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Speed of Light

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Related Questions
How can the light move at the same speed in different
reference systems?

69 Answers
Alex Sergeev, PhD in Physics
1.9k Views Alex has 90+ answers in Physics

Is it possible to exceed the speed of light in a medium

other than vacuum while in that medium?
Does the speed of light varying in different mediums
contradict Einstein's assumption about it?

Speed of light is not considered constant. That's a common misconception.

As it is said that light speed is different in different

medium depending upon refractive index of materials.
My question is that can we slow ...

There is a fundamental constant c. Light waves move at this speed through vacuum in all
inertial reference frames. It can move slower if it undergoes interaction with matter.

How does the medium affect the speed of light?

Now, I'm not aware of what different readings you are talking about, but I might assume
that you mean the measured value of speed of light in vacuum. Different methods have
different precisions, so of course numbers will be a bit different. But all the modern
measurements are very close to each other and are extremely precise.
Another way to interpret your question is: How do we know the speed of light is constant?
That is, if it has been the same value all the time in the past. We don't know, but we are
pretty sure it didn't change much (see the answers to that question).

Does light (speed 'c' in vacuum) travel at a lesser

speed in denser medium like air, water, oil, glass etc.?
How is teleportation different from the speed of light?
How can the Electromagnetic boundary conditions for
time varying fields between two different medium be
derived?
What is the speed of light in a medium having a
refractive index less than 1?

Written 17 Oct 2014 View Upvotes Answer requested by 1 person

Why does the value of G, speed of light and other
scientific constants not vary?

Related Questions
More Answers Below
How can the light move at the same speed in different reference systems?
Is it possible to exceed the speed of light in a medium other than vacuum while in that
medium?
Does the speed of light varying in different mediums contradict Einstein's assumption
about it?
As it is said that light speed is different in different medium depending upon refractive
index of materials. My question is that can we slow ...
How does the medium affect the speed of light?

Matt Hodel, undergraduate student

3.5k Views Matt has 90+ answers and 4 endorsements in Physics

Just a small comment regarding the apparent discrepancy between Jacob's and Edward's
nice answers. Both are correct, they just look at the situation from different theories.
Edward answers the question in the context of classical electromagnetism (as described by
Maxwell's Equations). In this setting, light is an electromagnetic wave and strange
dispersive phenomena (as well as refraction and the like) will cause the group velocity of
the wave to be less than c, even though the phase velocity is still exactly c everywhere in the
wave. (I believe this is correct, please comment if I'm saying something that's wrong. Is this
related to the idea that the path the light takes zig zags...that sounds to me like repeated
refraction).
Jacob answers the question in the context of quantum electrodynamics, where light is
thought of as a flux of particles called photons. Each photon represents a quantum
excitation of the electromagnetic field. Photons, being particles, can be absorbed and
emitted. When they are not busy being absorbed or admitted, photons are always moving
at speed c. However, as Jacob says, in a material there are plenty of atoms floating around
eager to absorb some photons and then reemit them to jump back down to their ground
state. This process--absorption and emission--takes time and it is what appears to slow
down the speed of light.
Written 16 Apr 2014 View Upvotes

Mark Barton, PhD in Physics, The University of Queensland, physicist with

National Astrono...
1.2k Views Most Viewed Writer in Relativity (physics) with 480+ answers

No. If a medium has refractive index [math]n[/math] then the velocity of light in that
medium is [math]c/n[/math]. That's a perfectly ordinary, non-magical velocity, in that it
doesn't transform to [math]c[/math], or itself, or anything else remarkable if you plug it

(as [math]u=c/n[/math]) into the Velocity-addition formula

This was actually an important constraint when Einstein was developing relativity (and
others were trying to make an aether theory work). The Fizeau experiment is less famous
than the much later MichelsonMorley experiment but was just as influential at the
time. Fizeau measured the speed of light in flowing water and got what was in retrospect
the velocity addition formula. This was a puzzle because it was somewhere between the
scenarios where you could make a plausible argument from the aether theory, either no
effect or the full effect from combining [math]c/n[/math] with the Galilean velocity
addition formula ([math]u'=u+v[/math]).
Written 13 Oct 2014 View Upvotes

Giordon Stark, PhD Candidate at UChicago, B.S. from Caltech. A Licensed

Quantum Mechanic who...
785 Views Giordon has 300+ answers and 17 endorsements in Physics

This is such a hard question. I'm not fully aware of anyone who has completely described
the mechanism involved since this involves describing light (photons) in a quantum
mechanical description. Let's just dispel the common, faulty explanations.
Atomic Absorption and Emission (faulty)
A lot of people try to naturally think classically and say "there must be some sort of
frictional force in the medium" or the light is delayed / slowed down somehow. This leads
to them thinking about an atom in that medium being excited and then re-emitting the
light. Here's the good part. Assuming we shine that light rather coherently through that
material, we can at least talk about some correlation between the incoming photon and the
excited atom (a process of stimulated emission). So we can at least see that while
spontaneous emission would occur (light emits in all directions), it might be reasonable to
think that this is dominated by the stimulated emission.
Here's why this doesn't totally work though. Take a piece of glass. I can shine a lot of
different frequencies of light through it. This tells me that a continuum input of light leads
to a continuum output of light. However, if we talk fundamentally about the atomic
absorption and emission, then we have to conclude that light is emitted at quantized,
discrete frequencies. But clearly, this doesn't happen. This can't be true.
Another satisfying reason: let's say you are still convinced, at this point, that it has to
depend on what atoms we use. Let's take one of the most common elements: carbon. This
gives us diamond and graphite. Both of these have completely different indices of
refraction. But wait, there's more! Graphite isn't isotropic! It's index of refraction is
different along different axes within its structure!
Phonons (more correct)
As I probably hinted with the carbon-explanation, there seems to be something
fundamentally different between diamond and graphite that we must see at a higher level.
Clearly, talking about the atomic level is already too far, since we can't tell the difference
between these two things. We need to look at the lattice level, the structure. There's a sort
of collective behavior that we observe with other atoms and it is this collective behavior
that forms some of our fundamental objects such as conductors, semiconductors,
insulators, and more. This collective behavior (Solid State physics) leads to a lot of
measurable properties such as specific heat and so on.
Where do phonons fit in? Phonons are how we describe the fundamental... vibrational
modes within the lattice. I would try and use the analogy that photons are to
electromagnetic radiation (EM fields) like phonons are to lattice modes. A photon gets
absorbed by the solid and converted to a set of vibrations (their energies correspond to the
energy of the photon). The phonon modes, unlike atomic transitions, are less discrete and
there is a transmission bandwidth where our material is transparent or not. Being
transparent means that light just passes through, while being opaque means the solid
absorbs the photon.
Now, let's say the photon gets absorbed - it probably would not transmit through the solid
but will get reflected back. The solid would gain some heat related to the change in
momentum of the photon, and this is brownian thermal noise that we'll see here. If the
photon doesn't get absorbed, meaning that the phonon mode doesn't quite "click", (I guess
out of resonance), then there's a subtle disturbance between the photon being absorbed
and re-emitted. This causes the delay in the light propagation that we talk about.
Perhaps, you might think of multiple atoms further discretizing the atomic transition
levels which is a lot more of a continuum (phonon modes) than a single atom and that the
overall behavior of the atoms determines these properties.
Updated 31 Dec 2013 View Upvotes

Jos Ignacio Merino, PhD on Plasma Physics a long time ago...

1.3k Views Jos has 30+ answers in Physics

Because there's no vacuum in a medium. There's lot of atoms and molecules and light is
absorbed and reemitted by electrons on them.
An absorbed photon is reemitted on the same direction and in the same frequency than the
original, but few nanoseconds later. That's a simplified version because light on a medium
is lower that light on vacuum.
Written 20 Jun 2012 View Upvotes

Related Questions
Does light (speed 'c' in vacuum) travel at a lesser speed in denser medium like air, water,
oil, glass etc.?
How is teleportation different from the speed of light?
How can the Electromagnetic boundary conditions for time varying fields between two
different medium be derived?
What is the speed of light in a medium having a refractive index less than 1?
Why does the value of G, speed of light and other scientific constants not vary?
Speed of Light: Will light accelerate when entering a less dense medium from a denser
one?
Why does light of different wavelengths travel at the same speed in a vacuum?
Why does the frequency of light remain constant when it passes through different
mediums?
Is the speed of light constant in different places?
According to relativity, the speed of light is same for all observers but does it change when
light changes the medium? If so, then would it a...
Is there a difference in terms of general relativity between vacuum and a different medium
if light moves slower in a different medium?
What would our universe look like if time was constant and speed of light varied?
How does the speed of light changes in different mediums?
Since the speed of light varies depending on the medium it moves through, would it be
possible to accelerate a particle faster than the speed ...
Other than changing the refractive index of a medium, is there any other way to vary the
speed of light?

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