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kolleamm
- 477
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Is there a simple way to prove to someone that light travels at c in a vacuum? I was having a debate with a friend and he said the speed of light isn't real.
kolleamm said:Basically I told him about an article I read about a new technology that could get us to Mars in a few days, I told him it would probably be near the speed of light (just a guess) and then he said the speed of light isn't real, whatever that means.
kolleamm said:It's more about me learning what to say next time such a conversation comes up. Nothing I hate more than accepting scientific theories and not knowing how to justify my opinion when someone says otherwise.
The speed of light is a fundamental constant in physics, denoted by the letter "c". It is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second, or about 186,282 miles per second.
The speed of light was first measured by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer in 1676 using observations of the moons of Jupiter. He noticed that the time between eclipses of Jupiter's moons changed depending on the distance between Earth and Jupiter, and used this to estimate the speed of light.
According to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, the speed of light is the maximum speed at which all matter and information can travel in the universe. This is due to the fact that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference, and as an object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and it requires an infinite amount of energy to accelerate further.
The speed of light has been measured and verified by numerous experiments, including the famous Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, which showed that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same in all directions. This has been further confirmed by the results of modern experiments such as the Hafele-Keating experiment and the Global Positioning System (GPS).
The speed of light plays a crucial role in many modern technologies, including telecommunications, satellite navigation, and medical imaging. It also has significant implications for our understanding of the universe, as it is used to measure distances and determine the age of the universe.