Cosmonumerology and empiricism: The Dirac-Gamow dialogue

Abstract

The possibility that natural laws and constants may not be true constants, but vary over cosmic periods of time, has recently attracted much attention. In this paper, I provide some historical background to the issue and consider, in the form of a historical review, some of the more spectacular developments within recent years. The focus of the paper is on the hypothesis of a varying speed of light, which appeared shortly after the announcement of the expanding universe. After a brief account of the history of this hypothesis, I consider in more details the varying c theories that have appeared during the last decade and were originally introduced as an alternative to the inflationary model. These so-called varying speed of light (VSL) theories have been surprisingly popular and created a flood of physics and cosmology papers. However, they have also been severely criticized from conceptual points of view and their status is as yet uncertain. Although a research programme in development, a historical perspective on VSL cosmology may not be out of place.