How constant are constants?

I just heard someone suggest that the speed of light had changed
over time by checking older books that used to document the
readings each year. He also said that Gravity did the same thing.
How would we know, do we measure these thing all of time for
variations? This was news to me, I didn't think that occurred, does
it?

@kellyjay said
I just heard someone suggest that the speed of light had changed
over time by checking older books that used to document the
readings each year. He also said that Gravity did the same thing.
How would we know, do we measure these thing all of time for
variations? This was news to me, I didn't think that occurred, does
it?

Some physicists believe the speed of light does change. The article linked below offers some insights:

https://www.livescience.com/29111-speed-of-light-not-constant.html

@kellyjay said
I just heard someone suggest that the speed of light had changed
over time by checking older books that used to document the
readings each year. He also said that Gravity did the same thing.
How would we know, do we measure these thing all of time for
variations? This was news to me, I didn't think that occurred, does
it?

Some physicists have tried to look if certain (seemingly) constants of nature are varying in time. Thus far no conclusive evidence has been found that this is indeed the case. Currently, the consensus that the speed of light does not change is so strong that is has been taken to be defined as a certain value, which effectively sets length scales. So if the speed of light did change, the definition of the foot (for example) would change along with it.

@kazetnagorra said
Some physicists have tried to look if certain (seemingly) constants of nature are varying in time. Thus far no conclusive evidence has been found that this is indeed the case. Currently, the consensus that the speed of light does not change is so strong that is has been taken to be defined as a certain value, which effectively sets length scales. So if the speed of light did change, the definition of the foot (for example) would change along with it.

So this means we may not be stuck with infinity, forever? 😀

@kazetnagorra said
Some physicists have tried to look if certain (seemingly) constants of nature are varying in time. Thus far no conclusive evidence has been found that this is indeed the case. Currently, the consensus that the speed of light does not change is so strong that is has been taken to be defined as a certain value, which effectively sets length scales. So if the speed of light did change, the definition of the foot (for example) would change along with it.

I would think that this would be enormously meaningful and important, if there are fluctuations wouldn’t weather and a host of other events be dramatically affected? If true I wonder why it is not being studied? If they are studying these (constant variables) lol it doesn’t seem to make the news often. Sorry just rambling about something I haven’t heard of before.

@kellyjay said
I would think that this would be enormously meaningful and important, if there are fluctuations wouldn’t weather and a host of other events be dramatically affected? If true I wonder why it is not being studied? If they are studying these (constant variables) lol it doesn’t seem to make the news often. Sorry just rambling about something I haven’t heard of before.

It is being studied, and if there were dramatic effects, they'd be found already. This isn't about possible "dramatic" effects, but tiny effects over long times.

@kellyjay said
I would think that this would be enormously meaningful and important, if there are fluctuations wouldn’t weather and a host of other events be dramatically affected? If true I wonder why it is not being studied? If they are studying these (constant variables) lol it doesn’t seem to make the news often. Sorry just rambling about something I haven’t heard of before.

The changes, if any, are in parts per trillion or more, not going to effect anything in OUR universe. Any changes noted from previous generations of scientists is more due to poorer technology to measure and we do much much better at it now so the newer numbers are more accurate anyway. For instance, now we have atomic clocks accurate to less than a second of the entire age of the universe so we can make EXTREMELY accurate readings of constants like the fine constant or c.
Clocking the change of time rate flow is so accurate now that we can see the difference in time flow of an atomic clock moved up or down a meter or less (time flow slows down the deeper you get into a gravity well, so here on Earth, if you go down say a mine shaft, time goes a tiny bit slower than up on the surface. That has been measured for decades. But now we can move the clock up CENTIMETERS and see the change in time flow. THAT is accurate timekeeping.

@kazetnagorra said
It is being studied, and if there were dramatic effects, they'd be found already. This isn't about possible "dramatic" effects, but tiny effects over long times.

Like I said this is all news to me. I would have thought with gravity even very small changes might effect weather or tides, but I suppose that would depend on what small is.

@kellyjay said
Like I said this is all news to me. I would have thought with gravity even very small changes might effect weather or tides, but I suppose that would depend on what small is.

I have the feeling a change of one part in a trillion won't effect anything WE can measure about the planet Earth.

@sonhouse said
I have the feeling a change of one part in a trillion won't effect anything WE can measure about the planet Earth.

I don't know how often it is measured and where. I suppose if it fell or rose in
intensity how great an affect that would be, would also have something to do
with how wide spread it is too. If it’s a small change in a local area no biggie,
throughout the planet the affects could be more significate. If we applied pressure
to an outdoor pool it would cause all the water to move, how much would it take
to affect a warm front, or something else if warm fronts are affected by gravity?
Interesting to think about, again this is new to me. If true however its been going
on forever.

@wolfe63 said
So this means we may not be stuck with infinity, forever? 😀

No, just until the unending ends. 🙂

@kellyjay said
I don't know how often it is measured and where. I suppose if it fell or rose in
intensity how great an affect that would be, would also have something to do
with how wide spread it is too. If it’s a small change in a local area no biggie,
throughout the planet the affects could be more significate. If we applied pressure
to an outdoor pool it would cause all the water t ...[text shortened]... y?
Interesting to think about, again this is new to me. If true however its been going
on forever.

The only thing that would change would be figuring out WHY there would be such changes and finding answers would add to our knowledge of how the universe works and that may lead to discoveries that can effect life here on Earth.
Suppose we go through all that science and find an easy way to go a trillion times the speed of light or figure out worm holes so we don't even NEED to go faster than light or some such developments.

That would be far more important than any tiny variations affecting Earth and humans. We know there is a variation of sunlight in something like 400,000 year cycles and such but we think we have figured out just what causes that and it is not because gravity changed or such but instead, the mixture of the movement of all the masses in the solar system gravitationally effecting the orbit and maybe the tilt of Earth but that is known stuff, not coming from ultra tiny changes in the strength of gravity itself.

BTW, if we assume we actually have a trillion c space drive, going out 50 billion light years and back is STILL a trip of more than one month!

@sonhouse said
The only thing that would change would be figuring out WHY there would be such changes and finding answers would add to our knowledge of how the universe works and that may lead to discoveries that can effect life here on Earth.
Suppose we go through all that science and find an easy way to go a trillion times the speed of light or figure out worm holes so we don't even NE ...[text shortened]... ion c space drive, going out 50 billion light years and back is STILL a trip of more than one month!

I didn't think anything would right away, but if these did change you'd almost have
to monitor the planet to see if they changed over all or in specific places for how
long and at what degree. I cannot help but feel even slight changes could possibly
affect weather giving us a little more intel to go on in predicting it, just a thought.

@handyandy said
Some physicists believe the speed of light does change. The article linked below offers some insights:

https://www.livescience.com/29111-speed-of-light-not-constant.html

The articles referenced do not claim that variations have actually been observed/measured. The cited articles propose hypothetical models only.

Some very small variations have been observed, but I cannot now cite the reference because it was a few years ago that I read something about this. They involved experiments in which light beams were passing from one medium to another (such as air into optic fibre network cables or something like that). The variations occurred over a very small distance (like a few photon radii) over a very small period of time (something on the order of billionths of a second), and the hypothesis was that the variations were either an artefact of the tolerances of the measuring instruments, or it was some sort of 'bunching-up' effect that incoming photons from the air were 'pushing' against the photons which had already entered the glass fibre medium and creating something like 'pressure' which temporarily hyper-accelerated the photons already in the glass.

This would have no impact whatsoever on the size or the age of the universe in any macroscopically observable manner.

@moonbus said
The articles referenced do not claim that variations have actually been observed/measured. The cited articles propose hypothetical models only.

Some very small variations have been observed, but I cannot now cite the reference because it was a few years ago that I read something about this. They involved experiments in which light beams were passing from one medium to anot ...[text shortened]... o impact whatsoever on the size or the age of the universe in any macroscopically observable manner.

I will post what I watched to bring this up, but I'd have to warn you its at the end
and this guy is going to say some controversial things long before you get there.
He went back into some published journals where they were measuring and
publishing the data, there were changes some large going in both directions.

He went to a place where they studied constants and talked to the guy in charge
and discussed this with him. He acknowledged the changes and said it wasn't
something they liked so they made changes to take care of it. If you want to see
it the link is below. I can only image the link will start a few conversations if it is
watched.

Rupert Sheldrake The Science Delusion (just so you know what to except)
YouTube