Talk:Speed of light

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2022

[Hope to Editor as following as] Insert the following sentence to the proper line of "Increases accuracy of c redefinition og the metre and second"

 'After similar experiments found comparable results for c, In 1973, the Consultative Committee of the Definition of the Metre determined the speed of light in vacuum to be c= 299 792 458±1.1 m/s[164, 165] by using the average of vacuum wavelength of several laboratories[166] and the frequency[167] of methane-stabilized He-Ne lasers.

 <Ref> [164] J. Terrien, Wavelength standards, optical frequency standards, and the velocity of light, Nouv. Rev. Optique, 1973, t. 4, no 4, pp. 215-220, Bureau International des Poidset Mesures, Pavillon de Breteuil, F-92310, Sevres [165] Comite International des Poids et Mesures, Comite Consultatif pour La Definition du METRE, 5e Session-1973 (13-15 Juin), Bureau international des Poids et Mesures, Pavillonde Breteuil, F-92310, Sevres [166] 3 392 231. 3955 pm; an average of values reported by several laboratories( NBS (the National Bureau of Standards; It became the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, in 1988), NRC (the National Research Council Canada ), and BIPM (the International Bureau of Weights and Measures)). [167] 88 367 181 627±50 kHz; measured by the US National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colorado

The End. Suh, Hosuhng (talk) 07:19, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. I couldn't grasp your formatting for the sources. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Speed of light in a medium

The "in a medium" section states:"However, this represents absorption and re-radiation delay between atoms, as do all slower-than-c speeds in material substances".
I am specifically thinking of the speed of light in transparent material such as glass or diamond. If that statement is true, wouldn't we expect the re-radiation to be emitted in random directions, scattering the light more and more as it travels through the material, making these materials not transparent at all? Doesn't the fact that we can see a clear picture through a glass pane, of what is on the other side, disprove that there is absorption and re-radiation, but instead that there is some other mechanism?
Assuming that there is absorption by an electron, and some very small amount of time (dt) later, some re-radiation by the same electron, wouldn't this electron be in a slightly different angular position, in relation to the atom core, that small amount of time (dt) later? and therefore causing the re-emission to be at a slightly different angle? Dhrm77 (talk) 12:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:Not a forum. The talk page is for improving the article by reference to reliable sources, not for personal speculations. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:13, 29 December 2022 (UTC).

The argument is well founded. Hopefully I can provide acceptable sources. If you look at the "see also" material Refractive index "Microscopic explanation" section provides an explanation directly contradicting the statement in question.

I've seen a user removing this sentence which got reverted because lack of the source, which is fair enough, but hopefully other well written wiki section is okay.

The statement itself does not provide a citation as well. I couldn't track down this information. I think it is true for those exotic materials and extreme light slowing down, but not for general light propagation through materials, especially not for refraction in transparent materials.

I also found a video from Fermilab that says that bouncing off atoms is specifically not the reason why light slows down in water. It is due to EM field interactions in material. The argument is exactly the same as from Dhrm77, even if one could argue absorption and reemission is not exactly scattering the logic still holds up because it's still bouncing off atoms just with even more delay - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUjt36SD3h8&t=171. In a follow up video there is an exact explanation of refraction which is in full agreement with the "Microscopic explanation" of refractive index article - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLmpNM0sgYk&t=517s

The "slower than c" speed in those materials are not due to single photon-atom interactions like emission and absorption or scattering but due to EM wave interactions between the light and material, the resulting wave looks like a wave with lower propagation speed. It's not any kind of "delay between atoms" at all. 83.21.29.156 (talk) 00:49, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

michelson morley experiments?

I think the Michelson-Morley experiments should be added in this wiki. Please adivse. 82.174.79.67 (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

See Speed_of_light#"Luminiferous_aether" Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:04, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

kilometres per hour to be consistent

The speed of light is approximately 300,000 kilometres per second; 186,000 miles per second; 671 million miles per hour. The metric measurement should include 1.08 billion kilometres per hour, to be consistent with metric and imperial examples. Eiger3970 (talk) 07:36, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Is this part accurate in History?

Quote:

Connections with electromagnetism

In the 19th century Hippolyte Fizeau developed a method to determine the speed of light based on time-of-flight measurements on Earth and reported a value of 315000 km/s (704,634,932 m/h).

His method was improved upon by Léon Foucault who obtained a value of 298000 km/s (666,607,015 m/h) in 1862. Kailandosk (talk) 01:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Are you suggesting our article may not be correct or proposing that it include conversions to km/h at that point, and in either case, why? NebY (talk) 11:07, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

There's a definite discrepancy in number of significant digits between the quoted metric and traditional measurements... AnonMoos (talk) 13:10, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, but the values in parentheses aren't in the article. If we wanted to include them, we could use {{Convert}}, which would probably round them appropriately automatically, and wouldn't abbreviate miles to "m" either, but I don't see why we'd want to include such conversions in that part of the article anyway. NebY (talk) 13:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I added the parenthesis. It's just a conversion to m/h that I made, just to show how different they are & to convert it into U.S. terms. Kailandosk (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure if 315000 or 298000 km/s is correct. I feel it's 315000 km/s, but I'm not sure. Kailandosk (talk) 18:04, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Why not also include an accurate description of c in miles per second?

186282.3970512 mi/s, to be fairly accurate.