Why does light travel at 299,792,458 meters per second

[Didymus]

I don't think anyone will do that. There are very clearly objects, sufficiently far apart, that are separating faster than the speed of light. So what. The speed of light limit is a purely local thing.

Define local. Most people I've seen touch on this topic always brush it off with a tangent as shown below. Conveniently denying an aether when it goes against relativity, then mandating the existence of an aether when they need it to exist.

 

Yes even massive objects like colossal galaxies, that are imbedded in space can separate from each other faster than c , by the overall expansion of the universe, but that does not alter the fact that no object that has mass can travel "through" space at c.

 

c is immutable sorry!

Exactly what I meant when I pointed out how unscientific relativity is. It becomes unfalsifiable when you see objects moving away from eachother at speeds greater than C, and we just turn around and say "it isn't really the objects moving that fast, but time and space expanding between those objects." Which inherently goes back to necessitating an aether... Even though SR is based upon the lack of evidence of such an aether.

 

So, assume these two objects are traveling away from eachother at a speed greater than C. These two objects emit light toward eachother... Alan, do you believe light from the two objects can reach the opposite objects?

[Rajnish Kaushik]

its variable in different mediums its c only in vacuum

[Alan McDougall]

its variable in different mediums its c only in vacuum

 

I am sure we all know this, thus the use of the symbol c. Experiments in different mediums have got light to move at a few miles per hour, I will come back with citation!

 

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html

Edited January 28, 2014 by Alan McDougall

[Strange]

Define local. Most people I've seen touch on this topic always brush it off with a tangent as shown below. Conveniently denying an aether when it goes against relativity, then mandating the existence of an aether when they need it to exist.

 

"Local" means that you can consider them to be in inertial frames of reference; i.e. that space-time is flat. There is no exact definition because it means "when you can use flat space-time (i.e. SR) as an approximation".

 

There is no need to mandate an aether.

 

 

Exactly what I meant when I pointed out how unscientific relativity is. It becomes unfalsifiable when you see objects moving away from eachother at speeds greater than C, and we just turn around and say "it isn't really the objects moving that fast, but time and space expanding between those objects."

 

Where do you get the idea that things cannot travel faster than light? From relativity theory.

Where does the description of the expansion of space come from? From relativity theory.

 

You can't say you are going to accept some bits of the theory and try to use them to disprove other bits of the same theory. That makes no sense.

 

 

Even though SR is based upon the lack of evidence of such an aether.

 

Except it isn't. It is based upon Maxwell's equations and the simple axiom that these are independent of your state of motion. (Einstein's attitude to aether and the Michelson-Morley experiment seems to have been approximately: "meh".)

 

 

So, assume these two objects are traveling away from eachother at a speed greater than C.

 

There are galaxies receding so fast that light from them will never reach us.

[Phi for All]

Exactly what I meant when I pointed out how unscientific relativity is. It becomes unfalsifiable when you see objects moving away from eachother at speeds greater than C, and we just turn around and say "it isn't really the objects moving that fast, but time and space expanding between those objects." Which inherently goes back to necessitating an aether... Even though SR is based upon the lack of evidence of such an aether.

 

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Moderator Note

Your dissatisfaction with relativity is noted. Please do NOT hijack this thread by continuing to inject non-mainstream concepts into mainstream threads.

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

Didymus,

 

You may have missed it, but you were told not 3 posts ago to NOT hijack this thread with your opinions on relativity. I've trashed your recent posts.

[Didymus]

While I would love to go into the psychology of your response, I'll simply point out that strange made a valid point, for which I asked clarifications on -his- viewpoint.

 

So, the topic of this thread is why the speed of light is exactly what it is. This inherently calls into question whether its immutable common to all frames of reference (SR) or only it's source. If it does not offend out empress, strange has pointed out that distant celestial bodies move away from us at speeds exceeding the speed of light and therefore their light can never reach us. In the spirit of this thread's topic, if object A and B are "X" lightyears apart when the light is emitted, and the speed of light is constant, how can light take more than "X" years to travel from A to B?

 

(note, there are no scary "unpopular opinions" posted above. I'm challenging strange's suggestion, which goes against popular opinion.)

[swansont]

Oh, for crying out loud, the issue here is the topic under discussion is not expansion of the universe, so stop bringing up expansion of the universe!

 

(Didymus, expansion does not involve a single inertial frame, and as you point out, the thread is about c being invariant in inertial frames.)

[Endy0816]

Probably is just the result of underlying properties we are not fully aware of.

 

I'm thinking c is a minimum for some other system that just appears as a fairly arbitrary maximum to us.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Endy0816

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

Didymus, if you insist on hijacking this thread, we will suspend you from posting. Once again, your posts are in the trash.

[Didymus]

My post was entirely on topic and very polite. Perhaps you could have a private discussion with me if you'd like clarification instead of publically calling my questions on the topic at hand "speculative trash."

 

Rule 2.8. This is a -discussion- forum. Not a place for one viewpoint to be preached from A soap box and valid questions to be rejected. Of course, I'd prefer to have this conversation of what we think of each other personally in private.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Didymus

[hypervalent_iodine]

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Moderator Note

I believe the word I used was hijack, which is what it was.

 

Please do not respond to moderator notes in the thread. As has been mentioned, if you wish to discuss staff action, you are welcome to report the posts or to PM a member of staff. DO NOT derail this thread any further by responding to this.

 

Edit: I see you already reported some posts, so I am not sure why you thought it a good idea to derail this thread even more with your response. Please do not do this in the future.

[imatfaal]

Didymus (my personal opinion only as I am already posting in this thread)

 

Just note I couldn't find this on Google.

 

So why?

 

Why not slower, or faster?...

 

 

..So, the topic of this thread is why the speed of light is exactly what it is. This inherently calls into question whether its immutable common to all frames of reference (SR) or only it's source....

 

Just so that we know. The OP took the constancy of speed of light as axiomatic (as they are quite entitled to do in modern physics) and asked a corollary "Why not slower, or faster?" When the foundation of a question is truly embedded in science as a reliable axiom to drag a thread off-topic by questioning that piece of established physics is not acceptable debating practice. If the axiomata are speculative - then it is clear that the first line of enquiry should be assessing those, but in this case they are not.

 

Your question, which I believe is entirely ill-founded and could only be asked in the absence of understanding of Maxwell's equations, would be better off as a separate thread. This would allow your question and the OP both to receive the attention they deserve.

 

The OP raises interesting questions with answers that range from blind luck or hidden meaning to the anthropic principle (which I was privileged to hear John Barrow explain a few days ago). We have to simplify questions (ie it's a vacuum), allows given foundations (light speed is constant), work within the limits of a theory (sr deals in locally flat space etc), and understand that no explanation will ever be complete. This is what allows science to function; kicking and screaming that it should not be so is an activity for the philosophy forum. Questioning the basis of modern science; a theory which underpins cosmology, quantum mechanics, particle physics, in fact practically all physics - well this is a worthy and necessary task, but it should not take place through hijacking another thread, and it should be in speculations forum.