Speed of Light & Red Shift: My Understanding

TerryHM
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My basic understanding is that no matter how you observe light, it always a constant, it always travels at the speed of light.

So even traveling at near the speed of light you will always measure light traveling at the speed of light. If this is the case? Why do we observe red shift?
 
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A redshift is a change in the frequency of the light, not the speed of light. I'm not sure what your concern is?
 
We observe redshift, because it takes more time for a long wave pulse to pass us, if we are fleeing the pulse.

If we want to know the speed of that wave pulse, we must measure how long it takes for one point on that wave pulse to pass us.

speed = length of observer / time it takes for the middle point of the wave pulse to pass the observer
 
Last edited:
TerryHM said:
My basic understanding is that no matter how you observe light, it always a constant, it always travels at the speed of light.
I'm genuinely curious: what is your understanding of how you observe light?

TerryHM said:
So even traveling at near the speed of light you will always measure light traveling at the speed of light.
I'm curious about this too: how do you measure how fast light travels?

TerryHM said:
If this is the case?
It depends on your answers to my previous two questions.

TerryHM said:
Why do we observe red shift?
Because the object that was emitting the light was moving away from us when the light started traveling towards us and/or because we are moving away from it when the light reached us. Do you think this question is related to your previous comments?
 
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