What is the speed of light compared to?

mee · Sep 11, 2004

the speed of light is 186000 mps or some such compared to what? :)

PRodQuanta · Sep 11, 2004

Rephrase please. I'm not sure what you are asking.

Paden Roder

jcsd · Sep 11, 2004

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 · Sep 11, 2004

Oops, sorry, didn't see your post there jcsd.

Paden Roder

mee · Sep 11, 2004

jcsd said:

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 · Sep 11, 2004

mee said:

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.

What is the speed of light compared to?

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