What happens to time when you travel at light speed? Thanks to Einstein, we know that the faster you go, the slower time passes–so a very fast spaceship is a time machine to the future. Five years on a ship traveling...
What is the formula of speed of light? By adjusting the path length while observing the interference pattern and carefully measuring the change in path length, the wavelength of the light (λ) can be determined. The speed of light is then...
Is speed of light the same in all mediums? However, the speed of light is not constant as it moves from medium to medium. When light enters a denser medium (like from air to glass) the speed and wavelength of the...
How does a gravitational field affect light? While it is true that photons have no mass, it is also true that we see light bend around sources with high mass due to gravity. This is not because the mass pulls on...
Can speed of light not be a constant? No matter how you measure it, the speed of light is always the same. Einstein’s crucial breakthrough about the nature of light, made in 1905, can be summed up in a deceptively simple...
Why does the speed of light change in a vacuum? Light in a vacuum is generally held to travel at an absolute speed, but light traveling through any material can be slowed down. The amount that a material slows down light...
Why is the speed of light constant to any observer? That’s because all massless particles are able to travel at this speed, and since light is massless, it can travel at that speed. Why is the speed of light independent of...
Does speed of light depend on medium? The speed of light is independent of the frequency, wavelength, and velocity of the light source. It only depends on the refractive index of the medium. The refractive index is the ratio of the...
Was the speed of light different in the past? No matter how you measure it, the speed of light is always the same. Einstein’s crucial breakthrough about the nature of light, made in 1905, can be summed up in a deceptively...
Is time travel faster than the speed of light? More than 100 years ago, a famous scientist named Albert Einstein came up with an idea about how time works. He called it relativity. This theory says that time and space are...