Variable speed of light Variable speed of light A variable speed of light (VSL) is a feature of a family of hypotheses stating that the speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by "c", may in some way not be constant, e.g. varying in space or time, or depending on frequency. A variable speed of light occurs in some situations of classical physics as equivalent formulations of accepted theories, but also in various alternative theories of gravitation and cosmology, many of them non-mainstream. Notable attempts to incorporate a variable speed of light into physics have been made by Einstein in 1911, by Robert Dicke
One-way speed of light this experiment was carefully re-analysed by Zhang, who showed that the measurement does not measure the speed independently of a clock synchronization scheme but actually used the Jupiter system as a slowly-transported clock to measure the light transit times. The Australian physicist Karlov also showed that Rømer actually measured the speed of light by implicitly making the assumption of the equality of the speeds of light back and forth. Although experiments cannot be done in which the one-way speed of light is measured independently of any clock synchronization scheme, it is possible to carry out experiments that measure a change