# Speed of light?
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [February 12, 2004, 11:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737 "2004-02-12T11:31:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Vulcan](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/The_Vulcan)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/1 "2004-02-12T11:31:54Z")
If I am standing still and throw a tennis ball, you clock it with a laser gun at 50mph.
I now get in a car and drive at 100mph and again throw the tennis ball at 50mph, you clock the tennis ball and it is doing 150mph.
Now redo the experiment except that I am turning on a torch, you clock the photon’s and there doing the speed of light.
Now in the car going 100mph turn on the torch and one would expect the photon’s to be clocked at the speed of light + 100mph.
Now obviously the speed of light and the tennis is relative to the observer.
To me the tennis ball never travels away from me at more than 50mph, and the speed of the photon’s never race away from me at faster than the speed of light.
But to you standing still the tennis ball changes from 50mph to 150mph, So either the light travels past you at the speed of light + 100mph, which would break the theory of relativity, or the light magically slows down.
So which is it ???
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/2 "2004-02-12T11:36:31Z")
You’re asking us to explain Einstein’s special theories of relativity to you? LOL
come on. I’ve read through each a half dozen times and I STILL don’t get it. 😃
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:41am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/3 "2004-02-12T11:41:16Z")
Here’s another thought… might help, might hurt.
If you were in a car going 100 mph, and you threw a tennis ball at the speed of light from your car, it would also only go 186K mps, not 186K mps + 100 mph
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/4 "2004-02-12T11:44:11Z")
Well thats the question, why is it that the speed of light is dependent on your perspective of it.
And if it is so dependent on your perspective of it, then who is to say we are in a position to judge it ?
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/5 "2004-02-12T11:49:11Z")
It’s not SO dependent upon your perspective of it. Considering we got to the moon with an inaccurate number for PI, it pretty much goes to say that we have leaway in these gray areas. The speed of light being different at one perspective than another will never effect you in any way. Given that… only the mathematicians who it does effect, and who have the tools to examine light from both perspectives, have need to concern themselves with the change at all.
I personaly don’t care if the speed changes unless it means that we can get to another star more quickly… which I’ve already stated I dont’ think that we can. 🙂
anyway… I guess I’m just posting nothing responses because I don’t know the answer. 😃
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/6 "2004-02-12T11:51:44Z")
Yeah and I am just posting nothing questions cause I don’t unstand it.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/7 "2004-02-12T12:40:35Z")
lol… well at least I’m not the only one. 😃
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/8 "2004-02-12T16:41:52Z")
photons don’t travel the same as a tennis ball. Photons aren’t matter, so the rules of adding the speed of the car don’t apply to them.
You’re attempting to apply the rules for the movement of solids to the rules for the movement of photons and you can’t do that. If you are playing a stereo in a car does the sound move faster? No because sound waves are unaffected by the speed of the car.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/9 "2004-02-12T17:37:49Z")
I thought that they slowed light down and it behaved like a liquid.
I think someone said down to 38mph.
How could it act like a liquid if it has no matter.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/10 "2004-02-12T17:44:33Z")
Light behaves as a wave. Similar to sound only faster. It doesn’t have the same properties as a tennis ball so therefore you can’t compare it to a tennis ball. Just because it travels doesn’t make it the same thing…
A flying fish is not comparable to a bird even tho they both can spend time in the air… apples and oranges… apples and oranges…
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/11 "2004-02-12T18:06:28Z")
That still doesn’t explain how light behaves as liquid when slowed down.
I don’t think you can make a wave behave like a liquid, so I don’t see them making a cold cup of radio tunes.
But then light is a strange beast, behaving both a particle and a wave.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/12 "2004-02-12T18:21:15Z")
my head hurts now… thanks
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/13 "2004-02-12T18:31:51Z")
> \*Originally posted by The\_Vulcan \*
> \*\*To me the tennis ball never travels away from me at more than 50mph, and the speed of the photon’s never race away from me at faster than the speed of light.
But to you standing still the tennis ball changes from 50mph to 150mph, So either the light travels past you at the speed of light + 100mph, which would break the theory of relativity, or the light magically slows down.
\*\*
The perception of time and space varies for different observers. When you are moving relative to the reference frame, you will observe the events happening at different times from an observer within the reference frame.
Here is an explanation from a textbook I have.
Say a person, Bob stands in a train car moving at velocity v. Bob is in the “reference frame.” He shines a light to a mirror h meters to ground, and it reflects back to the original position. To Bob, it would take 2h/c seconds for the light to travel that distance. Now, say Mike is standing still along the train tracks, and watches Bob shine his light. Because the train is moving, Mike will see the light travel a different distance because it now has a horizontal component, along with the vertical. Since the light is constant, Mike must watch the event take longer than 2h/c. Two events, light leaving and then returning to a height h, will always be seperated by a longer time interval in a frame moving relative to the reference frame.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/speed-of-light/42737/14 "2004-02-12T18:47:51Z")
They stopped light and contained in an almost absolute zero environment. I posted in random about this about a month ago. They use a super cooled suspension or a super heated gas suspension.
[http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/27mar\_stoplight.htm](http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/27mar_stoplight.htm)
and they have broken the speed of light in electicity transmission:
[http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992796](http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992796)
but as it says Einstein’s relativity held.