Re: The Speed of Light


"Gary Edstrom" <gedstrom@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:mn2fj2l5kcoofpeth5u71lk9bb4rdciuba@xxxxxxxxxx
Ok, I have a limited physics background. I have just enough knowledge
of relativity to be dangerous! A couple of questions from a simpleton
concerning the speed of light:

1. Why is the speed of light 300E6 m/s? Why isn't it a tenth that
speed? Why isn't it ten times that speed?

Physics does not attempt to answer the question of why things
are as they are in a fundamental sense of why God (or nature or
whoever you think is running the show) made things that way.
That sort of question is for philosophy or religion t o answer.

Physics can show that a particular theory predicts a particular
result. For example, classical electromagnetism predicts the
speed of light to be the observed value, based on the measured
permittivity and permeability of free space. But that simply raises
question of why those constants have the particular values that
they do.


2. Since the speed of light is finite, what is there in a vacuum that
limits its speed? If a vacuum is truly empty as we classically think
of 'empty', shouldn't the speed of light in a vacuum be infinite? What
holds it back?

I see no logic for assuming that something that moves through a
vacuum travels at infinite speed.

According to relativity light travels at the maximum possible speed
in the spacetime in which we live.

Martin Hogbin


.

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