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Because a photon is massless. Since photons are massless, by the laws of physics all massless objects MUST travel at the speed of light.
E=MC^2 "E" is Energy, "M" is Mass, and "C" is the speed of light squared or multiplied by its self.
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Another contributor tried to respond to the same question:
Strange as it may seem, the speed of light was accurately predicted long before there was
any way to measure it. The prediction falls out naturally from the Physics and Math of
wave motion.
In the equation for a wave, a constant appears in one of the terms, and the speed of
the wave is the square root of the reciprocal of that constant.
When you take Maxwell's four equations of electricity and magnetism, and massage them
in such a way as to derive the equation of the electromagnetic wave that they would
produce, the constant in that particular place in the equation is the product of the
vacuum permittivity of space ... 8.854188 x 10-12 ... and the magnetic permeability
of space ... 1.256637 x 10-6 . Now watch closely as I handle these numbers, with
nothing up my sleeve:
The product is (8.854188 x 10-12) x (1.256637 x 10-6) = 1.11265 x 10-17 .
The reciprocal of that number is 8.987552 x 1016 ,
and the square root of that number, which should be the speed of the wave, is
299,792,462 meters per second ...
only 4 m/s different from the official, internationally accepted number !
Admittedly, this still doesn't answer your question of "why", but your question is now
"Why are the vacuum permittivity and the magnetic permeability of free space both
exactly the numbers that they are ?"
We hope you consider this to be some progress; but if you've simply lost all interest
by now, we'll understand.
A third response:
The speed of light is 300 000 000 m/s because we, as humans, defined what is 1 meter and what is 1 second. The speed of light itself is just a fundamental constant, a fact of this universe. It just "is."
In some branches of physics, the speed of light is just defined as 1 distance/time.
If you understand special relativity, consider what would happen if the speed of light were say, 10 m/s.
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Trivia about light?
Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. It takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth.
How fast can the millennium falcon go in Star Wars?
The Millennium Falcon can go .5 faster than light speed, which is 390,365,697,829 metres per second
Where does the light in a light year come from?
It gets it name because it is the distance that light travels in one Earth year.
Light from a star travels from earth in a straight line at a constant speed of 300000 kilometers per second What is the acceleration of the light?
The speed of light is a constant, so the acceleration is zero. However, light IS affected by gravity, and gravity causes an acceleration. How does this balance? The light moves at the same speed - the speed of light, abbreviated "c" - but loses or gains energy as the light moves toward or away from the gravity source. In gaining energy (without speeding up!) the frequency of the light is increased and the wavelength of the light (or any electromagnetic energy) is decreased, In losing energy, the wavelength is increased and the wavelength decreased. This could be a trick question, of course. Light from a star wouldn't be travelling from earth, unless we are talking about reflected light, which would not be particularly intense, but it is not out of the question.
What is the fastest speed with anything can move?
speed of light
Light weight travels at what speed?
Approx 300000000 metres per second in vacuum.
Hwat is the speed of light measured in meters per second?
It is 300000000 metres per second, approx.
What travels 300000000 miles per second?
Nothing can travel at that speed. The speed of light is about 300,000,000 meters per second; this is equivalent to 300,000 kilometers per second or 186,000 miles per second.
What is the only celestial body that could trap an object at 300000000 meter per second speed?
A Black hole can trap anything that gets near it.
Speed of light 3 x 10?
3 x 10 to the 8 power (meters per second)
How do you convert 300000000 meters a second to miles a second?
To start you need to know how many miles per second are in each meter per second, which is 0.000621371192. Next, multiply 300,000,000 by 0.000621371192 to get miles per second: 300,000,000 x 0.000621371192 = 186,411.358 miles per second. (Approximately the speed of light in a vacuum).
How fast does speed of light travel on venus?
Speed of light doesn't travel. Light travels.The speed of light doesn't vary depending on the planet; it may, however, vary depending what it goes through. For example, the speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000 km/second; the speed of light in glass is about 2/3 of that value.
How you convert speed of light meter per second square to kilogram?
You cannot
What is the meter definded by?
The current definition of the meter is in terms of the speed of light: "... the distance travelled by light in free space in 1⁄299,792,458 of a second".
Speed of light in meter per second?
the speed of light = 299 792 458 m/s in vacuum slower in materials and stuff
Can the speed of light be ligislated?
Sort of. The meter is currently defined to be exactly the distance that light, in a vacuum, travels in 1 / 299,792,458 of a second. The result of this is that the speed of light is DEFINED to be a certain value (299,792,458 meters / second); the meter is derived from the speed of light. Of course, you can't legislate to make the speed of light in a vacuum faster or slower; or rather, if you do, light won't care about such legislation. The legislation only affects the numeric values assigned to such a speed.
How many times is light faster than your running speed?
Running speed is about 3 m/s Light speed is about 300000000 m/s That's 10^8 times faster
