Re: Why doesn't light travel at infinite speed?

in article 1172265097.145852.9520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
skillzero@xxxxxxxxx at skillzero@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 2/23/07 3:11 PM:

We observe that objects moving relative to us age more slowly than
objects that are stationary with respect to us. An object observed to
be moving at c doesn't age at all. The speed affects the observed
aging, not vice-versa. The fact that aging stops for objects moving
at c insead of at an infinite speed, is just the way the universe
behaves; there is no answer as to why.

Thanks for the response. I guess I'm just curious why I don't see more
research on why this is because it seems pretty fundamental. For
example, I thought muon decay lasted much longer (i.e. it was able to
travel much further than it should) because of time dilation effects
due to them moving at close to the speed of light.

Yes, but the speed at which a "laboratory" observer sees the muon traveling
is not affected by the time dilation. The lab observer sees the muon decay
more slowly than the muon sees itself decay (if it could see itself decay),
but that does not change the speed at which the muon moves relative to the
lab observer. Similarly, light is observed to travel at the speed of light
no matter what happens "internal (using the term very loosely)" to the
photons.


If you apply the
same time dilation to light, it would seem to imply that light should
be everywhere at once and yet we don't perceive that.

True. So?


.

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