It's also known as a jiffy, and is equal t 3.33564095 X10 raised to the -9th.
2006-09-01 03:41:59 · 8 answers · asked by naddie 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
I never said space was a vaccum, but in my physics class we were going over orginal standards and modern standards, and how they came up with that measurement, and the question came up about how they measured it.
2006-09-02 03:06:38 · update #1
Its hard to explain the original experiments that worked, but I will try and give an explanation that shows the concept.
First aim a beam of light at a mirror some distance (d) away. The large the distance the more accurate your measurement will be. Now take a quickly rotating device, such as a propeller, and stick in front of the light source. Now increase the speed of the propeller until you can see the reflection of light in the mirror. You can use this speed, combined with the number of rotators or blades of the propeller, and the distance between source and the mirror to find multiples of c. I'm tired and I don't trust my math right now so I will leave the derivation to you, but what basically is going on is that the time it takes a blade to completely travel across the light source is equal the time is takes light to travel to the mirror and back.
There are other more methods that are now used, but this was one of the ways the c was first measured.
2006-09-08 15:25:59 · answer #1 · answered by sparrowhawk 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This is not a question about the speed of light. It is about the unit called a "Jiffy" which you say is around 3.3 nanoseconds.
When I was in high school in 1974 we were made aware of a unit of time called the chronon -it being the amount of time for a photon to travel across the width of a hydrogen atom.
wikipedia says a jiffy is a jiffy is the time taken for light to travel one centimetre in a vacuum, which is approximately 33.3564 picoseconds, that would be 0.033 nano seconds.
wikipedia says a chronon is 2(10)^-23 sec.
so the other part of your question is an implicit question of how the speed of light is measured and how it can be measured in a vacuum.
2006-09-07 10:42:23 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually Space is not a "perfect vacumn". There are plasma waves and solar flares and all kinds of things in there, plus dark matter, that float around the cosmos, so light is actually being bent by a lot of things that are between here and there.
We can not create a perfect vacumn on Earth either, because we would have an implosion if we tried to evacuate every particle from an object. (plus, we dont have the technique for doing such a perfect job either).
So, light is bent around different objects, such as plasma fields, and dark matter and gravity waves...(yep, it does affect the light rays), so, we have to approximate everything.
I wish you well..
Jesse
2006-09-01 03:47:37 · answer #3 · answered by x 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Google it! To find the answer to your question
We all know that light speed in a vacuum is constant and travels 9.8 X 1018 meters in a year.
2006-09-01 03:48:21 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The world may never know.
2006-09-01 03:43:15 · answer #5 · answered by FigrSk8tr 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
they have their own instruments to get it to be measured.
2006-09-08 19:26:52 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Peanut butter don't fly MAN!! Get real!!
2006-09-06 16:54:20 · answer #7 · answered by thewordofgodisjesus 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
good question
2006-09-08 01:46:46 · answer #8 · answered by bradthepilot 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋