Speed of Light - Sixty Symbols

The little "c" representing the speed of light is perhaps the most famous symbol in physics and astronomy. More at http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• speed
• of
• light
• sixty
• symbols

[LeconsdAnalyse]

@SuperMagnetizer Hey super :)

[RandomFilmStudio]

Pause at 3:00 and cover his hair

[LeconsdAnalyse]

@Frankotronify Hi.

I`ve read that Isaac Asimov came up with that term ("celeritas") as a `probable` reason for using the symbol `c`. The fact of the matter is, the reason is unknown.

[partonace]

@LeconsdAnalyse only the limited mind that realizes that it also can profit from a way lower degree of analyzation of the whole setting will begin to babble of the uncertainty of an experiment. if there is an uncertainty further analyzation has to be done. this is not engineering but science and research.

[partonace]

@LeconsdAnalyse Tell me something new. It ain't an experimental uncertainty. It's a certain accuracy which depends on how lazy and/or limited the experimentator is. Then she or he begins to babble "it's not me it's nature itself that sets up those limits of accuracy". Blabla. An actual experiment has no uncertainty. It is completely accurate (= 0 uncertainty = highest probability of being 100% accurate) if the experimentator takes her or his time to analyze the whole setting.

[Frankotronify]

they used the symbol c for celerity of light :)

[LeconsdAnalyse]

@partonace What are you talking about (?). As with all other experimentally measured quantities there is experimental `uncertainty`. For example, c = 299,792.4562±0.0011.

[partonace]

@LeconsdAnalyse can it be proven that the experimentally determined number (what effect does the measurement itself have on the situation?) really converges to "some real" number which only appears as a fiction? it doesn' t make it more convinving to add some metastatements like "reasonably" - quite the contrary is true: that the addition of such metastatements rather shows: there's something fishy.

[LeconsdAnalyse]

@partonace The speed of light in vacuum is an experimentally measured number. As such, when expressed in scientific notation, has as many decimal places as the finite precision of the measuring apparatus will allow.

Idealistically, given a measuring apparatus with INFINITE precision, it is reasonably assumed that this experimentally measured number converges to some real number that we denote by `c`.

[partonace]

@LeconsdAnalyse ....but it never does travel with the idealistic c.

[frizstyler]

@LeconsdAnalyse i wasn't talking literally about me seeing it. lol.. i would die because it would pass through me anyway

[LeconsdAnalyse]

@frizstyler 1. "so that it will pass me before i see it".

This will also occur at speeds v≤c due to human reaction time.

2. "get an incoming object to accelerate beyond the speed of light".

This is a situation that SR does not predict.