OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:14:10 -0600, Ree***, Andrew wrote:

'c' is also the speed of light.

'c' is the speed of light _in_a_vacuum_.

True.


And since nothing can travel faster than light...

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light _in_a_vacuum_. There
are situtaitons where things can (and regularly do) travel faster than
light: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation


Nope. It propagates, not travels, faster than light. Go ask a
physicist to explain it. It's odd...

Propagate, travel, what's the difference?

If you're referring to the fact that in non-vacuum, light travels more
slowly due to frequent interactions with the particles of the medium it
travels through, that's discussed in the Wikipedia article.

There are quite a number of superluminal (faster than light) phenomena.
See, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_light
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_velocity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

particularly the section titled:

"Superficially FTL phenomena which do not carry information"


--
Steven
.

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