This winter in the Northern Hemisphere is a bit more lively than in previous years, mainly because the variable speed of light theory was exposed online.
To be honest, the science bloggers are all bewildered.
In the past, such groundbreaking, unconventional scientific discoveries usually appeared on preprint sites like sarxiv/. In other words, those that have not yet undergone peer review.
But this ti, it was first published as a letter in the world-class journal "Science"—in the post-physics era of variable speed of light.
Corresponding author Edward Witten, submission unit Xilin Mathematics Research Institute.
Okay, after all, it’s not an article. And as everyone knows, letters of this kind, as long as they are issued by academic giants, basically all get published directly, sotis even without review, but this also ans that they do not have authority, nor are they necessarily correct.
Even if the author of the letter is a recipient of both the Fields dal and the Nobel Prize in Physics, since it is published as a letter, it may not be entirely credible.
But that’s alright, a few days after this letter was published in the "Science" magazine, the famous "Physical Review D" published a paper by CERN physicists, which explained in detail the variable speed of light using particle reactions under a high-energy collider.
The style of the paper is also the sa as previous CERN papers; just listing the author nas takes up a full three pages, with a total of 2,327 authors, second only to a previous paper on the discovery of the Higgs boson.
This was already explosive enough. Not to ntion that now there’s Dou Dou on the global internet.
On the day the paper was published in "Physical Review D," Dou Dou imdiately forwarded the link to the paper, and then attached a sentence from the paper: "Thanks to Academician Qiao Ze from the Institute of Mathematics and Physics of Xilin, whose Q theory helped us verify this astounding discovery.
Undoubtedly, the variable nature of light speed will beco the greatest discovery of this century and will have a profound impact on the developnt of future physics. Perhaps from today, physics will truly enter the post-physics era."
Then the internet exploded.
Overseas situations are not discussed for now, but Huaxia is genuinely promoting nine-year compulsory education very seriously, and it’s being promoted thoroughly, ensuring through legislation the right of young people to receive high-quality education.
Also, during the middle school phase, students formally encounter the physical course, with optics as a compulsory content in the middle school physics examination.
Although when teaching the optics part in middle school, teachers usually do not specifically elaborate on the theory of special relativity, ntioning concepts like inertial fras or non-inertial fras, they will certainly ntion that the speed of light is a constant, approximately 300,000 kiloters per second.
Advanced physics teachers might also tell middle school students so small stories about how Einstein discovered the principle of constant light speed.
For example, how this once-vaunted physicist highly praised his proposal of the constant speed of light principle, marking the watershed between relativity and Newtonian classical physics.
And such a concise explanation is most morable because it’s easy to rember. Regardless of how well you learn in the optics course or whether you can solve the problems, the constancy of the speed of light is only a four-word phrase that’s frequently emphasized by teachers, which naturally becos subconscious knowledge.
However, it now turns out that this fundantal principle of physics, which everyone beyond a certain level knows, has been proven wrong, causing a very intense reaction.
"Damn, I thought Dou Dou was heading towards the ’dumbing down’ lane, but then I suddenly realized the paper is really by CERN physicists, and it even includes nas of several Nobel laureates, so what on earth is happening in this world?"
"I’ve found the reason why I couldn’t get into Xilin University of Technology; turns out it’s because my middle school physics teacher misled . If he had told in middle school that the speed of light is variable, I might have had no problem getting into Xilin’s physics program, right?"
"Brothers, quick, here’s another coffin lid that can’t stay down!"
...
Dou Dou’s comnt section remains a playground for jokesters.
Even though this is quite a serious matter academically, for Dou Dou’s mainstream audience of fun-loving followers, whether the speed of light changes or not does not really affect them.
Of course, many people enjoy brainstorming in odd directions, leaving all kinds of strange questions in the comnts section, like the top comnt under Dou Dou’s tweet in terms of sharing and response.
"So, I asked Little Zhi to roughly interpret that paper for , and it said the variable speed of light has been verified via the Large Hadron Collider experint, with the speed of light gradually slowing down. I just want to ask, won’t those telecom operators use this paper as an excuse for slow internet speeds in the future by just blaming it all on the speed of light?"
This comnt, once posted, imdiately overshadowed all the quick-witted comnts.
"Damn, dude, quickly delete it, make sure neither Mobile nor Telecom sees this, anyway, I’m not using Unicom."
"A genius! Quickly report to the PR departnt of our mighty Unicom!"
"My advice is: discharge imdiately!"
...
The reason why this comnt beca so popular also has another reason because soone in the comnts below posted a news screenshot captured from a foreign website, with the Chinese translation directly attached.
Reportedly, a telecommunications company in the United States nad Comcast issued a statent in Oregon, roughly aning that the reason many netizens in Oregon have recently experienced lagging internet speeds has finally been found. Scientists have confird that this is due to the problem of light speed slowing, causing network fluctuations, which is difficult to resolve...
What is even more amusing is that the screenshot shows the date of this statent was yesterday, and it was even directly posted on an officially verified Twitter account.
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