The Speed of Light?

Question

Why is the speed of light so special compared to any other speed.
why does the universe allow this speed and giving light the privalige to use it
some say light has massless particle properties.
if that were the case then gravity would have no effect on a massless object would that not be true..

Answer 1

> Why is the speed of light so special compared to any other speed.

The theory of relativity states that as you start moving, time starts slowing down. (This was demonstrated experimentally when very accurate atomic clocks were flown around the world in high-speed jets and were all shown to be running slightly behind the ones that were left on the ground). As you get faster, time gets slower, and since speed is distance divided by time you have to put more and more energy into the object in order to accelerate it. The speed of light is simply the speed at which time stops altogether, so speed essentially has no meaning after that. It's like trying to freeze something to colder than absolute-zero: once the molecules has stopped moving altogether the concept of "colder" has no meaning.

> why does the universe allow this speed and giving light the privalige to use it

Good question! The short answer is that nobody quite knows yet, but the search is on in earnest.

> some say light has massless particle properties.
> if that were the case then gravity would have no effect on a massless object would that not be true..

Technically gravity doesn't affect light itself. What gravity does is warp space. Light always travels in a straight line, but if it's passing through warped space then it will *appear* as though it's being bent by gravity. A train, for example, will only go forwards along a railroad track, but if the tracks twists and turns around a moutain then the train will do so as well. Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea...

Answer 2

you got more than a question:

1 - It's special because it's the key of the famous mass-energy theorem (E=mC^2) where C is the speed of light.

2 - Well metaphysically, it's because all the aspects of life needs a huge amount of light. Physically the universe (who's this guy) gave nothing. It's the photons constitution

3 - Photons (lights particle) are massless indeed. Why isn't true? Blackhole are massless, and it exists. And, just as an anecdote, blackholes and photons are the perfect opposite.
Mathematically, if

C=square root(E(J unit)/m(Kg unit))

you can conclude that light isn't real mass and isn't real energy

Answer 3

Whenever I read this question or similar I cringe at the complexity of the well read authors answers, but not because they are wrong per-say.

When I was just a child I received my first accidental electric shock, scary, my dad showed to me that to touch the positive got me an electric shock but that the earth and neutral wires were safe. So I thought that electricity came out of the plus wire and that worked great until at about 13 or 14 school told me that electricity really comes out of the negative wire, (or/and ground if you want detail). ???

I was a late developer and maths never quite made full sense to me, then I got a computer. Maths still doesn't make complete 'science' to me but it does help me tell computers what, where and when computers should do things. Which to me is logical. ( in a binary system if it is logical it's math? )

I'm logical not mathematical, the moment my answers start to become prosaic I get this gut feeling that the question is not of my universe and while interesting, is probably leading me away from the logical truth. So I take a Time out and rethink a more probing question.

This answer is becoming, losing, some of it's containment at the moment so I will cut any loses and say thank you for putting forward an interesting question.

Still looking for my final resolution of perfection.

always Trying.

Answer 4

Why light has this fundamental property isn't known as of yet. See papers on variable speed of light, VSL theory. Light is a massless particle and it is true that it affected by gravity. Your interpretation that light would be unaffected by gravity is logical, but we now know that a single photon is given by E=hv (where h=Heisenberg's constant and v=frequency). As it turns out, when in the presence of a gravitational field, the frequency will change. Thus and interaction does take place.

Answer 5

The speed of light is a constant independent of fram of reference of observer (blaa blaa) Why it has the value it does is unknown, just as why the electron has the charge or the mass that it does. These are the answers many physicist seek in the quest for a theory of everything. The partical properties of light have been put to the test. and under the right conditions when light is faced with the choice of behaving like a partical it is seen to behave like a partical just as when given the choice of behaving like a wave it does.
Gravity affects all object, wether they have mass or not. The usual way to envisage this is to see space time as curved (as if you were god looking in on the universe from outside), then objects moving in the gravity field will follow straight lines through curved space time and we inside the universe will see this as the deviation to a straight line that the gravity field has caused.A single photon (the partical) of light will obey this as well (travelling in straight lines through curved space time) even though it is massless.

Answer 6

Plain and simply, the speed of light is the ultimate speed in the universe as we know it. Light is quantized, which means its made up of particles of certain energies, as opposed to a continuous stream as people thought before. A light particle is called a photon, and a photon has zero rest mass, that is the only way for a particle to have the speed of light. A particle with rest mass can approach the speed of light but never reach it, because it becomes harder and harder to accelerate as it gets closer and closer to the speed of light. Another way to look at it is that as the massive particle approaches the ultimate speed, its mass approaches infinity, and it requires an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it to that speed.
Therefore we can conclude that a photon has no rest mass.

Light does in fact interact with gravity, it will be bent by gravitational fields strong enough. Light can even get stuck in even stronger gravitational fields, such as black holes, thats why we can't see black holes, since the light can't escape the gravitational field. Again, you have to keep in mind that photons have zero REST MASS, but they very much have energy and momentum, and gravity will affect that, so a photon passing through a gravitational field will have its energy and momentum decreased depending on the strength of the field.

Answer 7

Light is not massless, we simply do not have the ability to measure its mass. Its mass is spread over a large area, so that makes it difficult to locate. However, it instantly responds to measurement and gravity, and that means that it has mass therein. There are energies with lower densities that can travel faster than light which inhabit other dimensions. It's all about density. Imagine something lighter than light and you are on the right track. Even lighter densities can travel at FTL (faster than light) speeds. And those would have gravity and some mass too, but the mass would be even more difficult to locate.

If you look at how light was formed, you will notice that it was compressed (in a star). When you take energy and squeeze it, the history of its formation still remains as part of its presence and essence. In a quantum fashion, it's mass is spread out over a distance. While moving, a photon of light has a strewn out "history" of it's mass. Add these factors up and you will get the real mass. For example, it is like taking a meter of a substance and compressing it down to a centimenter, yet still having a meter of that material. That's how things work in the odd quantum world. A centimeter still retains the essence of a meter, and it remembers the motion that was used to compress it down to that level as part of its matrix.

Light is very flexible, and will compress (blue shift) and elongate (red shift) accordingly. A photon does not have a fixed position, and its mass is even less fixed...

Einstein wanted something ultimate, so he arrived at that conclusion. But he did not conceive of a density as elusive as light's.

Believing that light is an ultimate speed cramps people's style, don't you think?

Answer 8

reliable sufficient. Time does not circulate slower for speedy products. apparently to you, assuming you would be table certain, that ingredient is passing slower for speedy products. If there are no accelerations advantages - each and everything is often shifting on the equivalent speeds relative to a minimum of one yet another - then there's no thank you to tell who's moving and who's at rest. Now the twin paradox, which you form of paraphrased right here, has 3 accelerations in it. you start up from entertainment and attain an tremendously severe speed. After a time, you swap around this suggests which you slow down, you momentarily end, and you speed as much as a severe speed back. subsequently you attain earth and sluggish to a stop. At each and each acceleration, you adventure a force which the earthbound person does not so it incredibly is clean who's in flow and who's at rest. consequently, you are going to return after 10 years some time maximum effectual to seek for out that a plenty longer time has surpassed in the international. Now star trek assumes there is the thank you to journey exterior of the 4 dimensional area that defines the universe - the so-usual as subspace. in this subspace, relativity does not persist with - it incredibly is exterior the universe extraordinarily plenty - so which you would be able to desire to circulate from ingredient to element in a finite quantity of time and, the time it takes to traverse the hollow as measured by the starship's clock may be the time that elapses interior the universe - form of not likely in spite of the shown fact that critical while you're writting one hour long television episodes. there's no data for the form of return and forth use in sought after person trek.

Answer 9

Where did you hear that gravity doesn't act on light? That's wrong.

Light is energy. Energy is equivalent to mass, as far as gravity is concerned. E = m c^2 is the same as m = E / c^2.

There is no scientific "why" about light. It just "is". The properties of light are fundamental properties of the universe. There are no simpler explanations for light; the properties of light are as simple as it gets.

Answer 10

Because Energy = Mass x (Speed of Light)^2