The Theory of Nothing

What are the consequences of the speed of light?

What are the consequences of the speed of light?

This sounds dumb, if for no other reason than the fact that we can’t go faster than the speed of light and that means that we can’t easily go to the stars.

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second or 871 million miles per hour. This is true of all electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and gamma waves. In other words, the frequency of the light waves doesn’t affect the speed, unless these light waves are slowed when they pass through a more dense material like glass. The speed of light is also responsible for one of the consequences of the special relativity theory as proposed by Einstein. As one goes faster, space-time slows and near the speed of light it’s very slow. This is a consequence of the speed of light, and this constant is the same no matter what location one is in.

But, there are many good things about the speed of light being a constant in the universe. The first is that we could not see if this were not the case. Light acts as both a particle, a photon, and as a wave. The wave properties are what allow us to see because light waves are bent or refracted when they go through a denser medium than vacuum or air. This allows a lens to focus the light and that’s why we can see. Our eyes have lenses like a camera to focus the light onto our retinas. This is a fundamental property of light and it certainly contributed to the evolution of eyes.

The other effect of light refraction is the separation of white light into a rainbow, revealing colors. This means that we have various colors to see. Otherwise the world would be monochrome. Yuck! This rainbow phenomenon also allows astronomers to determine the distance to other galaxies because when objects fly away from us light frequencies are shifted to the red end of the spectrum. The further the shift, the faster the object is going away and the further it is away. This is a consequence of what is known as the Doppler effect.

The speed of light makes light energy from the sun take eight minutes to get to Earth. This delay is important in maintaining an energy balance relationship with the sun. If the speed of light were slower, the energy balance would be disrupted and we would have heat and light coming at us even when it was supposed to be night. To put it in other words, the speed of light is just right to allow us to see the sunlight as if it were instantaneous. Besides, our vision would be messed up to the point that our heads would have to be much longer to accommodate this change because the focal point of our eye lens would be a lot further than it is now, assuming the same kind of eye lens.

Light is an electromagnetic wave. This means that it has a connection to magnetism, and that’s how it was determined to have a constant speed in a vacuum. Maxwell used the properties of a capacitor to determine the speed of light because of vacuum permitivity, which is the relation of electric charge to length and force between separated electrical charges or in other words the strength of electrical force as related to the capacitance and dimensions of a capacitor. He came up with an equation that relates the speed of light to vacuum permitivity and vacuum permeability, which is a constant used for the definition of an ampere.

The speed of light also makes lasers possible, which are used for many purposes, including CD and DVD playback, medical purposes such as Lasik surgery, and interferometry, a method of determining the speed of light in denser media. There is no doubt that we would not be here if the speed of light were not a constant. I believe that the speed of light constant is still another proof that we are not an accident and that a higher power created this wonderful universe we live in.

Thanks for reading.