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The speed of light can be used in time of flight measurements to measure large distances to extremely high precision. Ole Rømer first demonstrated in 1676 that light does not travel instantaneously by studying the apparent motion of Jupiter's moon Io. Progressively more accurate measurements of its speed came over the following centuries.
The apparent speed of light will change in a gravity field and, in particular, go to zero at an event horizon as viewed by a distant observer. [4] In deriving the gravitational redshift due to a spherically symmetric massive body, a radial speed of light dr / dt can be defined in Schwarzschild coordinates , with t being the time recorded on a ...
Changes in physical constants are not meaningful if they result in an observationally indistinguishable universe. For example, a "change" in the speed of light c would be meaningless if accompanied by a corresponding "change" in the elementary charge e so that the ratio e 2:c (the fine-structure constant) remained unchanged. [8]
It is described by the equation v = H 0 D, with H 0 the constant of proportionality—the Hubble constant—between the "proper distance" D to a galaxy (which can change over time, unlike the comoving distance) and its speed of separation v, i.e. the derivative of proper distance with respect to the cosmic time coordinate.
Since the speed of light is constant in relativity irrespective of the reference frame, pulses of light can be used to unambiguously measure distances and refer back to the times that events occurred to the clock, even though light takes time to reach the clock after the event has transpired.
The faster the relative velocity, the greater the time dilation between them, with time slowing to a stop as one clock approaches the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s). In theory, time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to advance into the future in a short period of their own time.
The measurements of speed of light are also mentioned only to the minimum extent, i.e. when they proved for the first time that c is finite and invariant. Innovations like the use of Foucault's rotating mirror or the Fizeau wheel are not listed here – see the article about speed of light. This timeline also ignores, for reasons of volume and ...
The 17th CGPM (1983) replaced the 1960 definition of the metre with one based on the second by giving an exact definition of the speed of light in units of metres per second. [19] Mass drift over time of national prototypes K21–K40, plus two of the international prototype's sister copies: K32 and K8(41).