No it’s not a Cheetah which can run at 115 kilometres per hour, or a Peregrine Falcon which can dive at 300 km/h. It is light.
The speed of light is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, or 1,079,252,848.8 km/h.
This diagram shows how long it takes light to travel from the earth to the moon, 1.2 seconds.
Pretty quick hey.
October 28, 2009 at 7:15 pm |
Sorry sir but you are incorrect. In PWRs (pressurized water reactors), which are a type of nuclear fission reactor electrons routinely exceed the speed of light, when they slow down to below light speed they emit a cool blue glow. Thus, the speed of light cannot be the fastest thing in the universe because there are things which exceed it.
October 28, 2009 at 8:42 pm |
I stand corrected. Great stuff Mike!
November 24, 2009 at 8:52 am |
Actually to be specific it is “the speed of light in a vacuum” that is the fastest thing in the universe. The instance of light under those extreme conditions as listed above is not a vacuum and such conditions supposedly manage to affect light itself.
To make a crude analogy, it’s basically akin to photons hitting air particles and therefore becoming susceptible to drag.