Interesting thread on the Speed of Light. I've always wondered about
the fact that the speed of light is constant relative to the medium it
is passing through. But what I'd like to know is how does that "constant
except when..." speed have any relation to the energy of matter? In
other words E=MC^2 which is based on the speed of light traveling
through a vacuum, which is a medium.
Now I am definitely not a Physicist and I may be totally out to
lunch here but shouldn't that apply to other things like the speed of
sound? Maybe I'm comparing apples to oranges but isn't the speed of
sound, light, or for that matter anything moving through a medium,
dependant on the medium it is traveling through?
So lets take the old man on the train example again but in this case
we have a train moving faster than the speed of sound. He yells to the
front end of the train. From the old mans point of reference everything
is normal, and his voice was heard at the other end of the train
normally. If an outside observer could see the sound waves would he see
them and measure them as going faster than the speed of sound?
So if the 'constant' speed of light is 'variable' then does that
mean all calculations based on Einstein's formula are incorrect? Are
they just 'ballpark' results?
I just can't fathom why the speed of light in a vacuum squared times
the 'mass' has anything to do with the 'energy' of that matter. Or does
it just result in such an unbelievably large number that there is no
real way to measure the accuracy of the calculation?
The other paradox in my mind is that the speed of light is obviously
NOT constant so how could any calculations using that formula work out
even remotely correct?
If I'm totally out in left field that's fine but I would like some
input on this.
Jim Springer
"Education is what is left when
you have forgotten everything
you learned in school."
-Albert Einstein, 1936