The constant C

[elect59]

Hi all,

This is my first post other than my introduction. In fact, This is my first time as a member of any forum whatsoever, so please forgive me in advance if I commit a faux pas.

I would like to discuss the reason that there is a speed limit to travel through space. We are all familiar with the constant C, I am sure. This constant represents the speed of light or any radiant energy through the vacuum of space. The speed of light through the vacuum of space is a constant 186,000 miles per second, or for our metric friends, 299,792,458 meters per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h). Why is this the speed limit for radiant energy in our universe? Or perhaps the better question would be why is this the speed limit for movement through space?

First, what is radiant energy? Radiant energy is the fifth state of mass. Mass can exist in any of five transformed states depending upon its current energized state. From least energized to most energized (or from most density to least density) mass exists as one of five states; solid, liquid, gaseous, ionized gas, and radiant energy.

Mass, no matter what its current density or energized state, creates an expansion of the space around it. Space can only expand at a constant of C. Mass can only travel through space as fast as the space around it can expand. Therefore mass, no matter how little density it has, will always be held to the speed at which the space around it can expand. Since the speed limit for the expansion of space is C, then the speed limit for mass to move through space must also be C. The true representation of C
then is not the speed of light or radiant energy through the vacuum of space, but the expansion speed of space itself.

[Profpat]

Hi elect59;

There appears to be limits throughout the universe. I believe this is necessary for there to be order, otherwise it would be infinite and therefore nothing would be comprehensible.

Your view of radiant energy as being the 5th state of matter is interesting. I viewed the ether to be the 5th state but ether could very well be radiant energy.

I believe light always travels at ~300,000 kps whether in a vacuum or not. It appears to go slower when going throug a medium because it is reacting with the medium. I think the velocity is the same however.

Indeed space could be moving instead of light itself, it would depend on the perception of the observer.

You have some good thoughts there Chuck.

Best to you,

Pat

[Max™]

Space would actually be required to have expanded faster than light in the early inflationary periods of the universe after the big bang.

As for why matter cannot move faster than light, or even reach light speed.

The way I see it in my head, you have two sets of key numbers to the universe.

The minimum length, the size of the universe, the minimum time period, and the age of the universe.

As you increase any bodies motion or rest mass, it could be thought of as equivalent to interacting with an increasingly long distance.

As your interaction with lengths of space increases, your interaction with time decreases.

Eventually you reach a point where you're interacting with distances comparable to the entire size of the universe, and times on the order of the planck time.

There simply wouldn't be room to trade any more space interaction for time interaction at that point.

[Mohan.C]

Hi all,

This is my first post other than my introduction. In fact, This is my first time as a member of any forum whatsoever, so please forgive me in advance if I commit a faux pas.

I would like to discuss the reason that there is a speed limit to travel through space. We are all familiar with the constant C, I am sure. This constant represents the speed of light or any radiant energy through the vacuum of space. The speed of light through the vacuum of space is a constant 186,000 miles per second, or for our metric friends, 299,792,458 meters per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h). Why is this the speed limit for radiant energy in our universe? Or perhaps the better question would be why is this the speed limit for movement through space?

First, what is radiant energy? Radiant energy is the fifth state of mass. Mass can exist in any of five transformed states depending upon its current energized state. From least energized to most energized (or from most density to least density) mass exists as one of five states; solid, liquid, gaseous, ionized gas, and radiant energy.

Mass, no matter what its current density or energized state, creates an expansion of the space around it. Space can only expand at a constant of C. Mass can only travel through space as fast as the space around it can expand. Therefore mass, no matter how little density it has, will always be held to the speed at which the space around it can expand. Since the speed limit for the expansion of space is C, then the speed limit for mass to move through space must also be C. The true representation of C
then is not the speed of light or radiant energy through the vacuum of space, but the expansion speed of space itself.

Hi, elect59

Your view of radiant energy is interesting.
But look at this in this way. There are three kinds of energy transfer, convection, convention and radiation. If the energy transferrence is through radiation then that is radiation energy.

I think it would be really foolish to classify energy as a state of matter, because it is not matter.

I would like to give a satisfactory answer to the rest of your post, but first I gotta ask,
What is Expansion speed of space?

[austintorn@aol.com]

Perhaps space is the radiation, and, say a photon travels at the speed of light since that is the spinning speed of the proton that throws off the photon. The spinning speed depended on how fast the energy had to turn to become condensed into a 'solid', then more energy that was still in a 'fluid' state was an excess to be ejected at this spinning speed of light. A different kind of energy, had it been here, would have made for a different speed of light than C.

[AntonioLao]

the constant c

The constant has been known since the middle of the 19th century as the reciprocal of the square root of the product of the electric constant and the magnetic constant. In space-time empty of matter there still exists the sourceless electromagnetic field. The continuous constant oscillations between the electric field and the magnetic as quantum space-time vibrations allow a particle of light (photon) to travel at the defined speed.

[Mohan.C]

Perhaps space is the radiation, and, say a photon travels at the speed of light since that is the spinning speed of the proton that throws off the photon. The spinning speed depended on how fast the energy had to turn to become condensed into a 'solid', then more energy that was still in a 'fluid' state was an excess to be ejected at this spinning speed of light. A different kind of energy, had it been here, would have made for a different speed of light than C.

Yeah that is probable, assumable, if we consider the universe to have come from a infinitely dense mass of whatever. That is the bing bang theory. But The proton can be broken down further according to experiments or at least according to some theories.

But I don't see photon as an entity that is thrown off, I see it as an interaction just as I see energy as an interaction.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I never saw any either, Mohan; just thinking that C represents some limit imposed by the nature of what is and wondering how it got to that speed in the first place.

[Mohan.C]

I never saw any either, Mohan; just thinking that C represents some limit imposed by the nature of what is and wondering how it got to that speed in the first place.

Do you mean by 'how it got to that speed' as how it achieved it... I think that the photon has only one state of inertia-that is uniform motion, it does not have the state of rest because it doesn't exist in the state of rest... So, a photon doesn't have to accelerate, it just has one state of existence- constant motion.

[Max™]

Do you mean by 'how it got to that speed' as how it achieved it... I think that the photon has only one state of inertia-that is uniform motion, it does not have the state of rest because it doesn't exist in the state of rest... So, a photon doesn't have to accelerate, it just has one state of existence- constant motion.

Exactly, as I say it, a photon having no rest mass implies one thing, a photon cannot stop moving.