What is the Speed of Light? What can Travel at the Speed of Light? episode artwork

EPISODE · Apr 17, 2021 · 31 MIN

What is the Speed of Light? What can Travel at the Speed of Light?

from Learning by William · host William Gottemoller

As we, being objects with mass, approach relativistic speeds, our masses continue to increase, and the energy required to propel us continues to increase; once we are near enough to the speed of light, a major mathematical and physical conflict occurs: not only are we now composed of infinite mass, but we also require infinite energy to propel ourselves. Considering the fact that there is not an infinite amount of energy, or mass, for that matter, in the universe, it is reasonable to believe that the speed of light is unattainable for us massive beings. Our travels are limited to short, interstellar neighborhood voyages. Even so, our failure in breaking physics, at least now, raises the question: what does actually travel at the speed of light, or for that matter, what even is the speed of light? In this chapter, we are to discuss the speed of light and the objects it is restricted to. References: Speed of Light - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light Parallax Angle (Seconds of Arc) - NASA JPL https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/teachers/attachments/parallax.html Luminiferous Aether - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether Lorentz Transformation - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_transformation Caesium Standard - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium_standard History of Light - Photon terrace https://photonterrace.net/en/photon/history/ A Very Brief History of Light - M. Suhail Zubairy https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-31903-2_1 Refractive Index - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index Lorentz Factor - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor Massless Particle - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massless_particle

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