Two Questions About The Speed Of Light

[gordyb]

1st what do people think of the VSL variable speed of light if this was the case in the early universe could light have escaped from black holes or were black holes not around when the VSL was supposed to have been.

2nd As the theory goes if galaxies are twice as far away they are receeding twice as fast and so on, you will get to a point where they will be travelling faster than the speed of light or is this the space in between the galaxies moving faster at the speed of light as in say for example cosmic inflation.

[Demonperformer]

Not sure about 1, but 2 - yes it is the fabric of space-time itself which is expanding, which is not limited by the sol.

[gordyb]

I asked the questions on a programme i saw about João Magueijo's big bang did anyone else see it?

[acey]

1st... could light have escaped from black holes or were black holes not around when the VSL was supposed to have been...

2nd ...they will be travelling faster than the speed of light or is this the space in between the galaxies moving faster at the speed of light as in say for example cosmic inflation.

I didn't see the programme but I've read Magueijo's book. He started on VSL (with Andy Albrecht) more than 10 years ago and I don't know what sort of support the theory currently has. It would not imply that light could escape from (inside) black holes, though they would have been around. To the second question, you're right to say it's space expanding, not galaxies moving faster than light. The relevance of VSL is that the size of the observable universe (i.e. distance to the "horizon") would have been larger in the past than otherwise thought (because light travelled faster). This gives an alternative way of solving the "horizon problem", conventionally solved using inflation.

Horizon problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Inflation (cosmology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Variable speed of light - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia