Philosophy Now Forum

Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec. in a vacuum. Matter moves between 0 to 186,000 miles/sec. in a vacuum and regardless how fast matter moves, light moves at a constant 186,000 miles/sec. It would seem that on this basis alone that light operates in a different manner than matter.

The question is why? Is light actually moving through its own universe according to its own laws while simultaneously operating in our universe? Is it because light (or an electromagnetic wave) has its own mechanism that lets it function the way it does (also keep in mind that entanglement acts instantaneously which may happen through another universe).

I picked out light whose facts are accepted by the scientific community. Yet light has mysteries of its own which have defied explanation. Are we any closer to resolving these mysteries?

PhilX

Light does not require any thing to travel through since it can do so in vacuum. Now it was thought it needed the medium of
the luminiferous aether to travel through but this was falsified in 1905 by Michelson and Morley who won the Nobel Prize for
it. Its precise speed is 299 792 458 metres per second and the exact length of the metre itself is predicated upon that speed
To an external observer it moves in a straight line but to a photon there is no concept of time as everything is instantaneous

surreptitious57 wrote:Light does not require any thing to travel through since it can do so in vacuum. Now it was thought it needed the medium of
the luminiferous aether to travel through but this was falsified in 1905 by Michelson and Morley who won the Nobel Prize for
it. Its precise speed is 299 792 458 metres per second and the exact length of the metre itself is predicated upon that speed
To an external observer it moves in a straight line but to a photon there is no concept of time as everything is instantaneous

This can be another reason why light may be moving through another universe (no aether). In this universe, light does interact with matter which can reflect the light, slow it down or stop it altogether (i.e. through refraction).
Yet experiment shows it doesn't need a medium to move around (like sound).

To add to its mystery, light can be either a wave or a particle, depending on the experiment (therefore depending on how you look at it). Some describe this as the dual nature of light, but I contend that its true nature is deeper. My feeling is due to this and many other issues with understanding the universe, the paradigm will have to change.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec. in a vacuum.

You left out an important qualification to this statement, without which it is false.

Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec in a vacuum, as measured in the referential frame of the observer. .

This is not merely a gratuitous point of pedantry but a profoundly significant physical FACT.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec. in a vacuum.

You left out an important qualification to this statement, without which it is false.

Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec in a vacuum, as measured in the referential frame of the observer. .

This is not merely a gratuitous point of pedantry but a profoundly significant physical FACT.

Don't know about that Leo since light's speed is a constant regardless of the referential frame of the observer.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec. in a vacuum.

You left out an important qualification to this statement, without which it is false.

Light moves at a constant speed of about 186,000 miles/sec in a vacuum, as measured in the referential frame of the observer. .

This is not merely a gratuitous point of pedantry but a profoundly significant physical FACT.

Don't know about that Leo since light's speed is a constant regardless of the referential frame of the observer.

PhilX

How does this contradict what I said? The speed of light in a black hole is 186,000 miles/sec as measured using a clock in the black hole. The speed of light on earth is measured as 186,000 miles/sec as measured using a clock on earth. These clocks are running at vastly different speeds, and since v=d/t it is perfectly plain that the speed of light is only measured as a constant as measured in the referential frame of the observer. Any high school physics text will confirm this.

Obvious Leo wrote:
How does this contradict what I said? The speed of light in a black hole is 186,000 miles/sec as measured using a clock in the black hole. The speed of light on earth is measured as 186,000 miles/sec as measured using a clock on earth. These clocks are running at vastly different speeds, and since v=d/t it is perfectly plain that the speed of light is only measured as a constant as measured in the referential frame of the observer. Any high school physics text will confirm this.

Two things:

Who has ever been to a black hole to measure the speed of light? Since the speed of light is a constant, this already implies that the referential frame of the observer is not a factor which doesn't need to be mentioned.

PhilX

Are you denying that clocks tick more slowly in black holes than they do on earth just because nobody has ever ventured into one to test this proposition? Set your mind at ease, mate, because we don't need to do anything so dangerous. Clocks tick faster at the top of the hill than they they do at the bottom and this has been measured. They tick faster on the carpet than they do on the bare floorboards beside it and this has also been measured. They tick faster on the electron than they do on the nucleus it orbits but they can't make clocks either accurate enough or small enough to measure this. These are not opinions, Phil, but physical facts given to us by the great man Einstein himself in GR. You ought to learn what else GR has to tell us because it might change the way you see the world. Time passes more quickly at your head than it does at your feet, a truth for which you should be grateful because this is the fact which is holding you onto the surface of the earth.

Obvious Leo wrote:Are you denying that clocks tick more slowly in black holes than they do on earth just because nobody has ever ventured into one to test this proposition? Set your mind at ease, mate, because we don't need to do anything so dangerous. Clocks tick faster at the top of the hill than they they do at the bottom and this has been measured. They tick faster on the carpet than they do on the bare floorboards beside it and this has also been measured. They tick faster on the electron than they do on the nucleus it orbits but they can't make clocks either accurate enough or small enough to measure this. These are not opinions, Phil, but physical facts given to us by the great man Einstein himself in GR. You ought to learn what else GR has to tell us because it might change the way you see the world. Time passes more quickly at your head than it does at your feet, a truth for which you should be grateful because this is the fact which is holding you onto the surface of the earth.

What has all of this to do with the speed of light being a constant?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Are you denying that clocks tick more slowly in black holes than they do on earth just because nobody has ever ventured into one to test this proposition? Set your mind at ease, mate, because we don't need to do anything so dangerous. Clocks tick faster at the top of the hill than they they do at the bottom and this has been measured. They tick faster on the carpet than they do on the bare floorboards beside it and this has also been measured. They tick faster on the electron than they do on the nucleus it orbits but they can't make clocks either accurate enough or small enough to measure this. These are not opinions, Phil, but physical facts given to us by the great man Einstein himself in GR. You ought to learn what else GR has to tell us because it might change the way you see the world. Time passes more quickly at your head than it does at your feet, a truth for which you should be grateful because this is the fact which is holding you onto the surface of the earth.

What has all of this to do with the speed of light being a constant?

PhilX

Everything. You're the maths geek and should be able to work it out for yourself. If v=d/t then v cannot be a constant if t is variable.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Are you denying that clocks tick more slowly in black holes than they do on earth just because nobody has ever ventured into one to test this proposition? Set your mind at ease, mate, because we don't need to do anything so dangerous. Clocks tick faster at the top of the hill than they they do at the bottom and this has been measured. They tick faster on the carpet than they do on the bare floorboards beside it and this has also been measured. They tick faster on the electron than they do on the nucleus it orbits but they can't make clocks either accurate enough or small enough to measure this. These are not opinions, Phil, but physical facts given to us by the great man Einstein himself in GR. You ought to learn what else GR has to tell us because it might change the way you see the world. Time passes more quickly at your head than it does at your feet, a truth for which you should be grateful because this is the fact which is holding you onto the surface of the earth.

What has all of this to do with the speed of light being a constant?

PhilX

Everything. You're the maths geek and should be able to work it out for yourself. If v=d/t then v cannot be a constant if t is variable.

I've never implied otherwise. You've misinterpreted something.

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I've never implied otherwise. You've misinterpreted something.

No I haven't. I was merely correcting you on a mis-statement of a fact. You missed a vitally important point when you implied that the speed of light is a constant. GR actually demonstrates that the speed of light is a relativistic constant, which has surely got to be one of the most bizarre oxymorons in our language.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Philosophy Explorer wrote:I've never implied otherwise. You've misinterpreted something.

No I haven't. I was merely correcting you on a mis-statement of a fact. You missed a vitally important point when you implied that the speed of light is a constant. GR actually demonstrates that the speed of light is a relativistic constant, which has surely got to be one of the most bizarre oxymorons in our language.

I didn't imply it. I flat out stated the speed of light is a constant based on the MM experiment and others. It was Einstein and others who broadened it by saying that the frame of reference of the observer has no bearing on the observed speed of light which stays at a constant 186,000 miles/sec.

PhilX

Bullshit, Phil. This is not what relativity says at all but I'm not interested in arguing about such a simple and uncontroversial point. Have a think about GR and what it says about the inconstant speed at which time passes. How can you possibly say that this is irrelevant when measuring such a thing as a speed??

Obvious Leo wrote:Bullshit, Phil. This is not what relativity says at all but I'm not interested in arguing about such a simple and uncontroversial point. Have a think about GR and what it says about the inconstant speed at which time passes. How can you possibly say that this is irrelevant when measuring such a thing as a speed??

Because I'm talking about the speed of light, not about the speed of the observer.

PhilX