Light speed Definition and 322 Threads

I tried to solve this problem independently, but given how confused I am about the twin paradox and the concept of relativity of simultaneity, I have no confidence in my solution. Suppose a collection of particles has been moving very close to the velocity of light relative to the Cosmic...

The context is this post by @PeroK; Post #2 in this thread - https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/can-the-creation-of-space-in-the-universe-affect-the-speed-of-light.1059351/#post-7088760 I did some Googling and couldn't find discussion on this topic. What are the problems with c at...

Just joined because I have been unable to find an explanation: please avoid comments about FTL speed since they don't pertain to the question. The question: A planet is 30 light years away, so when viewing it from earth we are seeing it from "30" years previous. Now, we travel 30 years at light...

In the illustration below, a laser beam is emitted, and the time recorded, from the rear of a frame which is 150,000 km long and is moving at velocity 0.5 c to the right. When the beam reaches a half silvered mirror at the front of the frame, the frame being shown as a rectangle and using...

hello everyone I read this text in physics book: "Another example is the so-called Cerenkov radiation, which consists of light waves emitted by charged particles that move through a medium with a speed greater than the phase speed of light in that medium. The blue glow of the water that often...

Hello, I have a problem with the postulate of the invariance of the speed of light. When we move away from a light source it is redshift, it is the sign that the relative velocity between us and the light source has changed. If a stationary observer observes the phenomenon, he will measure that...

I watched a fermilab video claiming objects don't actually gain mass as they approach light speed. Is that true? What keeps things of mass from reaching the speed of light or beyond? I assume matter doesn't accumulate higgs-bosons while in motion?

hello everyone! Recently,i'm reading a paper about slow light,that's really a famous work published in Nature.[Light speed reduction to 17 metrespersecond in an ultracold atomicgas]. But I'm trouble with some calculation about the velocity of slow light.here are below: i try to use the...

Please bear with me I am trying to get a grip with underlying principles. Starting to try and understand Einstein’s second postulate and distinguish that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source – v - of objects, other than light with travel initiated independent of the...

If you're in a relativistic starship, approaching the speed of light, then if you get too close to it, do you end up becoming a black hole? Relativistic length decreases as you get closer to light speed. Relativistic mass increases as you do the same. Will your relativistic mass and relativistic...

Let there be a track 450,000 km long and a rocket 300,000 km long with a laser attached to the bottom of it's back end with a clock beside it, and a second synchronized clock attached to bottom of its front end. Both clocks were also synchronized with a track clock while the rocket was parked...

Thought experiment I'm wondering if anyone has explored yet. Imagine by whatever means you like, that your spaceship plucks you out of our solar system and drops you at another random point in the observable universe. Due to light speed limitation, where ever you end up will be looking at our...

I know it's not possible to travel at light speed so this is just theoretical. As I understand it at relativistic speeds the distance you need to cover to travel to a destination are length contracted. If you were traveling at light speed is the distance between you and any object ever zero?

Some people thought light speed is actually instantaneous which can be demonstrated by doing an experiment involving a taut clothesline and two clothespins. On each ends of the taut clothesline, put one of the clothespins on both ends and touch one of the clothespin will make the other one at...

Since an object's apparent mass increases as it approaches the speed of light, does it's gravitational forces also increases? (From a stationary observer's point of view)

To an average person with high school math knowledge how would you explain in a few words why no object could travel faster than the speed of light ? Well it's because...

Let me clarify my question, is there any experiment directly proved the invariance of light speed to observers? Let's not get to the argument of equivalence between source and observer. SR was based on the postulate that the light speed is constant and independent of both the motions of source...

Light speed is impossible for anything with mass as more and more energy is required with increasing velocity. But this is only to an observer in a different reference frame. To the moving object, in its own reference frame, why would anything change regardless of how close to c it moves?

Refractive index of a medium is defined as : n = c / v; v is speed of light in medium. I believe n is never measured directly as here is no way to directly verify c / v. So what I guess is that all refractive index values are experimentally measured using n = sin α₁ / sin α₂. But then there is...

I've always thought that light could possibly be transmitted faster in one direction than the other depending on the velocity of its container - despite what the current understanding of physics says! The problem is that its very hard to prove, and to this end I've read through all the...

A train is traveling around the Earth at just under light speed. Light would circle the Earth around 7 times per second so let's say this train cricles the Earth 6 times per second. There is a physical ticker on the track of the train that records revolutions. Each time the train makes one...

If we’re looking through a telescope at a craft we launched from Earth that is now passing Mars and send a radio signal to our craft telling it to turn on one of its lights on and it takes thirteen minutes for the radio waves to get from Earth to our craft how long will it take before we see the...

Summary: Will the motion around us become faster when we travel faster? When we approach a body rotating on its axis with certain speed v, will we see the body rotating in speed slightly more than the v during our motion ?And what happens assuming that we are approaching the same body in speed...

Summary: how can a train traveling at light speed, travel at two different speeds being the same train, depending upon whether you are on the train platform or in the train You say good bye to your friend at the train station. You get into train that will travel at just under light speed...

I have a question I have been wondering about lately ,somewhat abstract . Hopefully my description will be adequate . Here it is … The Earth revolves around the sun because of the suns gravitational pull and Earth's inertia . It takes about 8 minutes for sunlight to reach the Earth . What would...

I'm studying history of electromagnetism. Here is my question regarding Maxwell's classical brilliant work. I understand these constants (for now) And I understand this: And I understand this: But I need to understand how this math below gets us to the speed of light. I don't understand...

Hi all. I have a question about something Nima Arkani-Hamed said in his lecture on space-time about space contraction near light speed. I included a link to the lecture at the point where he refers to contraction of two space ships with a 'cable' between them, they are accelerating towards the...

hello, i am a near light runner at 3000000 km from us there is a mirror to start the run , my friend turns on a very powerful lamp and i start running toward the mirror me and my friend will see both the light coming back after 20 seconds?

Hello forums, I'm kind of new nice to meet you guys and girls, Could someone please explain this to me? D=S * TTherefore Distance = Speed of light * TimeAnd then Distance = Speed of light + 7 * TimeWhat is Distance and what is time?

If you were to travel alongside a train, as fast the train, to you the train would seem stationary. I read that if you were to travel along a photon of light, as fast as the speed of light, that photon would not seem stationary. Is this true? If so, why?

If light speed (not in a vacuum) was about human walking speed ... Did any sci fi writer try that?

In discussion with my friend, we reached a conclusion that transformation formula of velosity v to another IFR moving V, i.e. v'=\frac{v+V}{1+vV/c^2} is valid even if v is hypothetical velocity,i,e, v=\frac{x_2-x_1}{t_2-t_1} v'=\frac{x'_2-x'_1}{t'_2-t'_1} where interval of ##(t_1,x_1)\rightarrow...

Special relativity requires any substance to be compressible. Indeed, if an item were made of a perfectly rigid substance, then move one end of it, and the other end must move at the same moment - the movement must be transmitted instantly, faster than light. Thus, the special relativity sets...

So an object unaffected by any gravity free floating in space has zero mass. Now could this object reach light speed. Or am I confused?

A particle without mass is supposed to travel at speed of light. But isn't it that a photon has no mass but has relativistic energy.. therefore why does it travel at speed of light.. or perhaps if a photon had no relativistic energy.. it would travel a bit faster than the current lightspeed?

The question: If the max speed I can go in the universe is the speed of light measured from? Background: If there are three rocks in a vacuum along a line (the x axis), one is stationary (rock 1), one is moving 5 m/s in the x direction (rock 2) and one is move -5 m/s in the x...

Sorry, me again. In another thread #47 I gave a experimental setup to detect an anisotropy in light speed of the form ##c(\hat{n}) = c_o + \alpha (\hat{n}\cdot\hat{v})##. It was pointed out quite correctly that the error incurred in the long arm to the sensor would cancel the anisotropy making...

So I was wondering that why does time move slower the faster you get ? And does it happen at all or is this is just fake ?

Relative to the observer, objects shorten when approaching the speed of light exponentially. Does this rule also apply to the wave function? Does this rule also apply to massless particles like Photons? Or am I just simply forgetting something?

How did Einstein first contemplate the idea that the speed of light was constant in all frames or reference? Did he say "I wonder what would happen if we considered light speed to be constant" in some kind of thought experiment. Did the concept fall serendipitously from the results of...

what makes the light moving and why it moves with this speed 299792458 mps?

From LIGO website re how gravity waves are measured: "The arrival times change because when the arms of the interferometer change lengths, so too do the distances the light waves travel before exiting the interferometer. What gravitational waves do not change, however, is the speed of light...

Imagine a small cylinder with a dot at the top. Rotating the cylinder 1 degree clockwise of 0 degrees could signify a 1; and 1 degree anticlockwise of 0 degrees a zero. 0 degrees would be a space. Someone rotating one end of the cylinder would cause the other end of the cylinder to rotate...

If general relativity in the formal sense constrains all velocities to the speed of light as a maximum, how would superluminal group velocities exceeding speeds of light (at their superpositions) be evaluated in mainstream physics? Would this be a case of General Relativity and Physics...

A delightful video here A lecturer derives special relativity in a world of bats and echo location using a bat (sound) clock. All communication is limited by the speed of sound. (so a parallel of our world and light speed communication) He ends up observing that in no cases for any observer...

Yesterday, I attended the following presentation by Prof. Andrea Ghez. https://www.meetup.com/physicists/events/236886090/?gj=co2&rv=co2 In the Q&A session towards the end, there was a question she fumbled to give a proper answer. She mentioned that as long as the mass is compressed into...

First let me see if I understand what mass is ...it's the measure of an objects ability to attract other masses , and also resist acceleration ... the two always come together and define the term "mass" ... there are no subdivisions in the term 'mass' ... no different kinds of mass . I was...

So there's a spaceship 5 light years away from Earth and they want to send a signal to Earth but a cloud of interestellar dust don't let them use light or radio signals so they decide to send a gravity signal. So they produce a violent huge thermonuclear explosion that will send some particles...

I read some time ago a resume of the book the Crack In The Cosmic Egg and this is more or less what it told: When a rocket acquires light speed its mass becomes infinite which creates a gravity force field that crunches all the universe making it restart. Its argued that to propel a rocket to...

Hi. Say a positive charge is at (x,y,z)=(0,0,0) at t<0 then (1,0,0) at t>0. Electric field at (x,y,z)=(l,0,0) is (a,0,0) at t<l/c then (b,0,0) at t>l/c thus a<b. With time delay of l/c, what propagates from (x,y,z)=(0,0,0) to (l,0,0) ? I do not think it is electromagnetic wave because it is...