Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation Paperback – June 25, 2003

This book was a very interesting read for the most part. For me, its strongest element is the description of the academic environment, in this case focused on cosmology in physics departments. Much of this critical attitude will be recognized by academics in other fields, even outside the world of science. Magueijo, a professor of cosmology with excellent credentials, tells an often entertaining story in bold and frequently irreverent language, reflecting the frustration that arises from academic intolerance and bureaucratic distractions. To be sure, it is not about just grinding an axe, for there is humor here and, I felt, a reasonably balanced treatment of the material. There are a number of interesting anecdotes about famous scientists. On the science side, I found the book to be inconsistent in the level of audience it addresses, sometimes quite elementary so as to be all inclusive, while at other times popping into and over difficult concepts. To be fair, that may be unavoidable. This is not a textbook by any means, nor does it pretend to be. That is, it does not present a highly organized progression of concepts leading to a final theory, for example. However, I recommend it based mostly on the narrative quality of a good story about doing science in the real world. And, in this case, that meant challenging part of the theology, I'll call it, of the big bang.

I first became interested in this book after seeing a TV special hosted by Joao Magueijo on the subject of VSL or Variable Speed of Light. The show was very interesting, so I then proceeded to determine if Joao had written any books on the subject and found this one.

First of all let me say that this is not a book presenting a detailed analysis of the theory of VSL, rather it is about the journey that Joao has taken over the years in the pursuit and development of this controversial idea, and it appears to have been an interesting one at that.

Joao begins by discussing some interesting information about Einstein and gravity. In chapter five, he gets into the cosmological horizon, homogeneity of the universe, galaxy expansion, space time geometries, Omega, critical density, Planck time, and the cosmological constant or Lambda. In chapter six, he discusses inflation and its relationship to the flatness and horizon problems. All of this leads up to the final chapters where we our presented with a more detailed discussion of the development of VSL. Here we are introduced to concepts such as quantum gravity, M-theory and cosmic strings.

As we learn more about various cosmological concepts, Joao delineates his journey through the "system" as he tries to introduce his concept of VSL. I found it to be a very interesting and fascinating journey - a recommended read if you have any interest in physics and cosmology.

This is a fascinating story of a young cosmologist who dared to challenge Einstein's most sacred laws of physics; the speed of light in vacuum is a universal constant. In human experience; space and time are perceived as universally rigid, but Einstein proposed that space & time; space-time could expand or contract but speed of light remains unchanged. On occasions many physicists have wondered, and debated that Varying Speed of Light (VSL) is an alternative explanation to inflation theory. A notable proponent is John Moffat who first expressed this idea to none other than father of relativity himself. Einstein responded by saying that "Every individual has to retain his way of thinking if he does not want to get lost in the maze of possibilities. However, nobody is sure of having taken the right road.... myself least of all." At another instance, Einstein said that "We are standing in front of a closed box which cannot open, and we try to discuss what is inside and what is not." The idea of VSL proposed by this author is not new, but he is one of those who made the theory a little more mainstream in physics. The first half of the book (chapter 2 - 6) discusses the current cosmological problems and inflation theory in layman terms, and in the second half, the author discusses his personal struggles in the pursuit of his controversial theory. He unleashes his mind and heart on any thing that matters; scientific bureaucracy, peer reviewing process, research-grant award mechanism, science administrators, and fellow scientists. The academic rat race is vividly explained along with his leftist and liberal leanings on political and social issues. He expresses cynicism against American and Russian scientists; a reflection of British educational system which refuses to forget 1776 and uncomfortable to admit scientific and technical superiority of another country.

The horizon effect of earth is due to its curvature, but the horizon of the universe is due to two factors; a definite age of the universe (13.7 billion years) and speed of light is constant. A consequence of this is when the universe was one second old, when it is known to have started expanding; the radius of the horizon was 300,000 kilometers. This suggests that the universe at its infancy had regions that did not have direct contact with each other, and thus can not explain the observed homogeneity of the universe (horizon problem). The second puzzle in cosmology is the flatness problem; the fate of the universe due to the dynamics of expansion, which results in three possible shapes; spherical, hyper-spherical (saddle shaped), and flat surface. When forces of expansion and gravity of the universe are matched, then the universe will neither collapse in a crunch nor does it expand endlessly leaving the universe in dark vacuum. This balanced state of the universe is highly unstable because the two opposing forces are nearly matched, when the natural tendency is that either the force of expansion or gravity takes control of the universe to increase entropy (Second law of Thermodynamics). This seemingly peculiar state of the universe is not clearly explained by the current cosmological models which call for a reexamination and perhaps reconsideration of existing theories.

VSL Model; at critical density of the universe, the density of matter that produces gravitational energy is equal to the density of matter producing expansion. In a closed universe (spherical shape), the mass density is above critical density, therefore gravitation supersedes; simultaneously the energy is lost due to a decrease in the speed of light under VSL model (correspondingly mass also decreases since E = MC(2)). Similarly for an open universe, energy is created (correspondingly mass also increases) from vacuum in the wake of expansion from an increase in the speed of light. Thus the universe gravitates to a flat universe in both closed and open situations but violating law of energy conservation (First law of Thermodynamics), because the total energy of the universe did not remain constant. VSL also explains the horizon problem. In VSL model; regions of the universe, which are denser will loss energy, whereas energy will be created in a sparse regions of the universe thereby maintaining homogeneity.

One of the properties of the cosmological constant is that vacuum energy is not diluted by expansion in contrast to matter and radiation. It is gravitationally repulsive and the energy density remains constant upon dilution: Expansion dilutes the lambda energy, but tension created by expansion makes up for the energy dilution thus balancing the power of expansion and gravity and thus keeping the universe flat. Hence vacuum energy theoretically must dominate the universe during expansion, but VSL model suppresses that by converting vacuum energy into matter. Other predictions of VSL include that near black holes the speed of light is zero at the horizon, and it also predicts in an eternal universe with no beginning and no end. Since the cosmic expansion is accelerating and cosmological constant lambda is responsible for slowing the speed of light since a sharp decrease in speed of light converts vacuum energy into ordinary matter and this result in conditions for new Big Bang. The cycle of new creation begins all over again.

The negative side of VSL is the violation of energy conservation, but it provides for converting vacuum energy into the matter. This model also favors infinite speed of light during Planck epoch in order to explain the horizon problem. It is proposed that the primordial speed of light would be 32 zeros added to the current value (an extreme scenario for the varying speed of light!). There are several versions of VSL including two alternatives from the authors work. Ultimately experimental evidence should favor one VSL model over all others. Although the author mainstreamed this theory in physics but his shabby literature search ignored the work of John Moffat who must get the credit for the discovery of VSL theory.

This is a very fascinating story and the best book I have ever read. I am still not old enough to have studied all the subject presented in the book in the language of Mathematics, but the presentation was fantastic and I understood every bit of the book and I can now talk for hours about Cosmology with my friends who haven't a clue about this. In one sentense, this is the best book I have read and it would be neary impossible for other books to replace this book's position in my list of favorite books.