the universe, with the last flicker of light, our universe will have cooled to Absolute Zero.  Thousands of years before that a great darkness will prevail and time will have slowed too.  Man will have gone in the big freeze.  There is no species in space exempt from this ending. Our spirits will have fled to a place where all is "normal" if we can find another universe!  Or, we will suffer ultimate death in the end of the universe.

Adrian Vance

Excerpted from “Your Next Life” on sale at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats.