PDA

View Full Version : speed of light


mee
Sep11-04, 12:27 PM
the speed of light is 186000 mps or some such compared to what? :)

PRodQuanta
Sep11-04, 12:33 PM
Rephrase please. I'm not sure what you are asking.

Paden Roder

jcsd
Sep11-04, 12:33 PM
The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per secpnmd or exactly 299 792 458 metres per second. I don't know what you mean by 'compared to 'what', the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames.

PRodQuanta
Sep11-04, 12:34 PM
Oops, sorry, didn't see your post there jcsd.

Paden Roder

mee
Sep11-04, 12:46 PM
The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per secpnmd or exactly 299 792 458 metres per second. I don't know what you mean by 'compared to 'what', the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames.

So whatever inertial frame one is measuring by, light travels at c as if the inertial frame was still?

russ_watters
Sep11-04, 01:13 PM
So whatever inertial frame one is measuring by, light travels at c as if the inertial frame was still? Yes. And that is the 2nd postulate of Special Relativity.