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Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:42 pm
by makc
craterchains wrote:god, kiss my "donkey".
so that's how you call it... :oops:

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:53 am
by craterchains
lol, , :oops:

makc
and nuff said, as I beleive the same things, as do many others now.

ooooopssssss, to late, people know.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:04 pm
by bystander
I was watching a NOVA program on "Absolute Zero" and they mentioned Bose-Einstein condensates that slow down light as it enters the condensate and allow it to speed back up as it leaves with any intelligence still attached. Obviously the speed of light can be manipulated by matter (and gravity). In a complete vacuum, the speed of light is constant. However, since a complete vacuum does not exist in a universe filled with matter, there is most probably some variance in the speed of light within it.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:29 pm
by makc
bystander, what you are saying is like suggesting that Pi, for example, is not constant, because in real world ratio of hand-drawn circles' circumferences to their diameters varies.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:41 pm
by FieryIce
Makc you are going to have to get over your handy cap of stunted understanding, if you don’t know something just say “I don’t know” better yet don’t post crap in lieu of logic.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:53 pm
by bystander
And your answer to this, makc?

Physicists Slow Speed of Light
The speed of light in a vacuum is an important physical constant denoted by the letter c for constant or for the Latin celeritas ("swiftness"). It is the speed of all electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, in a vacuum. More generally, it is the speed of anything having zero rest mass.
...
The speed of light when it passes through a transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, is slower than its speed in a vacuum. The ratio of c to the observed phase velocity is called the refractive index of the medium. General relativity explains how a gravitational potential can affect the apparent speed of distant light in a vacuum, but locally light in a vacuum always passes an observer at a rate of c.
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:38 pm
by bystander
FieryIce wrote:Thank you bystander, yes one does become sensitized with constant exposure and can spot bull$$** a mile away.
Whoosh! Right over the top. Guess I aimed too high.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:12 am
by craterchains
Dr. Stephen Hawking wrote:
Not only does God play dice, but he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
Just when you have the blinders on, , , , , , , , , :roll:

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:13 pm
by makc
fireyIce, no need to attack me, I'm pretty much done talking to you in my last post addressed to you. Unless you have something "new" to say.

bystander, I don't see how it says anything different from what I said. Take a closer look:
The speed of light when it passes through a transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, is slower than its speed in a vacuum. The ratio of c to the observed phase velocity...
I color-marked things by relevance. What you do is mix them all together and claim, on that basis, that c is not constant.

The whole argument you quote relies on definition of c as constant, so "not being constant" cannot follow from it logically.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:33 pm
by bystander
No, you said the speed of light is constant. My point was that the speed of light is only constant in a vacuum. Since there is no complete vacuum in our material universe, the speed of light varies. Granted, that variance may be too small for us to measure, but it's there. c is the defined constant for the speed of light in a vacuum. In other mediums, the speed of light is not c.

In the article Physicists Slow Speed of Light, they slow light down to 38 miles per hour.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:15 pm
by makc
and again, you mixed all up, or you are just being nitpicking.

the speed of light is, indeed, constant, just like Pi or e or i or 1 or 0. it is defined by International System of Units to be exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (actually, it is consequence of meter definition, as I posted a page ago).

if you really expect me to write "the speed of light immediately near observer in vaccuum aka c in relativity theory" instead of "speed of light" everywhere, then I will not, sorry, it is just too much writing.
In the article Physicists Slow Speed of Light, they slow light down to 38 miles per hour.
I hope you arent going to claim now that jet planes violate relativistic speed limit daily?

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:41 pm
by bystander
:lol: No, but wouldn't that be fun. I could even do it in my car, even though it's not a DeLorean.

Maybe you think I'm nitpicking, but c is the speed of light in a vacuum not the speed of light. Light, and its speed, is affected by the medium through which it passes. If this wasn't so, we wouldn't have rainbows. The sky wouldn't be blue. Refraction telescopes would be useless. The ability to manipulate the speed of light (or electromagnetic radiation) is the key to quantum computing. If this is nitpicking, then I'm guilty.

Read the article. It's really quite interesting. http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999 ... light.html

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:26 pm
by BMAONE23
Would the solution be to state C as the maximum natural speed of light???

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 11:11 pm
by craterchains
Now that sounds more like reality BMA.

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:33 am
by GOD
BMAONE23 wrote:Would the solution be to state C as the maximum natural speed of light???
BMA: Are you imagining that there's a minimum natural speed? :lol:

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:11 am
by makc
bystander, I've got used to "speed of light" as an alias for "c". I would rather refer to what you mean by "phase velocity of light" (as they do in your quote) to avoid confusion, but discussion of names is rather pointless here. In the post that has diverted discussion from original subject to speed of light, capt.yesterday says:
i want to know why nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?
from here, it is quite clear what is meant by "speed of light" in the thread afterwards.
GOD wrote:
BMAONE23 wrote:Would the solution be to state C as the maximum natural speed of light???
BMA: Are you imagining that there's a minimum natural speed? :lol:
Yeah, -1 * c.