Speed of Light vs. Sound: What Would Change?

AI Thread Summary
If the speed of light were reduced to match the speed of sound at 331 m/s, there would be a noticeable delay in perceiving events, similar to how we see lightning before hearing thunder. This delay would not be significant for human observers at 330 m/s, but at much slower speeds like 3 m/s, moving objects could reach a person before their visual perception of them, complicating everyday experiences like crossing the street. The discussion also touches on how this change could affect our understanding of relativity, as light from distant stars would take much longer to reach us, making the information appear outdated. Overall, the implications of such a shift would fundamentally alter our perception of time and space. The conversation invites further exploration of these concepts in relation to real-world physics.
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if. the speed of light has the same velocity as sound?
wat would happen? compare to now?
 
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Sound is the change in pressure of a gas. A gas consists of particles with mass. They couldn't travel at the speed of light, but if they could travel close to it, they would have a very large energy. And the effect of a sound wave would be a bit like someone sandblasting your face.
 
oh? cool thanks

btw i was asking (sorry for not state clearly)


if the light reuce its speed to somewhere like 331 m/s (same for sound in air) wat would happen then
 
AntiMagicMan... I was thinking of it the other way round but your answer was interesting.
to answer the question as I see it to be written, there would be a delay involved between viewing objects, and events happening. When we hear sounds in the distance, we can often notice the events happening with our eyes before the sound reaches us, due to the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light (a football being kicked in the distance, a lightning flash followed by thunder etc.). If light were to travel as slowly as sound, this same delay would be evident when viewing objects , but I don't believe it would be noticeable to a human observer as 330 m/s is still pretty quick. If you drop it too 3 m/s however, that would be pretty spacey.. moving objects could move towards you and reach you before the light did, which I guess would also cause the light to be re-absorbed by the moving object making it very difficult to cross a road safely :-)

In the case o flilght moving at 330 m/s howveer, i think it would be just like when we view stars, in that our information could be years old by the time the light hits us, but it doesn't 'look' peculiar, its just that we 'know' its old because we know how far away the stars are.

I'd be interested to hear peoples opinions on how it effected relativity in the real world...
Martin
 
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