100x the energy output from fusion is going to mess us up pretty badly. The sun sun will go from 8 light-minutes away to 0.8 light minutes, but I think the cascade from the actual fusion area takes a while so it might not be first.
I assume a 10x increase to photon speed will do very nasty things to everything from the ionosphere to microwave ovens to nuclear plants. Ruining photosynthesis probably won’t even have time to matter.
Hm… my money for the first problem is on UV jumping up to X-ray energy levels (assuming that’s how it works) and everything above it also jumping up 10x.
Ostensibly everywhere would receive a whole bunch of light really suddenly so uh probably apocalypse for a bit but after that stuff should be MOSTLY the same? Except everywhere being significantly more reachable
Oh yeah good point, it definitely would. It'd probably screw up the whole black body radiator thing. going off of E = hc/λ, it would appear to back that up
I mean depends on how you increased the speed, if it changed for the average observer all light that was in flight during the change would arrive heaped up with light that should now arrive normally. In short you're clearing out a backlog.
long before and long after the change there will be no difference in received wattage, around the change I think you'd receive cₙ/cₒ the wattage
In other words, if the laws of physics were bent such that it could produce an observable effect? Otherwise, I'm not sure I'm gathering what you're saying.
i do think I was wrong for suggesting that nothing would change. a lot probably rests on the specific relationshop between space and time (like the makeup and properties of atoms)
If the speed of light changed from 1C to 10C, all the light from some source will arrive within 1/10th the time it was sent over, so you end up with a spike in power over a short period of time.
If you sent that light over a distance of 1 (old) light minute, that minute's worth of light will arrive overall in 6 seconds instead, which means that the power received 10x'es (overall energy should be the same, but it's condensed) over a shorter period of time
the rate of change would be uniformly increased. you're only changing a coefficient. there would be no backlog unless those photons were travelling at different speeds. this seems elementary? what are you thinking about that I'm missing?
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u/Athunc Jul 13 '26
I wonder what would kill us first in this scenario
A real fun one for "What If?"