- #1
ColdheartedGod
- 5
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In relativity, the speed of light in vacuum is a universal constant. Also, it has wave-particle duality. So if the speed of light slows down in a different media other than vacuum, what exactly is slowing down?
Macroscopically speaking, the speed of light does slow down. What about in the microscopic points of view?If as particles, photons are much smaller than electrons and nuclei, so basically it's moving in vacuum with frequent bouncing. Can we say we measure the speed in other media slower than that in vacuum is because photons don't travel alone a straight line as in vacuum but twisty lines due to the bouncing with other particles?
My teacher taught me, if we treat light as waves, when the light enter a new optical dense media, the light rays will collide with particles, lose energy and slows down. But it doesn't make sense when they reenter a media with smaller refractive index, the light rays speed up.
Personally, I cannot understand why a universal constant which plays such a huge role in relativity would be influenced easily by media. With the vacuum fluctuation, we cannot have a real "vacuum", thus the speed cannot be precisely measured. There must be something special about it which make up the speed limit of our universe!!!
Macroscopically speaking, the speed of light does slow down. What about in the microscopic points of view?If as particles, photons are much smaller than electrons and nuclei, so basically it's moving in vacuum with frequent bouncing. Can we say we measure the speed in other media slower than that in vacuum is because photons don't travel alone a straight line as in vacuum but twisty lines due to the bouncing with other particles?
My teacher taught me, if we treat light as waves, when the light enter a new optical dense media, the light rays will collide with particles, lose energy and slows down. But it doesn't make sense when they reenter a media with smaller refractive index, the light rays speed up.
Personally, I cannot understand why a universal constant which plays such a huge role in relativity would be influenced easily by media. With the vacuum fluctuation, we cannot have a real "vacuum", thus the speed cannot be precisely measured. There must be something special about it which make up the speed limit of our universe!!!