A couple billion years ago, the speed of light was less than now. In the cosmic sense, yesterday. They speak about this new calculations of scientists. If they are confirmed, Einstein's theory will be torpedoed, and most of the "buildings physics" will require major rework.

Physics Steve Lamoro (Steve Lamoreaux) and Justin Torgerson (Justin Torgerson) of the American national laboratory in Los Alamos (Los Alamos National Lab) has published the results of research, which is a weighty argument in favor of assumptions about the inconstancy of the speed of light.

That this speed can theoretically be fickle - physics was thinking for a long time. However still reliable evidence of such "sedition" was not found.

We emphasize that we are talking not about some marvelous race of the speed of light right now and not even about the experiences in the so-called braking light during signal transmission in sophisticated facilities, and about changing the most that neither is a global constant - velocity of light in vacuum, and throughout the development of the Universe.

To identify this physicists try using computing the values of alpha - the so-called fine structure constant. Roughly 0,00729735.

Alpha is inversely proportional to the speed of light, and also depends on the electron charge and the Planck constant. But the last two values are considered by physicists as a reliable constant (although, strictly speaking, this assumption).

Thus, fluctuations in cosmological scales of this alpha should point to fluctuations in the speed of light.

The first call alpha was announced in 1998. Viktor Flambaum (Victor Flambaum) of the Australian University of New South Wales (University of New South Wales) measured the passage of radiation from distant quasars through interstellar gas clouds. Then, like, were obtained signs that alpha 12 billion years ago, there was significantly less.

So, it is possible that Alfa - read speed of light is changing all the time - only very slowly. According to some theories of change that can wear and undulating character with a giant cosmological periods of rising and falling thereof speed. But later the withdrawal of Australian questioned. In particular, observations of nuclear reactions talk about the persistence of alpha with accuracy to any impressive decimal places.

Here the key point of all history - world constant alpha affected by, among other things, on the distribution of the various isotopes in nuclear transformations. So, like, the speed of light had survived, but here we come to the last events, new evidence came not from distant galaxies, and from under our feet.

In Gabon, West Africa, there is the only in the world of natural nuclear reactor, named after the nearest settlement - Oklo who accidentally formed two billion years ago in concentrated (on natural criteria, of course) uranium ore deep underground (containing more and coal), which entered the groundwater.

The reactor so slowly ire" hundreds of thousands of years, heating rocks, releasing radiation and generating a lot of isotopes, but now long "stopped".

Note, Oklo, containing a lot of uranium-238, turned out the plutonium that breaking up was the origin of the uranium-235, but also samarium, scandium, technetium, rubidium, palladium... it Was here that calculate physicists.

Analysis products" this reactor was performed before. But scientists from Los Alamos disputed past computing and decided once again to shovel old numbers. More detailed and meticulously. Sensational result surprised even themselves "detectives" - it turned out that from the time when the reactor, and to our time alpha slightly decreased (in the eighth digit after the decimal point), and the speed of light, respectively, increased.

Here I should add that the accuracy of determination (calculation) alpha currently hovers somewhere in the region of 15 digits or even further. And according to that change detected by the Americans - is enormous.

The first reactions, what is important - both from supporters of the constant velocity of light and the supporters of its oscillations on the vast periods of time, they sound about the same: "No errors in the calculations Lamoro find is not yet possible, but for such a revolutionary revision of physics need more numerous checks".

Meanwhile, some of physics would accept a demotion alpha constant with joy. For example, if the alpha was much smaller, and the speed of light is more, at the dawn of the Universe, it would get "the problem horizon". Cosmologists are struggling to explain why the vast area of the Universe show approximately the same temperature background.

This implies that these areas were once close enough to share power and to equalize the temperature of the Existing models of the early Universe to contradict this. And the higher the speed of light would allow energy to do between these areas.

The variable alpha also increases the chances of string theory, the additional spatial dimensions and other speculative matter, today represents the cutting edge of physics and that will probably require from humanity revision of many established ideas.

It is surprising that such great prospects open after just dull and boring (to outsiders) analysis of the isotope ratios in Oklo and clarifying only one or two digits on any kind of place after the decimal point in a modest number - with a simple name - alpha.

Today natural nuclear reactors do not exist, but in 1972 year scientific world excited message about the discovery of their remains uranium Deposit in Oklo (Oklo), located in the South - East of Gabon. and, then, on another uranium Deposit Bangombe (Bangombe), located in 35 km to the South-East Zone. Now known ancient 17 reactors. Outwardly it is a common mine .

Except for pictures remains oxide uranium visible as a yellowish rocks. But in 1972 when ordinary measurements of physical parameters batch of natural uranium received on concentrating factory of the French town of Pierrelatte of Gabon, French chemist-analyst Bugzig drew attention to an unusual ratio of the isotopes uranium-235 and uranium-238. Usually it is 0,007202 with accuracy of 0.00006. All uranium minerals, all rocks and natural waters of the Earth, and in lunar samples, this relation is. Field in the Zone only, registered in the nature of a case where this continuity was broken. If Bugzila the ratio was 0,00717.

Were put forward several hypotheses concerning odd ratios of isotopes of uranium in the ore - from pollution field of spent fuel with alien spacecraft or the existence of a place of burial of radioactive waste of an ancient civilization to the theft of uranium. However, more detailed research showed that unusual uranium ore was formed in a natural way.

Calculations show that if the mass fraction of ground water in the reservoir is about 6%, and if natural uranium enriched to 3% U-235, it is under these conditions may become natural nuclear reactor. As the mine is located in the tropical zone and quite close to the surface, the existence of a sufficient number of ground water is very likely. The ratio of the isotopes of uranium in the ore was not normal. U-235 and U-238 - radioactive isotopes with different half-lives. U-235 has a half-life of 700 million years, and U-238 decays with a half life of 4.5 billion Isotope U-235 content is in nature in the process of slow change. For example, 400 million years ago in natural uranium was to be 1% U-235, 1900 million years ago, it was 3%, i.e. the required number for the "criticality" veins of uranium ore. It is believed that then the reactor Zone was able to work.

How nature has managed to create conditions for a nuclear chain reaction? First, in the ancient Delta of the river formed a rich uranium ore layer of Sandstone, which rested on a solid basalt bed. After another earthquake common in the wild time basalt Foundation of the reactor went down for several kilometers, pulling uranium mine. Lived cracked, cracks penetrated the ground water. Then the next cataclysm alerted "install" to the current level.

In the nuclear furnaces of NPP fuel is compact masses inside the moderator. It happened in the Zone. The moderator was water. In ore appeared clay "lens"where the concentration of natural uranium from the usual 0.5% increased to 40%. How did these compact blocks of uranium, is uncertain. You may have created them filtration of water, which carried away the clay and fidgeted with the uranium in a single mass. When only the mass and thickness of layers, enriched uranium, has reached critical dimensions, they appeared chain reaction, and the installation starts. As a result of work of the reactor was formed about 6 tons of fission products and 2.5 tons of plutonium. Most of the radioactive waste left inside of a mineral crystal structure of Urania, which is found in the body of ore Zone. The items that could not penetrate through the bars of uranita because of too much or too little of the ionic radius, diffuse or leached out. During the 1900 million years that have passed since the operation of nuclear reactors in About at least half of the more than thirty fission products were associated in the ore, despite the abundance of ground inod in this field. Related fission products include elements: La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Eu, Sm, Gd, Y, Zr, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ni, Ag. Was discovered some partial migration Pb and migration Pu was limited by the distance is less than 10 meters. Only the metal with valence 1 or 2, that is those who have high solubility in water, were carried out. As expected, the place was nearly empty Pb, Cs, Ba, and Cd. Isotopes of these elements have a relatively short half-lives of tens of years or less, so they are non-radioactive decay to the state before it can far to migrate in soil.

The greatest interest from the point of view of long-term problems of environmental protection are the migration of plutonium. This nuclide effectively connected for a period of almost 2 million years. Since plutonium by now almost completely disintegrates to U-235, then its stability in the lack of an excess of U-235, not only outside the reactor zone, but also outside of grains of Urania, where he formed the plutonium during reactor operation.

There was this natural unique about 600 thousand years and made about 13000000 kW. hours of energy. Its average capacity of just 25 kW to 200 times less than that of the first nuclear power plant, commissioned in Obninsk in 1954.

If we trace the entire chain of decays in the theory (Such as thorium from the decay of U-236 and bismuth from the decay of U-237, which were only discovered in the reactor zone in the field About ) and compare with the actual isotopic composition of these elements can be detected irregularity of the timeline. And it was done.

Analysis "decay products " reactors in Zone was carried out before. but physics Steve Lamoro (Steve Lamoreaux) and Justin Torgerson (Justin Torgerson) of the American national laboratory in Los Alamos (Los Alamos National Lab) questioned the correctness of the previous calculations and decided once again to shovel old numbers. More detailed and meticulously. The main topic of research is the fine-structure constant affecting, among others, and on the distribution of the various isotopes in nuclear transformations.

The fine structure constant alpha is defined as a = e2/hc ~ 1/137,03599958 where e is the electron charge, h is the Planck constant and C is the speed of light. It is a fundamental number that determines the strength of the electromagnetic interactions. As the name implies, the fine-structure constant describes the splitting of atomic levels in several close sublevels (multiplets) due to the effects of special relativity. The magnitude of this cleavage is proportional to the square a.

Since the electron charge and the Planck constant physicists considered as a reliable constant (although strictly speaking this is an arbitrary assumption that the fluctuations in cosmological scales of the fine structure constant must point to fluctuations in the speed of light. Sensational result surprised even themselves "detectives" - it turned out that from the time when the reactor, and to our time constant of thin structure slightly decreased (in the eighth digit after the decimal point), and the speed of light, respectively, increased. Here I should add that the accuracy of determination (calculation) of the fine structure constant currently hovers somewhere in the region of 15 digits or even further. And according to that change detected by the Americans - is enormous.

In 1955, the Russian physicist Lev Landau consider the dependence of the fine structure constant from time to time. Experiments of interaction of elementary particles when they collide showed growth constants , up to about 1/128 with increasing energy of the collision. Which is probably connected with change of space dimensionality of microcosm ( 5, 7 ), where open minimized in our 3 dimensional space dimension.

But macroworld first call persistence of the fine structure constant has sounded in 1998. when a group of astronomers from the Australian University of New South Wales (University of New South Wales) measured the passage of radiation from distant quasars through interstellar gas clouds and received indications that in the past the fine structure constant is different from today's values .( The last article in Phys. 87 (2001)J.K Webb, M.T. Murphy, V. V. Flambaum, V. A. Dzuba, J. D. Barrow, C. W. Churchill, J. X. Prochaska, and A. M. Wolfe, 091301 (she has also astro-ph/0012539), which States that the fine structure constant in the past was a little smaller: d(a)/ alpha = -0.72+-0.18 10 -5 for red shifts in the range 0.5 < z < 3.5.)

Very simple explanation of the method-If the light from the flames to pass through the lens and put her sheet of paper, we can see the rainbow. If the flame could, for example, salt, then to the usual colors of the rainbow will be added yellowish - the so-called emission lines. Placing between the flame and the prism of the flask with the gas can on this "rainbow" to see the dark absorption lines. The wavelengths of these emission and absorption lines directly related to the energy levels of atoms in salt or in Gaza. Spectroscopy thus allows you to remotely examine the structure of atoms.

From the point of view of spectroscopy of thin atomic structure can remotely be observed as a multiplet splitting of energy levels and spectral lines of atoms and molecules, due to the spin-orbital interaction. Thus, if the fine structure constant -"alpha" really changed, so that "prehistoric" emission and absorption spectra, too, would be changed. So one way of keeping track of any changes in the values of "alpha" in the history of the Universe is to obtain the spectra of distant quasars ("beacons" extraordinary power), and compare the wavelengths of some characteristic spectral lines with relevant modern values. Quasars are used here only as a universal light sources in the most remote part of the Universe. Interstellar gas clouds in galaxies, located between the quasar and us at distances from 6 to 11 billion light years, absorb part of the light emitted by these quasars. In the obtained spectra thus there are dark "minimum point", which can be attributed to known elements. The change of the fine structure constant must be reflected in the distribution of the energy levels in the atoms, and the wavelengths of the absorption lines in this too will change. Comparing the distance between points "lows" laboratory values, you can calculate "alpha" as a function of distance corresponding objects from us, that is, as a function of the age of the Universe.

The system of lines each clouds because of the expansion of the universe has its redshift, z, less than z quasars observed through a cloud, but still corresponding to the cosmological distances and times, i.e. the early universe. Measuring several of the absorption lines in one cloud, you can define the value of the fine structure constant in those days.

A group of astronomers led by Patrick Petition (Patrick Petitjean) of the Astrophysical Institute of Paris (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris and the Paris Observatory (Observatoire de Paris in France and Ragunatana Srianand (Raghunathan Srianand, IUCAA Pune, India) very carefully studied the homogeneous sample of 50 adsorption systems observed by using the UVES (Spectrograph ultraviolet and visible range of Asela (Ultra-violet and Visible Echelle Spectrograph) and Kueyen Kueyen ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile) on 18 distant lines of sight of quasars. The work called "cosmological variation of the fine structure constant". They did record spectra of quasars over 34 nights to achieve the greatest spectral resolution and the best signal-to noise. Then used the automatic procedures and computer modeling, specifically developed for this project to identify a possible variation "alpha".

As a result of this extensive study found that over the last 10 billion years of relative variations "alpha" may not exceed one million (or rather, 6x10-7. This is the most restrictive limit on the variation "alpha" at the moment of obtained through the study of the absorption lines of the quasar.

Michael Murphy (Michael Murphy), astronomer from the British University of Cambridge, part of the group that is using the Keck telescope in Hawaii found changes in the value of the fine structure constant, with confidence reacted to new findings: Data VLT have a higher quality" - he said. The result Keck was based on more clouds - 143, - however, some observations were made not so long time, and quasars were on average weaker, making spectral line half less clear when compared with new measurements at the VLT.

Because of the great theoretical significance allegations of variability of the fundamental constants, the result needs further scrutiny.