Timeline for Shouldn't "speed of light" really be "speed of electromagnetic waves"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 26, 2018 at 17:12 | answer | added | Árpád Szendrei | timeline score: -1 | |
| Sep 18, 2018 at 21:52 | history | edited | knzhou | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited title
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| Sep 15, 2018 at 12:01 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackPhysics/status/1040933546251243522 | ||
| Sep 13, 2018 at 21:35 | answer | added | William Rice | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 21:30 | answer | added | Persian_Gulf | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 19:50 | review | Low quality answers | |||
| Sep 12, 2018 at 20:31 | |||||
| S Sep 12, 2018 at 19:47 | history | edited | M. Enns | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Spelling change
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| S Sep 12, 2018 at 19:47 | history | suggested | Brick | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Spelling change
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| Sep 12, 2018 at 19:31 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Sep 12, 2018 at 19:47 | |||||
| Sep 12, 2018 at 17:51 | comment | added | Žarko Tomičić | It says be nice and then you downvot e the guy...heh. Also, someone edited but did not edit the title of the question. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 17:14 | answer | added | John Rennie | timeline score: 4 | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 8:23 | comment | added | safesphere | "Light" is 4 times shorter than "electromagnetic wave", but you can use the latter if you prefer. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 8:21 | comment | added | safesphere | @Steeven "Maximum speed limit" is incorrect on two levels. (1) Alpha Centauri rotates around the Earth covering 27 light years in 24 hours. It is 10,000 times the speed of light. (2) The term of "speed limit" states that speed is limited. This gives a wrong impression that a higher speed conceptually exists, but is technically impossible to achieve. In reality, a higher local speed does not exist as an object in the hyperbolic geometry of spacetime. So there is simply nothing to achieve. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 5:37 | comment | added | A Nejati | To add to the above comments, in physics it is common to refer to all EM radiation as 'light', including radio waves and x rays. Just because human eyes can perceive a certain band of frequencies doesn't make that band particularly special from a physics point of view. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 5:33 | comment | added | Steeven | You could also have called it the the maximum speed limit. And light just happens to move at maximum speed. The phrase speed of light is historical and eases the explanation in the same way that the speed of sound is. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 4:51 | comment | added | robert bristow-johnson | it really should be the "speed of causality". | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 4:33 | comment | added | PM 2Ring | $c$ is simply the conversion factor relating distance in space to duration in time, as explained here and in the other linked answers. We still call it the speed of light for historical reasons even though that's not its fundamental meaning. Also, in physics "light" can refer to any or all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, not just the visible portion. After all, the frequency of a particular photon isn't invariant, due to the Doppler effect. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 4:10 | comment | added | Triatticus | I should have added that the term is also more historic than anything now | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 4:09 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 1 character in body; edited tags; edited title
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| Sep 12, 2018 at 4:00 | review | Low quality answers | |||
| Sep 12, 2018 at 6:11 | |||||
| Sep 12, 2018 at 3:43 | history | asked | Rix Vii | CC BY-SA 4.0 |