Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum light speed

sure no problem heres a few for starters.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/07/20/speed.of.light.ap/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/841690.stm
http://www.zulenet.com/see/nyt.html
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/4/7/8
http://www.omniology.com/BrokenSpeedOfLight.html
http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Faster%20than%20light%20speed.htm
http://www.timetoeternity.com/time_space_light/speed_of_light.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/07/19/tech/main216905.shtml

there are probably thousands more
here--->http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the+wang+cesium+light+speed+experiment&spell=1

Hey, thanks for your help. Besides that bit of fighting you guys had, the sights and explanations helped alot.

10000 years from now, if man is still alive, they will look back at our science and compair it to our understanding if the cavemans chants for the sun to return.

10,000 years? Try 100!

na, 100 years they will only compair us to romans or such.

Magnetism is a consequence of the theory of relativity.

Dear Count:

Magnetism came before Einstein.
Magnetism can not be a consequence of a theory.
If Einstein is correct he exposed fundamentals.
jjw

to get back to the original question.

time is relative to the speed. that has been proven. if you were able some how to go as close to the speed of light as it is possible for matter to do, time for you would have slow down so much that the tiny difference in the speed of light would make it appear that the light was still moving away from you as normal.

I posed the question earlier with no takers.

I repeat with an explanation.

We recite that light travels at about 186,281 miles per second because that is what we measure in this solar system. Forget that reference data.

Who and how does science prove that the measured speed is what it should be everywhere? What mathmatics are there to prove our sun produces light at that speed because of some physical factors that are measurable? Does the assumption exist solely on the basis that the speed measured must be the speed every where? No proof required to arrive at reasons for 186,281 miles per second?
jjw

Dehammer,
You posted:

"to get back to the original question.

time is relative to the speed. that has been proven. if you were able some how to go as close to the speed of light as it is possible for matter to do, time for you would have slow down so much that the tiny difference in the speed of light would make it appear that the light was still moving away from you as normal."

Its called 'relativity` because you cannot measure
your velocity except relative to something else.
No matter what your speed, you will perceive the
velocity of light as 'C`.
It is a property of space/time. If you think in
terms of space alone you are led into error.

( google 'Fitzgerald/Lorentz` contraction.)

jjw004,
You posted:
"We recite that light travels at about 186,281 miles per second because that is what we measure in this solar system."

Miles/second is distance/time - a property
of 'space/time` not 'space`. - Same admonition.

Pragmatist

"Some days it's just not worth chewing
through the Restraints."

Pragmatist posted


Its called 'relativity` because you cannot measure
your velocity except relative to something else.
No matter what your speed, you will perceive the
velocity of light as 'C`.
It is a property of space/time. If you think in
terms of space alone you are led into error.



your speed is how fast your going. it is not something that has to be related to something else.

to measure it, you have to use a seperate frame of referance, say the compareatively motionless stars. at that point you have to use time to measure it.

it has been proven that the faster you go, the slower your the time is in your time reference, as compaired to those out side at a standstill.

in this case the reference is to the speed of light.

if you go close to it, time slows down for you in comparison to the the person that it is not moving in relation to light. if he could see you, to him you would appear to be motionless. if you could see him, he would appear to be moving in a blur.

light would move away from you at light speed, but since your at 99.9999 percent of that speed, it hardly gets ahead of you in terms of the outside observer. in your terms it moves ahead at exactly the same speed as it would otherwise, since your time has compressed for you.

to claim that time is the same no matter what flies in the face of experments done by the air force in the early 70's. it also flies in the face of all understanding of the theory of relativity.

in order to measure things like speed and time, you have to have a frame of reference. since the speed of light is a constant, its frequently used. the problem occurs when your trying to compare things that happen at faster speeds, with a reference of zero speed.

our planet is traveling around our sun at something like 66,000 mph.

how fast is our sun traveling through our galaxy?
how fast is our galaxy traveling through our universe?

we may be traveling beyond our conception of the speed of light at this time...

if a calculation were taken then all of these speeds should be included in the calculations and the center of (our) universe should be the begining point used in the calculation.

if and only if our universe is the only universe.

if not then we would need to know how many other universes there are , and where is the center point of all the universes.

so is the current speed of light correct?

I wonder...

to the "DA MORGAN" arguing program loaded on this forum.

I already know you dissagree ok.

so whats the point.

I would argue with you but theres no reason to anymore.

to pragmatist:

You say to jjw
You posted:
"We recite that light travels at about 186,281 miles per second because that is what we measure in this solar system."

You then offer:
"Miles/second is distance/time - a property
of 'space/time` not 'space`. - Same admonition."

Is that supposed to be some mathematical or physics demonstration of WHY light travels at 186,218 Mps. Pleas show the formula that provides that result based on the sun's mechanics or the physical nature of photons that result in that speed. Your " admonition " is misdirected and of no value to me. Thanks anyway.
jjw

186,281 is NOT the speed of light we measure in our solar system. Never has been ... never will be.

The speed of light is different in different media. That is the entire principle by which prisms and refraction work.

The number is nominally the speed of light in the near-vacuum of space. And it is, to the best of our knowledge, the same everywhere in the universe (though I personally have some doubts).

DA you should check your data and not be so anxious to argue from error with people.

Speed of light
?The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (or 1,079,252,848.8 kilometres per hour, which is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second, or 670,616,629.4 miles per hour). This value is denoted by the letter c, reputedly from the Latin celeritas, "speed". Note that this speed is a definition, not a measurement, since the fundamental SI unit of distance, the metre, has been defined since 1983 in terms of the speed of light?one metre is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The speed of light through a transparent medium (that is, not in vacuum) is less than c; the ratio of c to this speed is called the refractive index of the medium.
Cherenkov effect in a "swimming pool" nuclear reactor. The effect is due to electrons travelling faster than the speed of light in water.?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So 299,792,458 meters * .62137 = 186,282 miles per second. This is not the best recitation of the speed. Other more focused sources convert to about 186,281.75 miles per second.
It is really curious that you would jump in on such a basic thing to argue. Like your previous argument that the Sun does not rotate at the equator as I said. Lighten up.
jjw

I've read what I wrote and read what you wrote several times and I can't find what you are objecting to?

The original statement was:
"We recite that light travels at about 186,281 miles per second because that is what we measure in this solar system."

And it is not correct. We measure many different speeds for light in our solar system depending upon the medium in which it is traveling.

Again ... clarification requested.

Da you are nitpicking without reason.

Everbody knows that light speed will vary under circumstances wherein the light passes through some medium or other. I specifically stated that the speed of light in a vacuum was measured at 186,281 miles per second, that is the vacuum of space in the solar system near earth. It has been so measured by NASA ans some smart fellows a long time age.

http://itotd/com/articles/284/

"Meanwhile, Foucault was working on a different but equally clever technique, which he demonstrated the following year. Foucault?s method was to shine a sharply focused beam of light onto a rotating mirror, and from there onto a fixed mirror. Once the light hit the fixed mirror, it bounced back onto the rotating mirror and then back toward the source. But because the mirror was rotating, the angle at which it was positioned had changed slightly by the time the beam made its return trip. Consequently, the reflected beam did not line up precisely with the original. Foucault could easily measure the angle between the original light source and the reflected beam, and along with known constants (the distances between the various surfaces and the speed of the mirror?s rotation), it was a matter of a few straightforward calculations to convert that small angle into a representation of speed. Using this technique, Foucault produced a measurement of 298,000 km/second (185,167 miles/second), which is shockingly close to the modern measurement of 299,792 km/second (186,282 miles/second), keeping in mind that the latter figure applies only in a vacuum; light travels more slowly in air."

I guess you have a measurement of your own creation and that is OK too, keep it secret.
jjw

Paul,
The center of the universe resides in your navel,
or anywhere else you choose.
That is the meaning of relativity.
It is pointless to try to create a 'privileged
obsever`.
The point of the 'Big Bang` model is that
everywhere is the center.

Dehammer,
You state that speed is independent of a frame of
reference and then proceed to create one.

>say the compareatively motionless stars.

>it has been proven that the faster you go, the
>slower your the time is in your time reference, as
>compaired to those out side at a standstill.

Yes -Standstill relative to????

>in this case the reference is to the speed of light.
Relative to what???

>light would move away from you at light speed,
>but since your at 99.9999 percent of that speed,
>it hardly gets ahead of you in terms of the
>outside observer. in your terms it moves ahead at
>exactly the same speed as it would otherwise,
>since your time has compressed for you.

Yes, the observer is important.
The observer would also see you as foreshortened
in the direction of travel which impacts your
measurement of 'C` from your point of abservation.

The point is that 'C` , Distance/Time is a
constant for each observer. You can't separate
the two.
You're trying to mix the observations of different
observers indiscriminantly.
Pick a frame and stick to it, then normalize
the observations from different frames to
your chosen frame.
To understand, you must consider this subject in
terms of space/time.
If you try to think in terms of space or time
alone you're apt to fall into error.

Pragmatist

"Lord, are we worthy of the task that lies before us,....or are we just jerking off?"