The speed of light is the current accepted constant in physics, from the definition of standard units to the foundations and principles of modern physics. It is the maximum speed that anything can reach. What is the nature of light? Is it possible to exceed the speed of light in a vacuum?
Article contents:
Measuring the speed of light
Measuring the speed of light in the seventeenth century may seem impossible, and it was not even of interest to scientists at the time. The possibilities available in the past did not measure such speeds, and the speed of light was for them an infinite speed. But in 1676, the Danish astronomer “Ole Roemer” was able to measure the speed of light. Measuring the speed of light was not what Romer sought at the time, but Romer was working on studying one of the orbits of Jupiter, the orbit of “IO”.
Measuring the rotation rate of the moons of that orbit around Jupiter would help travelers determine the time accurately, so Romer was interested in studying that orbit. But he discovered a delay in that rate when the Earth is far from Jupiter, from which he deduced the speed of light. And then the measurements of the speed of light developed until it became not limited to astronomical measurements, but rather to laboratory equipment. As the experiment of the interferometer for the American scientists “Albert Michelson” and “Edward Morley”.
Maxwell’s equations
The scientist “James Clerk Maxwell” is considered one of the most important scientists in the history of physics. Maxwell completely changed the course of physics by deducing his four famous “Maxwell rates”. The four Maxwell equations state:
- The electric charge leaving a closed surface is equal to the sum of the electric charges inside that surface. It is a Gaussian law for an electric field.
- There is no unipolar magnet, i.e. a magnet always has a north and south pole, not just one. And that’s Gauss’s law for the magnetic field.
- As a result of the change in the magnetic field, an induced electric current is created to resist that change. This is called Faraday’s law.
- The fourth law is Ampere’s law, which states the relationship between a static electric field and a magnetic field. But Maxwell modified that equation to make it describe the changing electric field as well. The equation later helped infer the motion of light in a vacuum.
Maxwell united the electric field and magnetic field for the first time with these equations in a unified field called the “electromagnetic field”. The electromagnetic field moves in space at a constant speed equal to 299792458 meters per second, which is close to the speed of light measured at that time. According to Maxwell’s model of electromagnetism, light is nothing but an electromagnetic wave traveling at a constant speed “the speed of light”.
Light as a wave and as a particle
And light, Maxwell concluded, is an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves are not only limited to light, but a complete spectrum that starts from radio waves until it reaches gamma rays. Each band in that spectrum has a specific frequency and a specific wavelength that their energy corresponds to. Since light (or electromagnetic waves in general) does not need a medium to travel through, it is at its maximum speed in a vacuum.
And the scientist “Max Planck” assumed that electromagnetic waves are small amounts of energy. And if we allocate it only to light, we can say that light is a small amount of energy called a ‘photon’. Thus, light is a particle (photon) and a wave called (electromagnetic wave).
Einstein’s special relativity deduced the equivalence of energy and mass in its famous equation (energy = mass x squared the speed of light) that for a body to reach the speed of light, its mass must approach zero. Even in the laboratory, delivering a particle to the speed of light is impossible. As for human travel at the speed of light, as I mentioned, its mass should approach zero. The wormhole hypothesis provides an opportunity to travel faster than the speed of light, but not by traveling at a high speed, but rather by a shorter distance. Hence “Can the speed of light be exceeded in a vacuum?” no.
Sources
[1] Roemer’s Speed of Light
[2] On the relative motion of the Earth and the luminiferous ether
[3] Maxwell’s equations
[4] What is wormhole theory?
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