The Speed of Light Can Be Fine-tuned: Counter to Victor Stenger's "The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning"

Alright, ya'll (now that I am officially a Texas resident, I can say ya'll). I am going to attempt something kinda crazy.

As an undergraduate biology student, I am going to try to make the claim that a physicist who has been doing physics for about twice as long as I have been alive is wrong about something related to physics concerning the fine-tuning argument (oh wait, I actually do this kind of thing all the time, haha). At this point, I would not be at all surprised if I am wrong about this, but I'm going to give it a shot. If anyone (especially physicists) can point out an error in my thinking please let me know!

Also, I would like to state from the get go that I mean no disrespect to Dr. Stenger! His contributions to physics have been great and numerous. I am also indebted to him for writing many excellent books which have made it possible for me to understand the material I am about to talk about.

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Although I hate to give away the punch line right away, here is the point of what I am about to say: Stenger thinks that the speed of light is not fine-tuned. I think that it is.

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To start out with, here is a summary of Stenger's argument (found on pages 55-60 of The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning):

Think about space and time. How do we measure them? Well, we try to measure them as accurately as possible. For example, according to Dr. Stenger, "In 1960, the meter was defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the electromagnetic radiation that results from the transition between the 2p10 and 5d5 energy levels of the Krypton-86 atom," and "In 1967, the second was defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the Cesium-133 atom (Stenger 55)." For anyone who is not familiar with the physics involved in these statements, these are extremely accurate methods for measuring distance and time.

Now then, remember the "c" from E=mc^2 (Einstein's equation)? This "c" represents the speed of light in a vacuum. In his special theory of relativity, Einstein makes the claim that c is a universal constant. This claim has been overwhelmingly supported.

Because this next part is extremely important, possibly confusing, and seems to be the heart of Dr. Stenger's argument, I have elected to quote Dr. Stenger on this paragraph.

In the Standard (SI) system of units, the distance between two points

in space is measured in meters. Until 1983, the meter was defined 

independently of the second. In that year, by international agreement,

it was mandated that the meter would be defined as the distance

between two points when the time it takes light to go between the

points in a vacuum is 1/299,792,458 second. That is, the speed of

light in a vacuum is c = 299,792,458 meters per second by

definition. (55) (italics Stenger's, underlining mine)

This has an interesting implication! We measure time on clocks, right? According to this we measure distance on a clock as well! A meter is the distance traveled by light in a given amount of time. According to Dr. Stenger, this means that "The quantity c cannot be fine-tuned. It is fixed by defninition."

Here is a quick illustration: If we start a beam of light in a vacuum at point A, and wait for 1/299,792,458 second to pass, the light will have traveled to point B. Thus, the distance between A and B is one meter.

At this point, it will be a good idea to introduce a little bit of Einstein's Theory of Relativity for those who are not familiar with it. While this may be confusing, it is one of the coolest things that humans have ever figured out about the universe!!! There should be no surprise that some of the most amazing stuff ever discovered is a bit hard to understand. If it weren't so intense, we would have figured it out a lot sooner. As it is, I would personally like to thank Einstein for being awesome

In addition, I encourage everyone to learn more about relativity!!! It will blow your mind and change the way you see the world!

For now, here is Josh's tidbit on relativity:

Let's say I am standing by the side of the road and I measure the speed of a car relative to me. I get the value 30 mph. Now lets say that I am riding on a bike going 10 mph in the same direction as the car. This time when I measure the speed of the car relative to me I get 20 mph. One more time- now I am biking in the opposite direction as the car at a rate of 10 mph. This time when I measure the speed of the car relative to me I get 40 mph.

With light things are different. The speed of light remains constant no matter how fast you are moving with reference to other objects.

This means that in all three measurements I took in the previous example, I would have gotten the same value for the speed of light (as opposed to getting differing values with the car).

I hope that this screams against your intuition. Light travels at the speed of light independently of the motion of other objects. This is not true for objects that have mass!!! This has the implication that time and space are not absolute.

Think about this commonly cited example: If your twin brother leaves earth on a space ship (thus traveling at a velocity greater than yours), and 50 years passes for you, when you brother returns to earth the same amount of time WILL NOT have passed for him!!! Rather, due to his increased velocity relative to you, time will have been traveling slower for him relative to your time.
End Josh's tidbit on relativity (go youtube relativity right now and learn more! Other people explain this better than I do)

I suspect that Stenger was thinking along these lines when he talks about the universal nature of c. In the case of light (which has no mass), "no matter how fast you are moving with respect to the source of the light you are measuring, you will get exactly 299,792,458 meters per second" (56). Thanks to Einstein, we now know that space and time are not independent of one another. We don't just have three dimensions of space with time as a separate, independent entity- we have four dimensions (three of space and one of time).

Finally, Stenger points out that it is possible to set the speed of light to 1 so that the units for distance will be the same as the units for time. This is pretty cool, because "Setting c = 1 gets rid of a lot of c's in equations, not only making them simpler but helping to emphasize that the value of c has no fundamental role in physics" (Stenger, 57).

To summarize my summary of Stenger's argument, I will use one final quote from Stenger:

As we have seen above, c is by definition 299,792,458

meters per second or one light-year per year. While light

moves at this speed in a vacuum, c is fundamentally the

speed beyond which a physical body cannot be accelerated

according to Einstein's theory of special relativity. But its

value is arbitrary. As we have seen, according to the current

operational definitions of time and distance, the meter is

defined as the distance light goes between two points in 

space in 1/299,792,458 second. (59-60)

And so ends my summary of Dr. Stenger's argument. I have done my best to accurately represent his ideas. I also recommend purchasing his book and reading the text for yourself to get the best understanding.

It may be a good idea to read this summary a few time to acquire maximal understanding.

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And now, the long awaited reason why Josh disagrees with Dr. Stenger:

As I pointed out before, Dr. Stenger states that according to international agreement "the meter would be defined as the distance between two points when the time it takes light to go between the points in a vacuum is 1/299,792,458 second. That is, the speed of light in a vacuum is c = 299,792,458 meters per second by definition." (55)

I contend that what Dr. Stenger just asserted has nothing to do with whether or not the speed of light can be fine-tuned. While we may have defined light to be a certain speed, the speed of light could have a different value in phase space (see http://honestsearchfortruth.blogspot.com/2012/05/fine-tuning-argument-phase-space.html). It could take 2 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. It could take 2 years for light to reach us from the sun.

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Quick brainstorm break: What do ya'll think about this?

While holding everything else in the universe constant, we could change the speed of light to 200,000,000 meters per second.Then our 'definition' of light would be that it travels 200,000,000 meters per second. But then, our definition of the meter would be the distance light travels in 1/200,000,000 second... I'm not sure if those italics make sense or mean anything for this argument. Maybe any mistakes I'm making are related to those italicized thoughts of mine.

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Once again, as I pointed out before, Stenger states "no matter where you are in this universe or any other, no matter how fast you are moving with respect to the source of the light you are measuring, you will get exactly 299,792,458 meters per second" (56).

I contend that this statement has no bearing on whether or not c is fine-tuned. The speed of light could simply have a different value in this universe and all the other ones. We would simply measure a different value (or... we wouldn't, because if c is significantly smaller or larger life as we know it is impossible, but I digress).

If the universe were fundamentally altered, as is assumed by the fine-tuning argument, the speed of light could be something other than what we currently measure it to be. It is possible for the speed of light to be be fine-tuned. Not only that- it IS fine-tuned. According to Rich Deem, "if [the speed of light were] faster: stars would be too luminous for life support [and] if slower: stars would be insufficiently luminous for life support" (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html).

A last statement from Stenger: "c is fundamentally the speed beyond which a physical body cannot be accelerated according to Einstein's theory of special relativity. But its value is arbitrary. As we have seen, according to the current operational definitions of time and distance, the meter is defined as the distance light goes between two points in space in 1/299,792,458 second" (59-60)

Once again, I contend that this statement does not give any actual reason prohibiting c from being fine-tuned. The speed beyond which a physical body cannot be accelerated could have a value other than 299,792,458 meters per second.

Keep in mind that we are considering the possibility of an outside intelligence making fundamental changes to the universe. We should not rule out this possibility from the get-go. An outside intelligence could alter the speed of light while holding distance and time constant, stretch space while holding the speed of light and time constant, or change the rate of passage of time while holding the speed of light and distance constant.

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In short: The ratio of the speed of light to distance and time could be different. It is possible for the speed of light to be fine-tuned.

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A final thought: perhaps we would have to stretch/compress space up to make this proposed alteration of the speed of light work, but this would merely turn into another two parameters which could be fine-tuned: the 'stretched-ness' of space, and the 'flow-rate' of time.

Thanks for reading! I fully realize I may be making some sort of silly mistake being a physics newb compared to Dr. Stenger. Please help me out if you think I am wrong!