Prof. Brian Cox says that, from the space-time perspective, c was introduced so we could define how to compute distances in the time direction. As such, it is ingrained in the very fabric of spacetime.
He also says that rather than say that " the speed of light is a universal constant" we should say that "the speed of massless particles is a universal constant".
He says this because there is no fundamental reason in particle physics to suppose that a photon of light is a massless particle.
The possibility of photons having a non-zero rest mass is discussed in this paper http://web.ihep.su/library/pubs/tconf05/ps/c4-2.pdf, but don't ask me to explain it!
The speed of light was a point of speculation historically and measured by many of it's own interest, most notably by Michelson and Morely. It was the apparent invariance of the speed of light regardless of the proper motion of the observer that lead Einstein to his thought experiments that revealed special and general relativity. It is intrinsic to spacetime and perhaps the most fundamental of constants, although Heisenberg might disagree!
It's fascinating to read that everything (me, you and a dog named Boo) is travelling through spacetime at a speed c!
A moving clock runs slow because it uses up some of its quota of spacetime speed by moving through space, thus leaving less for its motion through time.
In other words, a moving clock doesn't move as quickly through time as a stationary companion. The stationary clock simply whizzes along in the time direction at the speed c because it has no movement through space.
A moving clock runs slow because it uses up some of its quota of spacetime speed by moving through space, thus leaving less for its motion through time.
In other words, a moving clock doesn't move as quickly through time as a stationary companion. The stationary clock simply whizzes along in the time direction at the speed c because it has no movement through space.
This is part of what I was getting at about observer's points of view.
To a photon, we and our universe don't even exist.Relative to itself, a photon is a perfect point in isolation, surrounded by nothing.
Perhaps everything we are and see, is one photon, across innumerable moments, its properties and place determined by the wave function of conscious observation.
We are because we think we are.
There is a large and unfathomable (to me) intellectual leap between a photon's point of view (why would it have one?) and the Universe is one photon. Newton, Hubble, Einstein and Hawking are all dead, so perhaps you could run this by one of Hawking's grad students...it really doesn't make any sense to me.
So this is what I call "bong hit" physics, not a reasonable extrapolation of our knowledge base or testable in any way...more like a mystical perspective than physics. If it makes sense to you so be it but physics is about theories that provide predictions that can be tested.
Cool. Show me the grand unified theory which works at all levels. I predict you can't.
The GUT is a quest far from fulfilled and perhaps never to be attained, what does that have to do with the Universe is one photon?
Its still considered a force. Van der Linde has challenged that view.
Here are the four forces - gravity is considerd one of them.
Fundamental forces of nature - WikiLectures
It's worth noting that scientists never claim that their current view of the universe is correct. However, with each new level of understanding, a more accurate picture emerges.
Our current knowledge of the universe is simply the collection of theories and hypotheses that have not yet been proved to be wrong!
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