5 ms·
Note that light isn't particularly special in this context, what is special (very special) is the speed of light. Other things travel at the speed of light, ind
by eigenket 5y ago
Note that light isn't particularly special in this context, what is special (very special) is the speed of light. Other things travel at the speed of light, indeed everything massless is forced to travel at the speed of light. Other things that travel at the speed of light include gravitational waves and gluons*.
Basically "the speed of light" should be called "the speed of massless things" or possibly "the speed of causality" or something. We just call it "the speed of light" because light is the first thing we discovered that travels at this special speed.
*the star is because everything about quantum-chromodynamics is terrible so gluons don't really ever exist as particles themselves. If they did they would travel at the speed of light.
- rolleiflex 5y agoI’ve found that this way of phrasing it helps people click: Speed of light is infinite*. What we call speed of light is the speed of reality. * not actually infinite, because reality itself propagates at a finite speed (I’d love to know if this is wrong - this is my best attempt to make sense of it from college classes)
- Smithalicious 5y agoIt's always helped me to think of c as the speed of causality. It's the speed at which one thing causes another