"Lightspeed" redirects here. For other uses, see Speed of light (disambiguation) and Lightspeed (disambiguation).
| |
| Exact values | |
|---|---|
| metres per second | 299792458 |
| Planck length per Planck time (i.e., Planck units) | 1 |
| Approximate values (to three significant digits) | |
| kilometres per hour | 1080 million (1.08×109) |
| miles per second | 186000 |
| miles per hour | 671 million (6.71×108) |
| astronomical units per day | 173[Note 1] |
| Approximate light signal travel times | |
| Distance | Time |
| one foot | 1.0 ns |
| one metre | 3.3 ns |
| from geostationary orbit to Earth | 119 ms |
| the length of Earth's equator | 134 ms |
| from Moon to Earth | 1.3 s |
| from Sun to Earth (1 AU) | 8.3 min |
| one light year | 1.0 year |
| one parsec | 3.26 years |
| from nearest star to Sun (1.3 pc) | 4.2 years |
| from the nearest galaxy (the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy) to Earth | 25000 years |
| across the Milky Way | 100000 years |
| from the Andromeda Galaxy to Earth | 2.5 million years |
| from Earth to the edge of the observable universe | 46.5 billion years |
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its precise value is 299792458 metres per second (approximately 3.00×108 m/s), since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time.[1] According to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all matter and hence information in the universe can travel. It is the speed at which all massless particles and changes of the associated fields (including electromagnetic radiation such as light and gravitational waves) travel in vacuum. Such particles and waves travel at cregardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer. In the theory of relativity, c interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalenceE = mc2.[2]
The speed at which light propagates through transparent materials, such as glass or air, is less than c; similarly, the speed of radio waves in wire cables is slower than c. The ratio between c and the speed v at which light travels in a material is called the refractive index n of the material (n = c / v). For example, for visible light the refractive index of glass is typically around 1.5, meaning that light in glass travels at c / 1.5 ≈ 200000 km/s; the refractive index of air for visible light is about 1.0003, so the speed of light in air is about 299700 km/s (about 90 km/s slower than c).
For many practical purposes, light and other electromagnetic waves will appear to propagate instantaneously, but for long distances and very sensitive measurements, their finite speed has noticeable effects. In communicating with distant space probes, it can take minutes to hours for a message to get from Earth to the spacecraft, or vice versa. The light seen from stars left them many years ago, allowing the study of the history of the universe by looking at distant objects. The finite speed of light also limits the theoretical maximum speed of computers, since information must be sent within the computer from chip to chip. The speed of light can be used with time of flight measurements to measure large distances to high precision.
Ole Rømer first demonstrated in 1676 that light travels at a finite speed (as opposed to instantaneously) by studying the apparent motion of Jupiter's moon Io. In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light was an electromagnetic wave, and therefore travelled at the speed c appearing in his theory of electromagnetism.[3] In 1905, Albert Einstein postulated that the speed of light c with respect to any inertial frame is a constant and is independent of the motion of the light source.[4] He explored the consequences of that postulate by deriving the special theory of relativity and in doing so showed that the parameter c had relevance outside of the context of light and electromagnetism.
After centuries of increasingly precise measurements, in 1975 the speed of light was known to be 299792458 m/s with a measurement uncertainty of 4 parts per billion. In 1983, the metre was redefined in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299792458 of a second. As a result, the numerical value of c in metres per second is now fixed exactly by the definition of the metre.[5]
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