I believe that current, widely accepted theories do not explain light to my satisfaction. Additionally, I do not believe light travels at a constant speed.
I remember when I was going through physics in high school and college, it was explained to me that we don't seem to know what light is. In certain experiments it acts like a wave, and in certain circumstances it appears to be comprised of particles. The problem is that it does not make logical sense that particles would travel in waves. It appears to have energy, it appears to travel in a ray from its source. It certainly moves quickly. It definitely acts like a wave.
It seems to me there are two possibilities (please feel free to point out I'm a dope and there are others). Either there is actually something in the so-called vacuum of space that can then move in wave patterns (such as the "dark" or "transparent" matter mentioned in other theories), or light itself is comprised of something capable of moving like both a particle and a wave.
In either case, and I do hope to talk about each more, I find it easier to believe that light changes speed (and in specific that it decelerates) than to believe that it remains at a constant speed. I will go into these things more, but the ramifications are immediate (and I will explain these too). First, Hubble's assumption that the universe is expanding was based on his assumption that galaxies are traveling further away from us due to the concept of red-shift (basically, the Doppler Effect of light). Because he believed light traveled at a constant speed (as was suggested by Einstein's Theory of Relativity) that could only mean that the source of that light was moving away from us. If, in fact, light does not travel at a constant speed (and that it decelerates over time/distance), it would also explain why the further away a galaxy appears to be, the more its light is red-shifted. This simple assumption of my own manages to contradict not only Einstein and (the conclusions of) Hubble, but Stephen Hawkings himself - because it removes the major support for the Big Bang theory. I am certainly entitled to my own theories (whether they make sense or not) but it is going to be hard to be taken seriously if you contradict, in one sentence, all three of those men (and how many others that support their theories).
There are several observable phenomenon that would be clearly and easily explained/reconciled, along with other "powerful" theories trashed by this one, simple assumption. One such is this:
The study of red-shift as applied by Hubble and others to determine the motion of galaxies suggests that galaxies would have all intersected approximately twelve to fourteen billion years ago (the Big Bang). Unfortunately, the underlying spectrography (the study of element fingerprints in light) also suggests that there are stars that have been burning for seventeen to nineteen billion years. (Yes, these two concepts are irreconcilable). For this and many other reasons (perhaps I will detail them in my next post) I cannot help but believe more in the age of stars than the Big Bang. As the irreconcilable discrepancies are all based on the constant speed of light, I choose to go with what is observed and re-think what is theoretical.
As for myself, at present I must admit it seems more logical that light is actually a wave, and not a specific thing unto itself that travels like a wave. I am certainly willing to be found wrong, but it seems to me much like making a noise, something generates this vibration, and it travels through its medium just like a wave of water or sound. It would seem to explain sight, and it would turn out to be very much like hearing. Our optical sensors would be "vibrated" by this wave, just like our eardrums, and translate that vibration into different frequencies and intensities, just like our ears. This would explain to me how this phenomenon is absorbed (as it is by our eyes or photoelectric cells or film, etc.), and also suggest (again) that light decelerates (in that absorption).
This would mean there is something out there that is being vibrated, even in what we think of as the vacuum of space. Many theories suggest there is "dark matter" or "dark energy" (some of them suggest a better word is transparent, not dark). Since even theories that have nothing to do with light believe that there are massive amounts of matter unaccounted for in observable space, again there is the very real possibility that there is some sort of transparent or dark matter between the sun, the stars, and the atmosphere of the earth. A heady concept, one that begs the question "why, then, does it not produce friction?" but there are many possible answers to that, including the possibility that it is so small, massless, or out of phase with non-dark matter that it does not collide with it, but as I am already disbelieving in major, accepted theories of the Big Bang and the constant speed of light, perhaps disbelieving in the traditional concept of the vacuum of space should be kept for another post.
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