What PHYSICALLY stops light moving faster than 186,000 miles per second?

Question

Non mathematical answers only please.

Answer 1

If you fit it with a supercharger and a k&n filter you will get loads more "top end speed" Also you might want to fit a big bore exhaust to get the gases out faster.

Answer 2

That is a flippin' good question.

Light always travels at exactly the same speed (in a vacuum), regardless of the circumstances, so in other words, it never accelerates. I think anyway. Maybe someone clever will tell me I'm wrong, but if it always travels at constant velocity then it can't ever be slower than 186,000 mps, not even while accelerating.

So the question is, why does it travel at that particular speed? Why not faster? Why does there have to be a speed limit at all?

I have no idea, but if it had no speed limit then the rate it travels would become infinite - which is surely not possible in a finite universe such as ours. Nothing could survive under those circumstances - there'd be nothing but light, no darkness ever.

So, probably the answer is that nothing physically stops light travelling faster than 186,000 except light itself. That's just the speed it travels at. I would also imagine that E=MC2 does come into play somewhere along the line as it does with everything else.

From a scientific point of view, everything I have said may be complete bollocks, but it made sense to me :-)

Answer 3

Light is an electromagnetic wave. What this means is that it is a wave of energy. The form that it takes is of a moving electric field. But a moving electric field induces a magnetic field, and a moving magnetic field induces an electric field.

The thing that controls the speed of light is how fast the electric feild turns in to a magnetic field and visa versa. This is just simply a fundimental constant known as the permiativity and permiability of space. I am sure that string theory or something like that gives a better explination, but ... really who understands that.

you can think of these constants as the "viscosity" of space. Just like moving your hand through water you feel your self distorting the water in order to pass through it. This is kinda what light does. (except it does not slow down because it has no mass to be slowed)

So the speed of light is simply the speed at which the electric and magnetic fields tick back and forth. And that speed is determined by the "viscosity" of space. Thus the more "viscos" the matirial the slower it travels.


This is a very simplistic answer, but I think it gives a good sence of what is going on.

Answer 4

Physically, nothing is trying to stop light moving faster than 186,000 miles per second because light speed is 186,000 miles per second if measured in "vacuum" ! This is it's maximum speed. It's limitation...

Light speed is slower if measured in any other mediums because it is restricted by the mediums such as air, water, etc.

Answer 5

Light doesn't involve anything physically moving. Light behaves like waves on the surface of water except it consists of electric and magnetic fields in space. It is the properties of space that determine how fast these fields are created and subsequently decay.

Answer 6

Nothing.
It is just a constant.
Why it is what it is, and not something else, is the same kind of mystery as what determines the various masses of the elementary particles.

If string theory (or M-Theory, as it is now called) pans out we may have a good idea as to why these various constants and masses relate to each other the way they do.

But that question is one of relative proportion and not absolute value -- however, we may find that knowing EXACTLY why constants (ALL the constants and masses) relate as they do is tantamount to knowing the absolute values and why they are what they are.

Answer 7

the speed of light depends on the density (actually of the refractive index) of the material it travells through. The speed of light that you know it's for vacuum as a medium.Transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, it may appear to have a different (lower) speed than in a vacuum.

Answer 8

It's one of the basic laws of physics,like the speed of sound.Einstein said I believe that nothing can exceed the speed of light as it's mass would increase to greater than the universe.

Answer 9

Nothing. Check out something called Cherenkov radiation
where light goes well faster than light. it's so cool.

Answer 10

when the speed is go fast the Resistance is come large so with the speed of light we have large Resistance let the light never fast so to control the speed we control the Resistance