Why was the speed of light chosen as the only constant in the universe?

Question

Why not time? Time is all pervasive and will exist as long as there is motion in the universe. Events that take place simultaenously in remote areas of the universe will not be obivious to an observer because of the snail's pace of the speed of light. No light can escape from the event horizon of a black hole but time exists there. Steven Hawking made some serious blunders because he did not have a clear understanding of the nature of time. Why has no physisist come up with a model of how time is tied to everything in the universe. Time does not exist at the speed of light is misleading because this condition is impossible, and the longevity of a black hole is not really known so the claim that time does not exist there is suspect. The frequency of questions about time travel reveals that the vast majority of people know nothing of what time is. Can anyone out there put it into understandaqble language?

Answer 1

The speed of light is not the only constant. There are also Planck's constant and the Newtonian Gravitational constant, to name but two. Please do a little more research before you accuse one of this century's leading physicists of making "serious blunders".

Answer 2

You sound well informed on this topic. I am suprised you must ask this question.
Einstein was the first to prove mathematically that time is the variable and the speed of light is the constant.
It has since been supported by many experiments all leading to the same conclusion.
Velocity slows down time. This was proven with two atomic clocks: one on the earth's surface and the other placed on a space shuttle. The clock that traveled in space at 25,000 mph
showed less time passed during the experiment period than the clock on the earth. The difference was a small but substanial fraction.

The speed of light, as is true with all electromagetic waves in a vaccuum, is constant. Heat and light from the sun takes approx. 8 minutes to reach the earth, both being in the wavelength spectrum.

In Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" he supports Einstein's findings and goes beyond to discribe the beginning of time at the Big Bang-a mathematical probability due to the reverse formulation of the universe's expansion to creation backwards in time.

In that all math factors must have a zero, so too must the factor of time.

Thought experiment now. Put a clock inside a rocket ship.
Speed up to 1/2 the speed of light. Time in the rocket will past at 1/2 the rate as time on a clock back on earth.
When the rocket's clock reaches the speed of light, the clock will stop.

Thus time varies with velocity. This was the amazing thing that made Einstein so famous. The thought was so racical in his time.

Finally all experiments that have attempted to vary or discover any change in the speed of light have failed to find any difference, or to create a slower/faster speed in a vaccuum.

Finally though the clock stops at the speed of light in the rocket, there is still a fractional amount of time infinitely small but not zero. Zero time by Hawkings only referred to the origin of time.

Answer 3

Speed of light is the only constant? What about these, just to name a few:

characteristic impedance of vacuum
electric constant
magnetic constant
Newtonian constant of gravitation
Planck constant
Planck length
Planck mass
Planck temperature
Planck time
Josephson constant
von Klitzing constant
Bohr magneton
conductance quantum
elementary charge
magnetic flux quantum
nuclear magneton
alpha particle mass
Bohr radius
Compton wavelength
electron g factor
electron mass
electron-proton mass ratio
Fermi coupling constant
fine-structure constant
Hartree energy
muon mass
neutron mass
Rydberg constant
weak mixing angle

Answer 4

The speed of light is NOT the only constant in the universe. There is the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, gravity among other constants in our universe.

As humans, we have an understanding of time only limited to what is necessary to our survival. Some civilizations view time as an arrow, where you go forward and never backward. Some viewed it as a circle, that repeats itself.

Richard Dawkins points out that, we only view time the way we do because it helped in our survival. If we were the size of an earthworm, we would have a completely different paradigm that we view time under (obviously). See:
Instead of seeing time as something that is organized and predictable (and supposedly all-pervasive), if we were electrons, we would see time as completely random and sporatic.

Stephen Hawking gives us an analogy on how to view time. He worded it approximately like this: "The big bang is viewed as the 'beginning of time'. To ask what came before it would be like asking 'what is north of the north pole'. There is no 'north' of the north pole. The north pole is a perfectly valid point, and to ask what is north of it is undefined."

Answer 5

Light is a constant since it is the fastest flux of energy in the universe (that we know of). Time is a measure we created to detect the movement of space, but in reality its just an illusion, if we place it among the universe, where diverse speeds occur (blackholes, vacuums...). Time has no ties to the universe since it can be be altered by the movement of matter. Light is matter, while time is just an idea.

Answer 6

It's only constant in a vacuum, since light can slow down in water and glass. Relativity says all observers will measure the same speed in a vacuum. This is caused by time slowing down for fast travellers, as proven by taking atomic clocks aboard the concorde. If c wasn't constant, it would violate causality, and I could be from the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

Answer 7

Constants are not "chosen" they are observed and verified.

From the words in your question, it is apparent that you have not been exposed to the level of mathematics that makes Einstein's special and general theories of relativity very clear.

Time is not a constant. In fact, time is a human construct that we had to come up with to make sense of how we perceive events occurring in sequence.

Time is only a convenient way to separate events and is not a real thing.

Take some higher math and modern physics. I'm sure you will see your misconceptions.

Answer 8

Unlike time, the speed of light does not change.


Time, on the other hand, is affected by velocity and gravitational force. We, on Earth, age just a little more slowly as a person orbiting it, because space-time are components of our universe. Light, on the other hand, appears as moving at the same speed, no matter where you are or what your reference is.

Answer 9

speed of light is taken as 3*10 to the power 8.steven hawking has made some experiment to measure the speed of light. in today world no one can cheat anyone if he was wrong then some physicst should have come forward. and half of your answer is understable and half not understble

Answer 10

Because time isn't constant and the speed of light is. Based upon the time dilation effect, the faster you go the slower time gets.