C

[bozo the clown]

was wondering what set c to its speed ?

[Gokul43201]

was wondering what you really masgrgdffh ?

[Gza]

was wondering what you really masgrgdffh ?

Lol. Did you fall asleep on your keyboard before finishing that sentence? :smile:

And Bozo, c is the speed of light.

[fbsthreads]

"was wondering what set c to its speed ?"

from what i can interpret from that badly written question, he wants to know what exactly sets a photons speed to C and not to any other velocity.

[Gokul43201]

Lol. Did you fall asleep on your keyboard before finishing that sentence? :smile:

No, but I wanted to be about as coherent as Bozo.

[selfAdjoint]

The electrical and magnetic properties of the vacuum set the value of c, according to the Maxwell equations.

[Janitor]

As a follow-up to what selfAdjoint wrote, is there any hope that string theory will help answer why "the electrical and magnetic properties of the vacuum set the value of c"?

[FZ+]

My guess: probably not. ST will probably set out a range of possible values for c, or outline equations which will function if c is a certain value, or whatever. But I doubt it would mathematically define c to be a specific value as a matter of neccessity.

I don't think c is just set by magnetic properties of the vacuum, and so on. I think that c is a specific property set by the geometry of our particular spacetime, and that the permeability/permitivity constants are effects, rather than causes. But then again, I don't really know.