Why can I not increase the speed of light?

Question

Why can't there be an artificial way to manipulate the speed of light? Why does it have to be exactly 186000 miles/sec?

Answer 1

Good question.

The speed of light is the universal Constant (the C in E=MC^2)

It is pure mass-less energy which exhibits both wave and particle characteristics. It's speed is exactly constant regardless of the motion or velocity of the observer (not exactly an intuitive conclusion - and completely contrary to Newton's addition of velocity.)

It is simply a phenomenon of light. Apparently, when rest mass is totally converted to pure light energy, it's velocity is constant. We cannot "subtract" or "add" further energy to regulate this speed - we can, however, slow this speed significantly by directing it through different mediums - the 186,000 miles per second you mention in your question is in a vacuum.
As an added, and interesting, note, the eerie greenish blue hue that seems to glow above a nuclear waste pool is due to the emitted particles which are traveling faster than the speed of light - the speed of light through water, that is.

Answer 2

The speed of light is a constant of nature, according to Einstien. This was his great discovery. Actually, the value of 186000 miles/sec is the maximum value in a vacuum such as space. When light travels through some material like air or water or glass, is slows down by a factor equal to the index of refraction of the material.

Answer 3

You can manipulate the speed of light. The problem is, you can only make it slower, and that is by making it travel into a denser medium. For example, light travels slower in water than in air. Light travels the fasest in vacuum. The speed of light in vacuum is the speed limit of the universe, as so the Special Theory says. The speed of light in vacuum is the rate at which energy caused by the fluctuation of electric and magnetic fields in emtpy space is propagated in that space unimpended. There seems to be no other way to make it go fater, unless there could be somthing more empty that totally empty.

Answer 4

the cost of light is extremely on the factor of being consistent if is isn't, in certainty, consistent. The study a pair of years in the past that pronounced that the cost could no longer be the comparable because it became in the previous had a transformation of a million/a hundred,000 of a %. once you're saying that the universe is increasing on the cost of light, it ability that the sting of the observable universe is increasing at that cost. issues closer to us than which will begoing slower than the cost of light. whilst we are saying that the expansion is getting swifter, we mean that the speeds linked with any particular galaxy will strengthen in time. the cost of expansion is increasing via darkish be counted and darkish eneregy, no longer anti-be counted. countless issues.

Answer 5

If you try to do that, what happens is that the rate at which your clock ticks and the length of your meter stick adjust themselves in such a way that when you measure the speed of light, it comes out the same as before. It is 299 792 458 m/s because the meter has been defined by international agreement as the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second!

Answer 6

It's not exactly, it varies on the medium, but ONLY relative to the position of the observer.

In space it travels in one direction and one speed, in the atmosphere it starts to slow and change direction, in water it slowes even further and changes direction, BUT ONLY relative to an observer in space.

If you observe light from INSIDE the atmosphere it travels at the same speed at it would if you observed it in space.

It has to do with density of the medium.

If, for example, the EARTH had no air at all light would strike the planet a hair faster to an observer in SPACE then it does with the blanket of air from an observaer in space. But this is a false reading, becasue the relative observing point is taited by the density of the air.

The MOON you see in the sky is not in the same place it would be if you removed the air in the blink of an eye. It would shift in the sky slightly, because of the density change.

You see this when you put a spoon into a glass of water and look at it.

The spoon SEEMS to shift position in the water, but it's an illusion caused by the bending of light in the density of the water.

Light also bends when it is near gravity wells.

Light,however, always travels at the same speed to the observer in the same medium.

Answer 7

What is light and how it is produced?

Whenever electrons in an atom jumps from higher energy level to a lower energy level, energy is liberated in the form of light (electromagnetic radiation).

Once emitted from the atom it travels with a speed of 3x10^8m/s in air or vacuum.

This speed does not depend upon the atom or depend upon the energy level in the atom.

Then what is the way to change the speed of this energy transformation?

The other way of saying this is, “The speed of light does not depend upon the nature or speed of the source from which it is emitted”.

If it were depended on the properties of the material from which it is emitted then we can find a way to alter the properties of the material in such a way so as to change the speed of light.

Thus there is no way to alter the speed of the light.

But the emitted light when enters a medium (matter) other than vacuum its speed decreases.

In the universe we are having only matter and the vacuum (absence of matter).

If there are different types of vacuum whose properties can be varied at our will then one can think of increasing the speed of light.

Mathematically we can reason the constant of speed as follows.

The theoretical formula for the speed of light is

v = c / (square root of the product of permittivity and permeability of the medium)

The value of permeability for all materials is nearly equal to one.

In the above formula C is a constant and is equal to 3x 10^8.

The value of (1/ square root of permittivity) is one for vacuum and is less than one for all other materials.

Therefore the speed of light in vacuum is 3x10^8m/s

Thus the speed is maximum for vacuum and it is less in all other medium.

Only if one finds a medium other than vacuum and all known matter for which the value of the term is more than one, then in that medium the light can travel with a speed more than the present value.









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Answer 8

Because thats what it is "Measured" to be. Key term being measured. When light travels in a vacuum it comes to be 3 x10^8 m/s, or 186000 miles/s.

Answer 9

The rest mass of light is zero. Only at c does it attain a fixed mass. The speed of light can be manipulated to higher numbers but only in relation to an object.

Consider collison speed. At 50% c directly toward a quanta of light. The collision speed is 1,5 c. What happens as the collision speed approaches 2c?

Answer 10

You can change the speed of light, but the its maximum speed is 299 792 458 m/s in vacuum. Like all waveforms, you can decrease its speed by having it propagate through denser medium.