On Sun, Aug 5, 2018 at 6:42 AM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 05, 2018 at 04:56:42AM -0400, Richard Aiken wrote:
> Of course, not that many real world scientists support VSL, but it appears
> to solve a lot of basic problems.

Such theories solve some minor concerns with models of the almost
unobservable early universe, while throwing out practically everything
else we already model in the current universe.

The video didn't seem to be dealing with minor issues. It repeatedly used the image of a pencil balanced on it's point and a thrown ball never coming down to illustrate how the current state of the universe requires an *extremely* precise balance of forces, something hard to credit happening by random chance. But if the speed of light is variable over time, then this extreme precision becomes unremarkable. In such a case, vacuum produces or destroys mass and energy as needed, in order to maintain balance. It seems to me that it's much easier to credit the latter continuing process rather than the former incredible accident.
 
> [As I understand it, while the speed of light varies over time, the scale
> of time involved is so massive relative to the change in velocity that -
> for all practical purposes for us living people - the speed of light is
> effectively constant.]

All the theories I've seen so far have to explain why even small
variations aren't observed in modern times, since we do have rather
precise measurements with a wide variety of methodologies.  That
usually means radically redefining what is meant by "distance".

In searching for another video on this topic, I came across mention of the controversy of the removal of a TEDx talk which touched peripherally upon it. In reading about that controversy, I came across mention of the fact that many of these studies do show such variations. Apparently, these variations are simply written off as observational error. Yet when it was merely suggested that a specific study be conducted to *confirm* that this was in fact the case, said suggestion was roundly ignored.
 
In short, they're the sort of theories that cause more problems than
they solve.

Not sure what problems they cause, other than that they perturb the current orthodoxy.
 
  They aren't necessarily wrong, but they're mostly
complicated, ad-hoc matched to sketchy data, and there's no real
reason to believe them.

Sure there is! They let things like contragravity seem possible! :)
 
  What's more in all of the theories of this
type proposed seriously by physicists, the constraints and symmetries
of relativity still hold for all practical purposes.

Of course they do! Just as they do in the OTU, except for the specific exceptions of jump drive, gravity manipulation and psionics!

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
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"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.