Speed of light, a Question, a Thought; Why and How?

Science and Technology
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Why is the speed of light the speed it is?

The speed of light is the velocity everything travels at through spacetime. Splited between space and time if you increase speed through space you reduce speed through time and vice versa.

But why 299’792’458 m/s and not less or more? I’m not asking about the formula behind it. What I ask is why has this constant the value it has. The same question would also acount for the other constants. In the end these constants where discovered via mesurement and includet in the calculation process, but why was this precise value mesured and not another. Where thus this value come from?

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this is a fun question!! The speed of light is absolutely important to some few people. The rest of the people of the world watch a Star trek movie.

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But why 299’792’458 m/s and not less or more? I’m not asking about the formula behind it. What I ask is why has this constant the value it has. The same question would also acount for the other constants. In the end these constants where discovered via mesurement and includet in the calculation process, but why was this precise value mesured and not another. Where thus this value come from?
I am not a scientist, but it seems to me that light speed was mesured. Then why this constant and not another one: because it is a reality. Why do we constate that sun rises in east ? because it is a reality.

Now, universe obeys laws. Why these laws and not other ones? It is up to an astrophysicist to answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

 

 

 

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We can’t say that spacetime exists in all the universe as we know it here. So unless you are only referring to light moving here in this solar system and area, you cannot talk about a speed for light. No one has gone out to the far universe to experience light moving there. We do not even know that time as we know it here exists out there!

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We can’t say that spacetime exists in all the universe as we know it here. So unless you are only referring to light moving here in this solar system and area, you cannot talk about a speed for light. No one has gone out to the far universe to experience light moving there. We do not even know that time as we know it here exists out there!
I think there is more evidence that laws and properties are constant throughout the knowable universe than not.

Where does “Here” end and “Out There” start?

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Here would refer to where man has actually been, or at least where his probes have gone. There would be further than that.

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Here would refer to where man has actually been, or at least where his probes have gone. There would be further than that
Would you include "Here" as part of what we observe?

 

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No. You observe only here in the area or, if you will, inside the ‘fishbowl’. If for example time itself were not the same in and out of the fishbowl, then what you observe IN the fishbowl does not apply outside. (at least not that we know)

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We can’t say that spacetime exists in all the universe as we know it here. So unless you are only referring to light moving here in this solar system and area, you cannot talk about a speed for light. No one has gone out to the far universe to experience light moving there. We do not even know that time as we know it here exists out there!
Yes we can. What books do you read ?

Cosmological principle

In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the notion that the spatial distribution of matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale, since the forces are expected to act uniformly throughout the universe, and should, therefore, produce no observable irregularities in the large-scale structuring over the course of evolution of the matter field that was initially laid down by the Big Bang.
Definition Astronomer William Keel explains:
The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.[1] The cosmological principle depends on a definition of "observer," and contains an implicit qualification and two testable consequences.

“Observers” means any observer at any location in the universe, not simply any human observer at any location on Earth: as Andrew Liddle puts it, “the cosmological principle [means that] the universe looks the same whoever and wherever you are.”[2]

The qualification is that variation in physical structures can be overlooked, provided this does not imperil the uniformity of conclusions drawn from observation: the Sun is different from the Earth, our galaxy is different from a black hole, some galaxies advance toward rather than recede from us, and the universe has a “foamy” texture of galaxy clusters and voids, but none of these different structures appears to violate the basic laws of physics.


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No we can’t what books do you read? Who cares what ‘seems to operate the way that seems normal to us in the fishbowl’?! Everything appears to us in the fishbowl to be very fishbowl like, of course. So?

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No we can’t what books do you read? Who cares what ‘seems to operate the way that seems normal to us in the fishbowl’?! Everything appears to us in the fishbowl to be very fishbowl like, of course. So?
Obviously some do care.

If you don’t why are you here?

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No we can’t what books do you read? Who cares what ‘seems to operate the way that seems normal to us in the fishbowl’?! Everything appears to us in the fishbowl to be very fishbowl like, of course. So?
If we are surrounded by water and see fish swimming we may conclude that we are in the fishbowl, and not floating on a cloud surrounded by people with wings or birds.

 

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You are surrounded by time and space here. Do not tell us that time exists the same outside your area of experience and knowledge and expertise.

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The only reason I would care about what books you read is if you could cite some relevant part of one that relates to the discussion at hand.

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You are surrounded by time and space here. Do not tell us that time exists the same outside your area of experience and knowledge and expertise.
Do you have any experience, knowledge or expertise that says it is different?
The only reason I would care about what books you read is if you could cite some relevant part of one that relates to the discussion at hand.
I believe that would be the "Cosmological Principle" that write4u wrote for you. To put it in simpler terms - "We're nothing special" (though that also reaches into other theories and principles as well)

 

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Do you have any experience, knowledge or expertise that says it is different?

No man has any to say it is either, the same or different. Believe what you will. It is not science.

I believe that would be the “Cosmological Principle” that write4u wrote for you. To put it in simpler terms – “We’re nothing special” (though that also reaches into other theories and principles as well)

 

That principle is purely belief based.

 

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We can’t say that spacetime exists in all the universe as we know it here. So unless you are only referring to light moving here in this solar system and area, you cannot talk about a speed for light. No one has gone out to the far universe to experience light moving there. We do not even know that time as we know it here exists out there! - dad1 - #346275
We can say that spacetime exists in all the universe as we know it here. Because it is the universe we know, and no messurement or observation we did of that universe did ever contradict the assumtion that spacetime exists. It is called the Observable universe, everithing of the universe that we can actually observe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe Outside of this Observable universe we have indeed no observation and messurement at all and everithing is experience based assumtion.

 

Here would refer to where man has actually been, or at least where his probes have gone. There would be further than that. - dad1 - #346302

No. You observe only here in the area or, if you will, inside the ‘fishbowl’. If for example time itself were not the same in and out of the fishbowl, then what you observe IN the fishbowl does not apply outside. (at least not that we know) - dad1 - #346315


Here you are greatly mistaken, you observe quite a bit more than just from the furthes extend of Voyager1 (“…it is the most distant man-made object from Earth.”; Voyager 1 - Wikipedia). You should propably know that but all the stars you can even see with your naked eye in a clear night lying way outside our solar-system. And yet you say: “No. You observe only here in the area…” “Here would refer to where man has actually been, or at least where his probes have gone.”
It is very clear that you observe far more than that.

 

"Do you have any experience, knowledge or expertise that says it is different?"

No man has any to say it is either, the same or different. Believe what you will. It is not science.

“I believe that would be the “Cosmological Principle” that write4u wrote for you. To put it in simpler terms – “We’re nothing special” (though that also reaches into other theories and principles as well)”

That principle is purely belief based. - dad1- #346400


It is not a belief nor is it belief based, its an assumtion. And as soon as this assumtion gets proven incorrect it will be adapted accordingly.

This is most basic scientific method. Science doesn’t care about belief it only cares about evidence.

 

You are surrounded by time and space here. Do not tell us that time exists the same outside your area of experience and knowledge and expertise. - dad1-#346393
No one did tell that. Our area of experience and knowledge covers the observable universe instead of just our solar-system, this is the only difference. And with every observation outside of our solar-system your claim that says otherwhise is proven incorrect. And if you where to accept the scientific method you should please stop arguing about that in this thread/topic. Because this isn't the the actual discussion.

 

 

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@didirius "This is most basic scientific method. Science doesn’t care about belief it only cares about evidence."
Indeed, evidence drives our provisional current understanding. Better evidence leads to a more complete understanding that never reaches ultimate certainty, because there's aways more details and facts to discover and more learning to do.

Seems to me Dad1 embraces certainty. That’s blind faith, not science.

 

Getting it back to the thread topic:

https://www.space.com/speed-of-light-properties-explained.html

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of “How to Die in Space.” He contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

We all know and love the speed of light — 299,792,458 meters per second — but why does it have the value that it does? Why isn’t it some other number? And why do we care so much about some random speed of electromagnetic waves? Why did it become such a cornerstone of physics?

Well, it’s because the speed of light is just plain weird. …


Fun little article, worth the read.

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Fun little quick answer.

article above - "... Good question. We don't know."
Something we don't know yet is something we can learn.

 

But, doesn’t have the value of maximum effect-transport-velocity = lightspeed a background behind it, something that causes it to be the value we know?

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Seems to me Dad1 embraces certainty. That’s blind faith, not science.
No, I never suggested that I was certain or even knew at all what time in the far universe was like. It is people who try to include time and space in their math and calculations of 'science' that pretend the certainty! That fact is we do not know if time as we know it even exists in the far far universe. The central issue is speed is time. Speed is merely how much time it takes for something to move through a measure of space. Man has never been anywhere but the area of this little solar system. We have never measured any speed anywhere else. (except as seen from here in our time and space) Therefore, in case someone has not grasped the implications of this concept, I will use a concrete example here. The speed light moves here in the area of this solar system (such as taking about 8 seconds to travel from the sun to earth) cannot be said to be the speed light moved far far away as it was getting to our area. In other words, to merely clock light speed HERE does not mean that the same time is involved out there. If the speed of light we measure and experience here is applied to something say, a billion ly (light years) away, that is only a billion of OUR ly here. That does not mean the light took a billion years to get here. It only means that IF time existed, and space, and spacetime as we know it here existed universally, THEN it woulda coulda shoulda have taken a billion years to get here. The reality could be that it only took, say, a thousand years to get here, and then, after it gets to this time area, started to assume the speed that it must when here. That means that all claims of millions of billions of years about the universe are totally faith based.