Sol

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Xmo1, Jul 25, 2005.

  1. Xmo1 Registered Senior Member

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    Why is the speed of light 186,282.4mps, rather than some other speed? I caught that C is not a measured speed, but a definition. Still there is some accuracy to the measurements that exist, so I think the question is valid.

    Time travels at the speed of light. Now gravity is assigned this value, and supposedly this is not just wishful thinking. What makes this speed special?

    Could it be that the velocity as a sinusoidal magnitude causes interference that attempts to disrupt bonding wherein entropy as a falling apart would occur. In other words, everything becomes unstable then cannot be observed. The electromagnetic bonds act to limit the magnitude of the velocity in defiance of entropy so as to remain in a steady state, and what is left is 186,282.4mps. Or else why not 187.000mps or any other random speed?

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  3. DeeCee Valued Senior Member

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    "Time travels at the speed of light. "

    No it don't. It just feels that way as you get older

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  5. mathman Valued Senior Member

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    c is the symbol for the speed of light in a vacuum. Its value is obtained by measurement.
     
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  7. Light Registered Senior Member

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    The problem here is two-fold. First, the initial assumption (above) is incorrect. While it HAS been established as a definition, it was first *measured* through experimentation. The last of those series of measurements have been highly accurate and agree in results.

    As to why that particular number and not another, there is no why. It is simply what it is - not greater than or less than. You might as well be asking why isn't pi equal to precisely 3.00.

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  9. Roman Banned Banned

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    Why should c have a perfect value in our counting system? Mps are an almost arbitrary measurement, based of the length of a man's foot. Why should the speed of light relate to a man's foot?

    Perhaps c matches up perfect with some other ratio, but certainly light shouldn't have an arbitrary purtiness to it, in our counting language.
     
  10. Xmo1 Registered Senior Member

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    That is what someone else said too, but if time dialates with light speed then it must travel at light speed as well, otherwise the phenomenon could not exist. One compared to the other, each must have a position in space. I think the phrase 'with light speed' is important. That gives existence, position, and velocity to time.
     
  11. halucigenia Registered Member

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    As far as I can recall the speed of light (properly the speed of electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum) was calculated directly from Maxwell’s equations, rather than being a measured quantity. Although it can be verified by direct measurement. The value c just pops up when you are dealing with these equations, something to do with the relationship between magnetic permeability of free space and the electric permittivity of free space. So c is set by the properties of space.
    AS for
    it does not matter what value it takes, whatever system of measurement you use, whether it’s someone’s foot or the size of a part of your thumb, it’s still going to be the same value for all observers using that system of measurement. Any system of measurement is arbitrary.
    yes it does see Maxwell’s equations, in that respect it is just like pi.
     
  12. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    A quistion about the speed of light:
    the fastest speed is the speed of light at 300000m/s
    At this speed a object will be at evrey point between his origon and his arrival.
    But is there also a slowest speed in the universe? Where a object would most simply fade out of existing because it's nowhere at the time.
     
  13. blobrana Registered Senior Member

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    Hum,
    yeah,
    That perhaps maybe related to the Planck length (1.6 x 10<sup>-35</sup> m)

    The time light takes to cross Planck length is about 10<sup>-43</sup> seconds.

    Smaller than that it becomes meaningless.
     
  14. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    9,686
    Why is the speed of light the number that it is? I believe that it has to do with conditions of the very early universe before all the forces differentiated from each other. After a certain amount of time (I'm too lazy to look up at the moment to be sure, but I have this feeling that it's something on par with 10^-43 seconds after the big bang) the physical laws and properties of the universe sorta gelled together from chaos.

    Random fluctuations in the early universe worked to create the universe we see. Do it again and the results might be very different.
     
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    There have been many attempts to measure the speed of light. At some stage, somebody decided to define a distance called a "metre", which was supposed to be 1/10000 th of the distance from the north pole to the equator along the Earth's surface.

    Measurements of the speed of light gradually improved over the years, to the point where the speed of light could be more accurately measured in the lab than the distance from the pole to the equator of the Earth. At that point, the definition of the metre was changed to be "the distance travelled by light in exactly 1/299792458 seconds". With that definition, the speed of light is now an exact value. Light travels at exactly 299792458 metres per second, by definition.

    No it doesn't. Time doesn't travel at all.

    It is thought that gravity propagates at the speed of light. That is a result which falls out of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Why the speed of light? Nobody really knows.

    Sorry, I don't understand this.
     
  16. Anomalous Banned Banned

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    If speed of light is so divine , then it should be extractable mathematically without any measurements, why !

    Because someone 100 years ago proved that nothing can go beyond that speed ? and thats the bottom line.
     
  17. halucigenia Registered Member

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    Why use the word divine? It is extractable mathematically, see my last post. Also, I did not say without any measurements, I guess Maxwell had to know what values to give the properties of space mentioned, before the SOL popped up. Similarily you need to know the circumference and diameter of a circle to calculate pi. There are lots of 'nubmers' like this that arise mathematicaly, due to the properties of space. I suppose some numerologist whackos think of these as divine/magical numbers, or invoke the anthropic principle. I personally just see them as natural phenomena, the way things are, as Mr Anonymous says just like we have two legs and not three.
    Anomalous, do you have a problem with natural phenomena being described mathematically?

    Because someone proved that nothing can go beyond the SOL has nothing to do with the calculation of the value of the SOL - I can't see what you are getting at here?
     
  18. halucigenia Registered Member

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    After re-reading the post and thinking about it a bit more I think that I do see what you are getting at. I remember reading in some textbook (I will have to look it up, at the time it made sense) that the SOL does depend on some such interference relationship. I think it goes something like - if the speed of light was to decrease, it would decrease in one property, this would increase another property, since this increased property is proportional to the velocity it would therefore increase the speed. i.e. Decreasing one parameter increases another keeping the velocity, as you say, in a steady state and that steady state is c.

    I am sure this relationship is described by Maxwell's equations, if you can "read" math. It is a while since I studied these things so I have lost grasp of the math somewhat.

    Another way to put it might be that the interference between the electric and magnetic components keeps light buzzing along at c, if this interference was disrupted somehow by changing one parameter without affecting the other then light would cease to travel at all i.e. your falling apart.
    So due to the properties of space light just cannot travel at any other speed.
    Cruise control due to the properties of space

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  19. Anomalous Banned Banned

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  20. Yorda_7 Guest

    Light is an aspect of the electromagnetic phenomena, so they travel at the same speed. Gravity also travels at this speed since gravity is magnetism. This speed is not a limit in the 'outer' world, but in our consciousness.

    Light is made of particles on a supersensuous plane. No one has ever seen particles of light. Things like light and heat are the ghost or shadow of matter in motion. They are not the quality of matter, but an affection.

    How far we discern the light that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness.
     
  21. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Is that something like Virgin Atlantic?
     
  22. Xmo1 Registered Senior Member

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    Two instances of time travel: 1. with the expansion of the universe. 2. between the points of time moving slower and time speeding up. ?
     
  23. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    Well. As already mentioned, but in other words perhaps, our measuringsystem is what it is and if we had used other parameters as a point of reference then other numbers would have popped up.
     

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