Is the Speed of Light Constant in All Reference Frames?

[NanakiXIII]

Now I'm not absolutely sure this is the right forum, but here goes.

I've been told that the relative speed of light is supposed to be the same in any reference frame. Is that true, and if so, how is that possible?

 

[mathman]

It is possible simply because it happens to be that way. There are many popular books describing special relativity. You should get one.

 

[NanakiXIII]

I've read articles about it, but I just don't understand how that would work. Doesn't it have an absolute speed?

 

[chroot]

Yes, the speed of light appears the same to all observers who measure it, no matter how they happen to be moving. It always appears to be going a specific speed, c. This is the fundamental postulate of the special theory of relativity.

While this may seem hard to swallow at first, it follows naturally from the relativity of velocities. In other words, there's no way to define a velocity without reference to something else. Take, for example, two spaceships passing each other in the depths of space. Which one is moving?

- Warren

 

[NanakiXIII]

But spaceships don't relatively move at the same speed in any reference frame, do they? So why does light?

 

[FZ+]

Because it travels at the speed of light.

More accurately, the velocity addition formula in SR is:

w = (u + v)/(1 + uv/c^2)

Suppose we have an object receding at u, and it measures the speed of light as c... Set u = u, and v = c:

w = (u+c)/(1+u/c)
w = ((u+c)c)/(u+c)
w = c

If our spaceship traveling at the speed of light, things would be very weird - but fortunately relativity tells us why spaceships can't travel at the speed of light (if it had rest mass), so the question is invalid.

chroot: I don't think it follows naturally from relativity of velocities. More the other way round...

 

[Kurdt]

It may have something to do with the fact that light is the medium by which we sense the universe. Just as one takes for granted certain parts of physics such as our attraction to the Earth and the rotation of the Earth it may also take for granted that light always travels at the same speed since its velocity is so great with respect to our everyday happenings. Hence the slowing down of ageing and so forth is just the fact that information passing from one place to another takes longer and we sense that more time is passing as our brain believes that light is traveling at the same speed as normal. Thus we measure the volcity of light as constant anywhere because it is the fundamental instrument of information transfer. Of course I could be spectacularly wrong.

 

[Kurdt]

PS: I may not have worded my thoughts particularly well so any questions are welcomed.

 

[jdavel]

NanakiXIII,

The fact that light speed relative to us is always c seems hard to believe because we have so much accumulated experience with things (namely objects with mass) whose speed is not always the same relative to us.

Einstein said that his conviction of constant c began to form when he was about 16 and tried to imagine what a light wave would look like if you could travel along with it. Light waves are kind of complicated, and I don't know how much physics you've learned.

But try thinking about what a water wave would look like if you could travel along with it. Suppose you concentrated your vision on just one crest of the wave that you were moving along right next to. Would a big hill of water that seems to be standing still make sense? Why, or why not?

 

[Integral]

As Chroot said, c is a postulate of Special Relativity, this means that it is ASSUMED without proof. So any result of SR cannot be used to prove the constancy of c. SR is an exploration of the effects of a constant c, not the reasons c is constant. There is a big difference.

The primary theoretical derivation of a constant c was done by Clerk Maxwell in about 1867. This result, that the propagation speed of electro magnetic waves through space depended only on fundamental constants and not the motion of the source, sent shock waves through the world of Physics, for the next 50 yrs Physics had to contend with the existence of theoretic waves which did not obey the closely held laws of Mechanics. You are not the first to be bothered by this! It bothered an entire generation of Physicists. This may have been the hottest topic in Physics for the last half of the 19th century. Many attempted to ignore it feeling that it was an error on the part of Maxwell and it was up to him to fix it. Others attempted to find experimental evidence to the contrary, they failed.
The issue was finally resolved by Einstein, the reason no one was concerned by his postulate when he published is because it was the "hot topic" of the day, all of physics was aware of the fact so it did not need proof. Today this fact that a constant c preceded SR by 40 yrs is often forgotten.

 

[jdavel]

The primary theoretical derivation of a constant c was done by Clerk Maxwell in about 1867. This result, that the propagation speed of electro magnetic waves through space depended only on fundamental constants and not the motion of the source, sent shock waves through the world of Physics

Is that really true? The speed of mechanical waves are independent of the motion of the source. So, why would Maxwell's discovery have been such a shock? He believed in an ether, and that the c in his wave equations was constant relative to that ether, just the way mechanical waves travel at a constant speed relative to their medium.

I'm pretty sure if you had asked Maxwell in 1867 what the velocity for the EM wave would be if you traveled in the direction of a light beam at .1*c, he would have .9*c.

 

[chroot]

No. Maxwell's equations are a wave equation with a velocity = c. Nowhere does the velocity of the source or observer appear in the the equation. Maxwell's equations predict the speed of light = c, period.

- Warren

 

[turin]

I've been told that the relative speed of light is supposed to be the same in any reference frame. Is that true, and if so, how is that possible?

Perhaps your confusion is based on Galilean relativity. Galilean relativity is simply not believed to be accurate. For about 300 years, considerations of motion were required to adhere to Galilean transformations. When Maxwell's equations came along in the latter part of the 1800's physicists realized that Galilean transformations had to be replaced by more accurate transformations (that approach Galilean transformations in the slow speed limit). This effort culminated in Einstein's SR in 1905 with his radical conjecture that:

t' /= t

!

 

[jdavel]

No. Maxwell's equations are a wave equation with a velocity = c. Nowhere does the velocity of the source or observer appear in the equation.

The same thing can be said about the equation for a sound wave. The velocity that appears in that equation isn't with respect to the source or observer. It's with respect to the medium in which the wave is a disturbance. And in 1867 Maxwell believed that the wave speed c in his equation was with respect to the EM medium; so did everyone else. The first person who didn't, wasn't born until 12 years later.

 

[jdavel]

When Maxwell's equations came along in the latter part of the 1800's physicists realized that Galilean transformations had to be replaced by more accurate transformations...

I don't think that's true. If the Michelson Morley epxeriement had detected a medium for light waves, why would the Galilean transfomations have needed to be replaced? What would have replaced them? Surely not the Lorentz transformations!

 

[turin]

I don't think that's true.

Fair enough.

What would have replaced them? Surely not the Lorentz transformations!

Why not?

 

[Integral]

Jdavel,
Surely you have heard of the disruption in the world of Physics that occurred in the last half of the 19th century? This is a simple historical fact, it occurred. The source of the troubles was the constancy of c. The speed of sound depends on properties of sound which vary with density of the material, so it was not a fixed constant. The

expression $$\sqrt { \frac 1 {\epsilon_0 \mu_0}}$$
does not vary with any known material properties, these constants were well known and well understood. The implications of this expression were clear to all trained physicists. It received so much press I believe that even the lay people of the day were made aware of the implications of this fact.

As for the constant c originating with Albert Einstein consider that the Michelson Morley experiment was performed about the same time AE was born. So while little Albert was still considered the village idiot the world of physics was aware of the constancy of c and a key experiment to detect the ether had failed. I have no difficulty believing that Albert grew up thinking about the meaning of a constant c, it was a very popular topic in that day. I also cannot believe, as some have claimed, that he had never heard of the results of Michelson and Morley. Michelson was a well known figure in that era, for Albert to be unaware of his work would be like saying a current student of cosmology has never heard of Stephan Hawking. Albert Einstein was a well educated Physicist (though not able to find a job in the field) at the time of the publication of his first papers. It is simply inconceivable that he was not aware of key historic events in his field of interest.

 

[jdavel]

The speed of sound depends on properties of sound which vary with density of the material, so it was not a fixed constant. The

expression $$\sqrt { \frac 1 {\epsilon_0 \mu_0}}$$
does not vary with any known material properties...

It would be very surprising if it did, since it refers to properties of empty space. But when light travels through matter it slows down, and you can't use this expression to compute the speed.

So Maxwell's wave equation says that the speed of light is c in emtpy space, but something else through matter. The equation for sound says that the speed of sound is 1100ft/sec through air at STP, but something else through air at a different temp or pressure.

So what's so special about the speed derived by Maxwell? As long as you believe there's an ether (and Maxwell did) the answer is nothing. Light waves like all other waves, would travel at a constant speed with respect to the medium on which they propagate. It wasn't until M&M found (to their disbelief) that there is no ether, that light speed began to seem special, because with no medium there doesn't seem to be anything for c to be referenced to. Without a medium, what does c even mean; 300,000km/s with respect to what? The answer turned out to be "with respect to all observers" but nobody knew that until 1905.

 

[Eyesaw]

Jdavel,
Surely you have heard of the disruption in the world of Physics that occurred in the last half of the 19th century? This is a simple historical fact, it occurred. The source of the troubles was the constancy of c. The speed of sound depends on properties of sound which vary with density of the material, so it was not a fixed constant. The

expression $$\sqrt { \frac 1 {\epsilon_0 \mu_0}}$$
does not vary with any known material properties, these constants were well known and well understood. The implications of this expression were clear to all trained physicists. It received so much press I believe that even the lay people of the day were made aware of the implications of this fact.

As for the constant c originating with Albert Einstein consider that the Michelson Morley experiment was performed about the same time AE was born. So while little Albert was still considered the village idiot the world of physics was aware of the constancy of c and a key experiment to detect the ether had failed. I have no difficulty believing that Albert grew up thinking about the meaning of a constant c, it was a very popular topic in that day. I also cannot believe, as some have claimed, that he had never heard of the results of Michelson and Morley. Michelson was a well known figure in that era, for Albert to be unaware of his work would be like saying a current student of cosmology has never heard of Stephan Hawking. Albert Einstein was a well educated Physicist (though not able to find a job in the field) at the time of the publication of his first papers. It is simply inconceivable that he was not aware of key historic events in his field of interest.

Note that this expression used to derive the speed of light in vacuum has the same form as that used to derive the speed of light in different mediums, thus it would be interesting and appropriate at this time to discuss the meanings of magnetic permeability and electric permitivitty and the methods by which they are determined. From my understanding of the terms, it seems obvious that under Maxwell's formulation, permitivitty and permeability are properties of an EM propogating medium which varies according to the "density" of the medium. Thus the so called "vacuum" in Maxwell's equations is not really a vacuum but is descriptive of a light propogating medium with a minimum density achievable by available technology.

 

[da_willem]

The expression does not vary with any known material properties...

It would be very surprising if it did, since it refers to properties of empty space. But when light travels through matter it slows down, and you can't use this expression to compute the speed.

Actually the speed of light is the same in any medium. The thing that changes is the phase velocity. this is because of the repetative process of scattering with he atoms making up the material, which introduces a phase shift in the scattered light. When this scattered light recombines with the transmitted light it interferes and shifts the phase of the combined wave. This happens continuously, and because the speed of the wave is the rate of advance of the condition of constant phase, a change in the phase should correspond to a change in the speed.

The proces described above can in some circumstances even yield a phase speed higher than c. This does not contradict special relativity because the speed at which information is transported depends on the speed of the photons, which is still c.

 

[Integral]

The speed of light is the same in all mediums. It just take longer to get through because the light is adsorbed by the atomic structure, then after a short time delay it is emitted. The speed between adsrobtion events is c.

This has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Please post on topic or not at all.

 

[NanakiXIII]

Thanks for all the replies, though I don't get half of it. To answer jdavel, I don't really know much, I'm just a 14-year-old that's learned most of what he knows on the net.

Something that caught my eye:

Without a medium, what does c even mean; 300,000km/s with respect to what?

Does it have to be relative to anything? Isn't 300 000km/s an absolute speed, meaning it travels 300 000km in 1s?

Perhaps your confusion is based on Galilean relativity.

Can't say I've ever heard of it.

But try thinking about what a water wave would look like if you could travel along with it. Suppose you concentrated your vision on just one crest of the wave that you were moving along right next to. Would a big hill of water that seems to be standing still make sense? Why, or why not?

If you drew the wave pattern in 2D and followed one point, it would seem like a hill standing still, right? In real life, maybe not, but I think other issues play a role in that.


I'm sorry about the incoherance of this post, I just picked some things I felt like replying too, I pretty much don't understand what the rest is about, and I don't really think it (the rest) answers my question anyway.

 

[jdavel]

Does it have to be relative to anything? Isn't 300 000km/s an absolute speed, meaning it travels 300 000km in 1s?

Those are good questions, and if you can even begin to understand their answers, you'll know a lot more physics than most 14 yrs olds!

Here's how I wish I had started thinking about this stuff when I was 14! Imagine you're way out in space somewhere, not in a solar system or even a galaxy, or even in a cluster of galaxies. You're so far from anything that you can't see anything else; it's just pitch black out there. All you have with you is a flash light that you can shine at yourself and see your own body. When you shine your light out into space, you don't see anything, not even a faint beam because there's no dust for the beam to light up. Imagine just floating there weightless and very alone. It would feel as though you weren't moving right? Now, another lonely person with a flashlight from this general region of very empty space comes floating into view from way off to your right. At first all you can see is a bright speck from his flashlight. Then as he gets closer you point your light at him just as he points his at you, so you can see each other faces. He drifts past you, and disappears way off to your left. The last thing you see is the bright speck from his light still pointing at you. Then that disappears, and you're alone again. You think to yourself, "I wonder how that guy got himself moving."

Now some questions:

What would you have to change in the previous paragraph so that it tells the same story, but from the other guy's view point?

Do the words "left" and "right" need to be exchanged?

Does the last sentence need to be changed at all?

 

[NanakiXIII]

No words would need to be replaced, nor "left" and "right", nor the last line. Providing that guy is in the same situation. If he launched himself from somewhere or had some other knowledge, things might need to be changed, but I'm assuming that's not what you meant.

I understand relativity perfectly well (I believe so anyway), but 300 000 km/s to me means something bridges an absolute distance of 300 000 km every second. It's absolute, not relative. What am I missing?

 

[jdavel]

300 000 km/s to me means something bridges an absolute distance of 300 000 km every second. It's absolute, not relative.

But it's not absolute, it's relative!

Think about your answers (which were exactly right) about the two guys in space. Both thought it was the other guy who was moving, while they were standing still. Which one "bridged an absolute distance" from just coming into view on the right to just going out of view on the left? Your answer was that they both thought it was the other guy. If they can't agree on who bridged the distance, how can the distance be absolute? Absolute means everybody agrees.

Galileo and Newton realized that distance (or space) between two points that they were using in their expalanations of how objects move from one place to another was a relative quantity. It depends on who measures it. One person says there's no space between something that happens at point A and something that happens at point B. Someone else says there is. This really bothered Newton, but his own theory required that space be relative, not absolute.

Two hundred and fifty years later all that Einstein said was that time is relative too!

 

[NanakiXIII]

Okay, so movement is always relative, but how is distance? 300 000km is 300 000km, right? They might not agree on who covered the distance, but they know one of them (or both a part) did.

One person says there's no space between something that happens at point A and something that happens at point B. Someone else says there is.

Elaborate, please.

 

[jdavel]

NanakiXIII,

You're going to make a good physicist; you know how to ask good questions!

Let's redo our space guy scenario.

You're out there by yourself and you turn you flash your light for a fraction of a second. Then you wait a few seconds and flash it again. Did those flashes occur at the same place, or was there some space in between them?

Now, as it turns out, you were'nt really alone. The other guy was right out in front of you, but his light wasn't on, so you never knew he was there. But he saw two flashes of light. He didn't see you, all he saw was two flashes of light. Did the flashes he saw occur at the same place, or was there some space between them?

 

[NanakiXIII]

Hmm...and I don't even plan on being one.. :)

If you were still, the flashes would have taken place on the same spot, if you were moving, they would obviously not. But then again, there's no way of telling if you were moving, as movement is relative.

But what exactly does all this have to do with the speed of light?

 

[russ_watters]

Thanks for all the replies, though I don't get half of it. To answer jdavel, I don't really know much, I'm just a 14-year-old that's learned most of what he knows on the net.

Don't sweat it, you're off to a good start and you're at the right age to start learning about it. And as said already, you're asking exactly the right questions. It shows you understand why Relativity is so weird (at first glance) and you're doing a good job of thinking through the implications.

Okay, so movement is always relative, but how is distance? 300 000km is 300 000km, right? They might not agree on who covered the distance, but they know one of them (or both a part) did.

Ok, here's the next step. Ready?

You may not have thought about it before, but no, distance is not absolute either. Think about a man walking from the back of a train to the front. He thinks he's walking at 1m/s with respect to the train. A guy in one of the seats on the train agrees with him: but a guy on the platform next to the train does not. They may all agree on the time they've been watching him (if they just use their wristwatch to time him), but not the distance, therefore not the speed. This is classical/Galilean Relativity. Distance and speed depend on your reference frame, time does not.

Einstein's relativity goes one step further: Since all observers in all reference frames do agree on the speed of light and we already know distance depends on your frame of reference, time must also be frame dependent according to the speed equation (s=d/t). That's right - the rate of the passage of time depends on your frame of reference: the faster you are moving relative to another observer, the slower your clock will run relative to that observer. This is called time dilation.

Time dilation may be difficult to accept, but it is well established experimental fact. GPS satellites for example contain highly accurate clocks who'se tick rates are adjusted prior to launch to keep them all in sync once in orbit: when on the ground, they do not keep accurate time.

Keep 'em coming (there is of course more) - you're doing good so far.

 

[NanakiXIII]

He thinks he's walking at 1m/s with respect to the train. A guy in one of the seats on the train agrees with him: but a guy on the platform next to the train does not.

I think you formulated that wrong, or I'm misinterperting (I can never spell that word) it. He's walking 1m/s relative to the train. How could someone on the platform not agree? He may not be walking 1m/s relative to the platform, but we're talking about relative to the train.

Since all observers in all reference frames do agree on the speed of light

That's what I'm trying to understand. How could it be the same in all reference frames? If that is true then I suppose I could understand Time Dilation and for example the Twin Paradox, but I'd first like to understand that one part. How can the speed of light be the same in every reference frame?

 

[LURCH]

Some confusion has come up ni this thread about the fact that all motion must be relative. The statement itself is true, but what we mean by the speed of light being absolute is that its speed relative to any observer is allways the same. This was discovered by actually measuring it.

I think this latest post by Russ is the most direct answer to your original question. Time dilation and length contraction are opposite sides of the same coin, you see. Eintsein's great contribution was the fancy bit of reasoning that says that if speed is distance over time, and the speed of something remains constant to any observer, then either the distance or the time must very. And as it turns out, the correct answer is "both". So, as one's frame of refference changes, and the speed of light remains 300,000 kps, one can logically deduce that either a different killometer or a different second is being used to make that measurement. With this realisation, suddenly all meaurements of light's speed made sense.

 

[NanakiXIII]

This was discovered by actually measuring it.

But I'm trying to understand it.

a different killometer or a different second

'scuse me?

Maybe I'm not reading this right, but I didn't know there were different types of kilometers and seconds.

 

[Kurdt]

It is I take it undisputed that you believe that light is the ultimate speed limit. This comes from the fact that the particle is massless and therefore the perfect candidate to go at an 'infinite' speed but the fact it does not is rather handy for the existence of the universe and an underlying factor in Einstein's other famous equation that mass and energy are equivalent.

The big question I guess you are trying to understand is why is this the speed that is always measured? Well that question is most tricky indeed. I do not know if it can be explained in any other manner other than the fact that we have done experiments and it turns out to be that way. For myself I've always thought that the answer lay in the nature of light and the way we, humans, and instruments interpret it. But alas I am not famous for it yet.

 

[NanakiXIII]

I suppose it would make sense that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit, but then again, you never know. That's not my question though.

It's the result of experiment, but surely it is understood why it is as such?

I don't think I really understand your explenation (about the nature of light and how we interpret it).

 

[Kurdt]

It wasn't really an explanation just indulging myself in a random thought. Light is electromagnetic. It may just be that there is something we are missing about how a photon behaves, that is making the question of how it is always determined to have the same speed a very difficult one to answer. Mathematics can only model what we 'see', it can't tell us the mechanism behind what is happening. It is experimentation that let's us know what the mechanism is. All I am saying is that there may be some phenomena of light we may not yet have come across through experimentation that holds the key to the answer of your question.