silver (05/04/83)
I recommend you read two good books I came across recently: "Other Worlds" and "The First Three Minutes". The first one discusses in detail (at the layman's level) what the effects might be of changing basic constants, as a side-effect of exploring the notion that there are infinitely-squared many different universes, but that only a very few could give rise to sentient life to know about it. The latter book is a good summary of the current (or at least recent) state of knowledge about the overall nature of the universe we know, and how it started. Responding directly to your question about changing the speed of light -- you should know by now from the other responses that it's a moot point. If you changed the value, the universe would simply not be as we know it. Alan Silverstein
greg (05/09/83)
Relay-Version:version B 3/9/83; site harpo.UUCP Message-ID:<140@slinac.UUCP> Date:Mon, 9-May-83 10:48:20 EDT There is a excellent series of books labelled the Tompkins series (ie. Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland , etc.) that deals with that topic entirely. Worlds where the speed of light is 40 mph, Planck's constant =1, etc. I believe they were written by George Gamow, and are very well written and entertaining. G. Retzlaff SASK. ACCELERATOR LAB.