4 ms·
That would certainly be an interesting outcome that does not break the existing understanding we have of c. It absolutely does. A massless particle moving slow
by Locke1689 15y ago
That would certainly be an interesting outcome that does not break the existing understanding we have of c.
It absolutely does. A massless particle moving slower than a particle with mass is just as much a break in relativity as neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. In fact, they're equivalent. The speed of light isn't just "the speed at which photons move," it's the speed at which photons move (minus restrictions) because they're photons.
Edit: I should say that this is all only true in the case of a vacuum.
- sliverstorm 15y agoNaturally "The Speed of Light" is the speed at which photons move, photons are light. But the stipulation being, what if there is some other constant "x", and it's really e = m * x, and c =~ x? (When I say "c =~ x" I mean in a similar way to how c(air) =~ c(vacuum)) Do we know that cannot be the case? Alternatively, what if the speed of light in a vacuum is not actually the true full speed of light? What if something else is acting on the photons that we haven't thought about, such as gravity or charge?