why does light have a finite speed

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So, why?

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Type: Question • Score: 9 • Views: 9,490 • Replies: 112

[+6] - tsarstepan - 10/19/2012Light already has 10 points on its driving license. Gained them all 4 billion years ago and it take 5 billion years for the DMV to remove them from her record. One more point for speeding or...
[+4] - rosborne979 - 10/19/2012[quote="cheeser"] more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed? [/quote] Because time also doesn't pass for it. Things that exist at the...
[+3] - Thomas - 10/20/2012[quote="cheeser"]So what defines its speed, [/quote] The propagation of its electro-magnetic field over time and space. At time t1 and position p1, you turn on a light source, which...

@cheeser,

Light already has 10 points on its driving license. Gained them all 4 billion years ago and it take 5 billion years for the DMV to remove them from her record. One more point for speeding or reckless space travel and her license will be revoked.

1 Reply

@cheeser,

Why is PI 3.1415926 or the gravitational constant is 6.67 x 10^-11 N(M*KG)^2 and so on.......it the way the universe is that is all.

And with out any of the factors being what they are the universe would not exist as we know it.

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@tsarstepan,

why was that necaserry

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@BillRM,

Interesting footnote while the speed of light hold inside the universe the universe and space/time can expand faster then this speed and had done so just after the big bang.

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@BillRM,

more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed?

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@cheeser,

cheeser wrote:

more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed?

Because time also doesn't pass for it. Things that exist at the speed of light don't experience the passing of time.

The "Speed" of light isn't so much a velocity as it is a structural component of the structure of the Universe. It's a condition which we point at by specifying a velocity.

1 Reply

@cheeser,

Quote:

more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed?

Light had mass if not rest mass what give you the idea that photons does not have mass ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon#Experimental_checks_on_photon_mass

1 Reply

@cheeser,

If there were no limit on the speed of light, then time travel would be possible and everyone would go back to the big bang and meet everyone else.

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@DrewDad,

Meeting you there at the sushi restaurant for lunch today, you remember?

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@cheeser,

because light does not have an infinite amount of energy!

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@cheeser,

cheeser wrote:

So, why?

Why not?

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@cheeser,

cheeser wrote:

more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed?

Because the energy of light is electro-magnetic, not kinetic. Consequently, neither the (absence of) mass nor the speed of light figure into its energy.

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

Meeting you there at the sushi restaurant for lunch today, you remember?

No, but I will have.

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@cheeser,

I see you are asking questions which either have no answer (like this one), or according to Google, have been discussed at length elsewhere. Ultimately there is always a limit to logical analysis and/or causal explanation because logic always starts with at least one conjecture (Godel), and causality is a cognitive projection about human prediction, rather than an independent physical specification (Hume and Kant).

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@cheeser,

Quote:

more specifically if light has no mass and yet has energy, how can it have a finite speed?

Cheese that's really a good q and one that has long puzzled me. When I proposed a possible reason--that owing to certain limitations of relativity theory in gaging time at a distance--that we simply underestimate its speed; that eventually it will be shown that light speed isn't absolute after all

That is, by a principle I call "The relativity of relativity" it can be considered to travel much faster than c

But I was attacked mercilessly by all tho I'd be most happy to elaborate

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Quote:

that owing to certain limitations of relativity theory in gaging time at a distance--that we simply underestimate its speed; that eventually it will be shown that light speed isn't absolute after all

Once more they indeed have mass photons when they are moving they had no rest mass however so the whole issue is being view in a wrong content.

Any physic book will explain the situation hell Einstein books he wrote to explain the subject to the general population is now in the public domain and can be download.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1630

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Once more they indeed have mass photons when they are moving

But aren't photons always moving so aren't you simply saying they have mass

Quote:

so the whole issue is being view in a wrong content.

Forgive me Bill but by whom. I for one don't deny photons might have mass

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@cheeser,

It is, after all, a physical entity with physical properties restrained by physical laws. Light is not supernatural.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Of course not, Blue

However the intriguing q remains: Why c and not some other value

2 Replies

why does light have a finite speed

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