Some time ago I watched a documentary about some scientists having issues with explaining the Big Bang theory because of the universally accepted idea that the speed of light is a constant. Well I'm not a scientist, I'm a free thinker, and my thinking is not constrained by some deeply rooted ideas that form the base of all my knowledge. And I'm trying to demonstrate here in very lame terms what I think to be the situation of the speed of light.

So! Let's look at this from a redneck point of view... For the purpose of our demonstration we'll name our redneck Bart, who's uncle bought him a new rifle for his birthday. The very next day, Bart went out on the porch, sat his ass down on his favorite redneck chair, and started shooting random targets for fun. He first shot an empty beer bottle that was 1 meter away from him (sorry US guys, but I'm European I think in meters), then he got overexcited and shot one of his chicken who was 2 meters away (just cause he wanted to kill something and the beer bottle wasn't putting on a show), and then he suddenly felt so sorry for shooting his favorite chicken, and being really pissed at his uncle for providing him with "the murder weapon", he took an aimed shot at his uncle's truck, which was parked in front of his uncle's house, across the corn field, at 1000 meters (1 kilometer) away.

Bart didn't realize it, but he had just ruined Einstein's theory of relativity and its directly descending concept of light speed being constant. Who cares... Einstein died two weeks earlier anyway, he was ran over by Bart's uncle in his damn truck while he was burrying a bone in his backyard. That's why Bart's uncle bought him such an expencive gift in the first place, to make up for killing Bart's beloved dog.

Ok, getting to my point... We have one fixed "shooting" point O (ye that's O from origin not zero) and 3 targets: A, B and C; positioned at 1m, 2m and 1000m (1Km) distances. If we rudely (the redneck style) mesure the speed of the bullet shot from the rifle (O) towards target A, and then we compare that result with the speed between O and B, we won't notice any difference. If we do measure the same speeds again using finese equipment we'll probably find a very small difference. However finese measuring is not relevant to our example because we are using mundane distances. Now, based on the sole observation of speed over the first two shots, O-A and O-B, our redneck Bart, would be inclined to conclude that the bullet will travel at a constant speed, thus his rifle would have infinite range. However Bart, even though a redneck, is not stupid. He knows that his rifle has a limited range, and he knows that he bullet from his rifle will eventually fall to the ground if it doesn't hit a target. Also, the fact that the speed of the bullet over O-C is noticeably lower than the speed of the bullet measured on O-A and O-B, comes to sustain Bart's knowledge that his rifle, does in fact, have a limited range.

Why is O-C speed considerably lower than O-A and O-B speeds? Well it's because friction. Since it's fired, the bullet has to fight the air it encounters all the way to its destination, thus, it looses its momentum, thus, its speed decreases. Now what's that have to do with light speed? Well, light speed is measured out as a constant in vacuum, and the reason why we consider it to be constant, is that we know for a fact that there is nothing in the vacuum of space that would present resistance to anything traveling through it, and for that matter, Bart's bullet would also have a constant speed, if shot through space instead of shooting it over the corn field. But is that true? Why are we so sure that there's nothing in the vacuum of space? Are we the masters of all universal knowledge to have the arrogance to say that the vacuum of space is empty? I'm not sure about that... What if objects do NOT preserve their momentum through vacuum? Why are we so sure that if you throw a ball through space, it will continue to travel for ever and ever untill it hits something. What if objects do loose momentum and they eventually just stop... So let's take a look at that ideea.

Getting back to our redneck example, by rudely analyzing and comparing the O-A and O-B situations, we would conclude that our bullet will preserve its momentum and travel continuously twards the infinite. Now let's scale those distances up a bit. Let's imagine that our O-A (1 meter distance from Bart to his empty beer bottle) is the distance between our planet Earth and planet Jupiter, and then let's imagine that our O-B (2 meters distance from Bart to his now defunct chicken) is the distance between Earth and Neptune. Now I know, the scaled-up distances are not directly proportional with our Bart example, but that's not relevant, you'll understand why a little bit later. Ok so for the purpose of our scaled-up example, let's consider those 2 distances as XO-XA (Earth - Jupiter) and XO-XB (Earth - Neptune). Now Bart, his chair and his rifle are going to take a trip to the International Space Station where they will execute two shots, one towards Jupiter and one towards Neptune. There's no doubt that even with the most accurate measuring tools and best methods, we'll conclude that the speed of our bullet over XO-XA is exactly the same as the speed of the bullet over XO-XB. Are you starting to see the big picture now?

So far we have two examples. First example considering O-A and O-B distances at Bart's farm. And then the scaled-up version considering XO-XA and XO-XB distances in the vacuum of space, within our solar system. Now I don't want to insult any scientist, I'm pretty sure they know much more than I know, I suck even at basic math, but aren't you guys missing something? In our first example we observed how, normally, by observing only O-A and O-B, our redneck Bart, would conclude that the speed of his bullet is constant. Aren't you guys doing the same with the speed of light, and basically the speed of everything that travels through the vacuum of space? What happens when we add the O-C distance into our first example!? It completely overthrows the conclusions of the example. By looking only at O-A and O-B we completely disregard the factor of friction and the fact that the bullet is loosing momentum, just because the distance and period of time over which we observe the bullet is too small to produce any noticeable differences. Well scientists are doing the same thing with speed of light, and the vacuum of space. Just because we can successfully shoot a space probe to orbit Jupiter and make all the calculation based on the fact that the vacuum of space does not create any "friction" to cause loss of momentum, does not automatically mean that everything traveling through space preserves its original speed.

Let's add XO-XC to our second example. Let's imagine XC being the closest star to our Sun, Proxima Centauri which is said to be 4.2 light-years away from our Sun (I said "said" because the purpose of this article is to explain why I think light speed is not constant, and in consequence, measuring long distances using light-years would be inadequate). What makes us think that the conclusions of the results of the observations we could make within our solar system, between XO and XA and XB, would be the same as the results we would get over XO-XC distance? The differences between the size of our solar system and the distance from our Sun to the closest neighboring star is so huge, that all those things we are not being able to notice here would become obvious, exactly the same as in our redneck example...

What if objects/things traveling through the vacuum of space DO in fact loose momentum due to who knows what. Maybe the emptiness of space is not that empty after all. Again, making some observations here on Earth, or in our solar system, are only of relevance to the environment to where we measure them, both in time and space. So the fact that we observe objects and light traveling through space at a constant speed doesn't mean it actually does that at an universal scale. I considered the closest star to our solar system, as the XC destination for our second example, and that presented a huge distance, but at an universal scale, the distance between two neighboring stars is so small it is not even worth mentioning. Imagine the distance between two neighboring galaxies, and then imagine the distance between galaxies located at opposite ends of the universe, and now compare those distances with the distance between Earth and Jupiter or Earth and Neptune. I would say that it simply is not fair to dismiss all other possibilities and consider our laws of physics fixed in stone just because we can prove them on our level of time and space. Those laws may not be the same at a micro level as well as they may not be the same as a macro level.

As a side note, wouldn't having a variable light speed be just too convenient to ignore? Not only we can't prove that it's constant on a macro level, but it would make so much more sense if it would be variable. It would come to support the Big Bang theory and the concept of dark matter. And I'm pretty sure there's many scientists out there that would go wild with ideas and formulas over a variable light speed. In my line of work (programming) people call me crazy because I like to do things from scratch instead of using stuff that others make, modifying and building upon it. I'm sure you're familiar with the saying "you're trying to reinvent the wheel". No offense, but I really hate it when people say that, just because it is a really dumb thing to say, and if you're saying that, then you really lack imagination. There's nothing wrong with trying to reinvent the wheel, actually, the wheel itself has dramatically evolved over the course of history many times. People had reinvented the wheel when they put spokes on it, they reinvented the wheel when they put tires on it, and in our modern times the wheel comes in so many different approaches and uses then ever. Reinventing the wheel is counterproductive, that is true, but being productive doesn't mean you're being smart. You will not make scientific breakthroughs by being productive, and humanity would have not evolved so much if not for those few people that swim against the current and thought "I can do better". End of side note.

As quantum physics states that the atomic world is nothing like the world we live in, we would be really dumb to consider that principle does not go the other way around too. What I strongly believe is that the "universal world" is nothing like the world we live in either, and if we are to ever comprehend it, we need to start using more logic and imagination and less mathematics and physics. Let us not forget that mathematics and physics are direct consequences of logic applied to the world that we can experience, and since we cannot directly experience the universe on a macro level, we can only use our imagination and our logic to try to comprehend it, and then elaborate upon that, and always keep in mind that what we know to be true is relative to our observation of it, change the "point of view" and you might find out that it's not at all as you had it figured.

So that's about it on why I think light speed is not constant, I think that all things traveling through space, including light, constantly loose momentum, but it happens so slow it is impossible to notice on universally-relative short distances, like distances between planets and stars, or maybe even entire inner-galactic space. And since my logic has a pretty hard time accepting the concept of nothingness, I think that the so called empty space is not actually empty, some like to call it dark matter and use it to explain why galaxies don't just break apart into all directions, I have no theories on that at this time and did not really consider it much, call it any way you want, I think it exists, and it affects everything that "floats" within it, including light. And same as a bullet that is traveling through air gets slowed down over long distances, same is light traveling through the "dark matter" of space gets slowed down over long distances. And if we elaborate on this idea, there might even be many other universes out there, floating in "dark matter", so far apart from each other that nothing, not even light, can reach from one to another, thus, we are totally unaware of them. I'm currently writing an article about what I call my very own multiverse theory, which will elaborate on those ideas and which I hope to be posting on this site soon.

Good luck to all you scientists out there. Good luck to Bart and his uncle and al' ya rednecks. And an advice to all mentally-restless people... let it go, it's too big and we are too small, you'll never figure it out and you'll go mad if you keep it up, just focus on one thing at a time, and if you're really lucky, you might just figure out the next best thing since Einstein's theory of relativity. For the rest of us, the universe of the Internet will have to do.

P.S. I'd really like to hear your feedback on this theory of mine, especially from a professional that knows this stuff much better than me, so don't hesitate to mail me or leave a comment here.