Variable speed of light contribute to the above refractive index, Dicke considered a cosmology where "c" decreased in time, providing an alternative explanation to the cosmological redshift (p. 374). Dicke's theory is compatible with the SI definition of c since the time and length units second and meter can vary in concert, keeping the value of c fixed (p. 366). Spatial variation of the speed of light is implicitly present in general relativity, occurring in the coordinate space description.: "note that the photon speed is ... formula_9." (formula_10 denoting the gravitational potential −"GM"/"r") Based on this observation, variable speed of light models, including Dicke's,
One-way speed of light in agreement with Einstein synchronization. Therefore, testing the equivalence between these clock synchronization schemes is important for special relativity, and some experiments in which light follows a unidirectional path have proven this equivalence to high precision. As demonstrated by Hans Reichenbach and Adolf Grünbaum, Einstein synchronization is only a special case of a more broader synchronization scheme, which leaves the two-way speed of light invariant, but allows for different one-way speeds. The formula for Einstein synchronization is modified by replacing ½ with ε: ε can have values between 0 and 1. It was shown that this scheme can be used