From: nospam@de-ster.demon.nl   
      
   J. J. Lodder  wrote:   
      
   [Followup to myself, continued with more personal,   
    and perhaps more controversial ideas]   
      
   Let us suppose for the sake of argument   
   that 'Helbig's nightmare' becomes true,   
   and that all kinds 'fundamental' things   
   turn out to be variable.   
      
   In particular, let us assume that we have an experimental basis for it,   
   in that we have several independent length and time units,   
   all reproducible to adequate precision,   
   and drifting with respect to each other.   
   Hence we will have many variable 'speeds of light',   
   wich we can all measure by hand-picking units.   
      
   Will this force us to give up the relativity postulate,   
   and the idea of a universal absolute speed,   
   and hence the idea of relativistic space-time?   
      
   I think that the answer will be no.   
   Instead we will say that one should use 'fitting'   
   pairs of units, with matching space and time units   
   related by a factor c_{universal}   
      
   So in summary: we'll keep the spacetime, (and c=1)   
   and describe all that variable mess   
   in terms of new laws of physics in space-time.   
      
   Bottom line: we'll give up that space-time   
   only if all else fails,   
      
   Jan   
      
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