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THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE, Brian Greene, 1999, 2003
```(annotated and with added bold highlights by Epsilon=One)
```(annotated and with added bold highlights by Epsilon=One)
Chapter 2 - Space, Time, and the Eye of the Beholder
The Speed of Light
The second key ingredient in special relativity has to do with light and properties of its motion. Contrary to our claim that there is no meaning to the statement "George is traveling at 10 miles per hour" without a specified benchmark for comparison, almost a century of effort by a series of dedicated experimental physicists has shown that any and all observers will agree that light travels at 670 million miles per hour regardless of benchmarks for comparison.
This fact has required a revolution in our view of the universe. Let's first gain an understanding of its meaning by contrasting it with similar statements applied to more common objects. Imagine it's a nice, sunny day and you go outside to play a game of catch with a friend. For a while, you both leisurely throw the ball back and forth with a speed of, say, 20 feet per second, when suddenly an unexpected electrical storm stirs overhead, sending you both running for cover. After it passes, you rejoin to resume your game of catch but you notice that something has changed. Your friend's hair has become wild and spiky, and her eyes have grown severe and crazed. When you look at her hand, you are stunned to see that she is no longer planning to play catch with a baseball, but instead is about to toss you a hand grenade. Understandably, your enthusiasm for playing catch diminishes substantially; you turn to run. When your companion throws the grenade, it will still fly toward you, but because you are running, the speed with which it approaches you will be less than 20 feet per second. In fact, common experience tells us that if you can run at, say, 12 feet per second then the hand-grenade will approach you at (20 — 12 =) 8 feet per second. As another example, if you are in the mountains and an avalanche of snow is rumbling toward you, your inclination is to turn and run because this will cause the speed with which the snow approaches you to decrease—and this, generally, is a good thing. Again, a stationary individual perceives the speed of the approaching snow to be greater than that perceived by someone in retreat.
Now, let's compare these basic observations about baseballs, grenades, and avalanches to those about light. To make the comparisons tighter, think about a light beam as composed of tiny "packets" or "bundles" known as photons (a feature of light we will discuss more fully in Chapter 4). When we turn on a flashlight or a laser beam we are, in effect, shooting a stream of photons in whatever direction we point the device. As we did for grenades and avalanches, let's consider how the motion of a photon appears to someone who is moving. Imagine that your crazed friend has swapped her grenade for a powerful laser. If she fires the laser toward you—and if you had the appropriate measuring equipment—you would find that the speed of approach of the photons in the beam is 670 million miles per hour. But what if you run away, as you did when faced with the prospect of playing catch with a hand grenade? What speed will you now measure for the approaching photons? To make things more compelling, imagine that you can hitch a ride on the starship Enterprise and zip away from your friend at, say, 100 million miles per hour. Following the reasoning based on the traditional Newtonian worldview, since you are now speeding away, you would expect to measure a slower speed for the oncoming photons. Specifically, you would expect to find them approaching you at (670 million miles per hour — 100 million miles per hour =) 570 million miles per hour.
Mounting evidence from a variety of experiments dating back as far as the 1880s, as well as careful analysis and interpretation of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, slowly convinced the scientific community that, in fact, this is not what you will see. Even though you are retreating, you will still measure the speed of the approaching photons as 670 million miles per hour, not a bit less. Although at first it sounds completely ridiculous, unlike what happens if one runs from an oncoming baseball, grenade, or avalanche, the speed of approaching photons is always 670 million miles per hour. The same is true if you run toward oncoming photons or chase after them—their speed of approach or recession is completely unchanged; they still appear to travel at 670 million miles per hour. Regardless of relative motion between the source of photons and the observer, the speed of light is always the same. 2
Technological limitations are such that the "experiments" with light, as described, cannot actually be carried out. However, comparable experiments can. For instance, in 1913 the Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter suggested that fast-moving binary stars (two stars that orbit one another) could be used to measure the effect of a moving source on the speed of light. Various experiments of this sort over the past eight decades have verified that the speed of light received from a moving star is the same as that from a stationary star—670 million miles per hour—to within the impressive accuracy of ever more refined measuring devices. Moreover, a wealth of other detailed experiments has been carried out during the past century—experiments that directly measure the speed of light in various circumstances, as well as test many of the implications arising from this characteristic of light, as discussed shortly—and all have confirmed the constancy of the speed of light.
If you find this property of light hard to swallow, you are not alone. At the turn of the century physicists went to great length to refute it. They couldn't. Einstein, to the contrary, embraced the constancy of the speed of light, for here was the answer to the conflict that had troubled him since he was a teenager: No matter how harciyou chase after a light beam, it still retreats from you at light speed. You can't make the apparent speed with which light departs one iota less than 670 million miles per hour, let alone slow it down to the point of appearing stationary. Case closed. But this triumph over paradox was no small victory. Einstein realized that the constancy of light's speed spelled the downfall of Newtonian physics.
This fact has required a revolution in our view of the universe. Let's first gain an understanding of its meaning by contrasting it with similar statements applied to more common objects. Imagine it's a nice, sunny day and you go outside to play a game of catch with a friend. For a while, you both leisurely throw the ball back and forth with a speed of, say, 20 feet per second, when suddenly an unexpected electrical storm stirs overhead, sending you both running for cover. After it passes, you rejoin to resume your game of catch but you notice that something has changed. Your friend's hair has become wild and spiky, and her eyes have grown severe and crazed. When you look at her hand, you are stunned to see that she is no longer planning to play catch with a baseball, but instead is about to toss you a hand grenade. Understandably, your enthusiasm for playing catch diminishes substantially; you turn to run. When your companion throws the grenade, it will still fly toward you, but because you are running, the speed with which it approaches you will be less than 20 feet per second. In fact, common experience tells us that if you can run at, say, 12 feet per second then the hand-grenade will approach you at (20 — 12 =) 8 feet per second. As another example, if you are in the mountains and an avalanche of snow is rumbling toward you, your inclination is to turn and run because this will cause the speed with which the snow approaches you to decrease—and this, generally, is a good thing. Again, a stationary individual perceives the speed of the approaching snow to be greater than that perceived by someone in retreat.
Now, let's compare these basic observations about baseballs, grenades, and avalanches to those about light. To make the comparisons tighter, think about a light beam as composed of tiny "packets" or "bundles" known as photons (a feature of light we will discuss more fully in Chapter 4). When we turn on a flashlight or a laser beam we are, in effect, shooting a stream of photons in whatever direction we point the device. As we did for grenades and avalanches, let's consider how the motion of a photon appears to someone who is moving. Imagine that your crazed friend has swapped her grenade for a powerful laser. If she fires the laser toward you—and if you had the appropriate measuring equipment—you would find that the speed of approach of the photons in the beam is 670 million miles per hour. But what if you run away, as you did when faced with the prospect of playing catch with a hand grenade? What speed will you now measure for the approaching photons? To make things more compelling, imagine that you can hitch a ride on the starship Enterprise and zip away from your friend at, say, 100 million miles per hour. Following the reasoning based on the traditional Newtonian worldview, since you are now speeding away, you would expect to measure a slower speed for the oncoming photons. Specifically, you would expect to find them approaching you at (670 million miles per hour — 100 million miles per hour =) 570 million miles per hour.
Mounting evidence from a variety of experiments dating back as far as the 1880s, as well as careful analysis and interpretation of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, slowly convinced the scientific community that, in fact, this is not what you will see. Even though you are retreating, you will still measure the speed of the approaching photons as 670 million miles per hour, not a bit less. Although at first it sounds completely ridiculous, unlike what happens if one runs from an oncoming baseball, grenade, or avalanche, the speed of approaching photons is always 670 million miles per hour. The same is true if you run toward oncoming photons or chase after them—their speed of approach or recession is completely unchanged; they still appear to travel at 670 million miles per hour. Regardless of relative motion between the source of photons and the observer, the speed of light is always the same. 2
Technological limitations are such that the "experiments" with light, as described, cannot actually be carried out. However, comparable experiments can. For instance, in 1913 the Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter suggested that fast-moving binary stars (two stars that orbit one another) could be used to measure the effect of a moving source on the speed of light. Various experiments of this sort over the past eight decades have verified that the speed of light received from a moving star is the same as that from a stationary star—670 million miles per hour—to within the impressive accuracy of ever more refined measuring devices. Moreover, a wealth of other detailed experiments has been carried out during the past century—experiments that directly measure the speed of light in various circumstances, as well as test many of the implications arising from this characteristic of light, as discussed shortly—and all have confirmed the constancy of the speed of light.
If you find this property of light hard to swallow, you are not alone. At the turn of the century physicists went to great length to refute it. They couldn't. Einstein, to the contrary, embraced the constancy of the speed of light, for here was the answer to the conflict that had troubled him since he was a teenager: No matter how harciyou chase after a light beam, it still retreats from you at light speed. You can't make the apparent speed with which light departs one iota less than 670 million miles per hour, let alone slow it down to the point of appearing stationary. Case closed. But this triumph over paradox was no small victory. Einstein realized that the constancy of light's speed spelled the downfall of Newtonian physics.