Re: More on Speed of Light
Russell Garber ( (no email) )
Tue, 05 Oct 1999 23:48:24 -0400
HI all!
Thank you for all the interesting replies, there is definitely some food for
thought in there. I am surprised to see that no one touched upon my statement
about waves needing a medium to propagate through. My understanding with waves
is that they are carried by the vibration of atoms, thus why sound cannot be
heard in a vacuum. How can this be different for light, unless there is some
other phenomena in a the vacuum carrying the light waves. Lets look at another
property of light, which is heat. Heat transference needs a conductor of some
sort, again something that would be missing in a vacuum, so how do we feel heat
from the sun if there are no molecules to transfer the heat? Does a vacuum
have some magic properties wherein heat and waves can instantly traverse it,
of course not, or there would be no such thing as the speed of light in a
vacuum, and the entire universe would be the same temperature as the hottest
stars. It is these questions, and my original question in the other speed of
light thread: How can the Speed of light be constant in all frames of
reference? (If the speed of other matter does not add to the speed of light,
than it seems that the underlying force would have to be something that passes
through matter in order to eliminate the speed of that matter). It is these
questions that I feel still have not been effectively answered. Again, there
were some great replies, and other interesting ideas, that may help me to
eventually understand it completely, but I guess for now, I will have to take a
cue from Jerry, and put this topic on the back burner and cogitate on it a bit
more.
Thanks again for your replies :)
-Russ
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