Why is the speed of light uniform?

Is the speed of light an infinity that has been given a finite measure?

Magnets just sort of work.

299,792,458 m/s isn't infinity.

Fucking magnets..

But why is there a speed limit?

It can be explained a bit more clearly than this.

I never went through the derivation (I skipped that class/was a piss-poor physics student) so I can't tell you the specifics but my understanding is as follows:

The speed of light is derived by using Maxwell's equations. If you believe that Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism is correct, and if you also believe in the Galilean principle of relativity(that all physics in inertial reference frames are identical), then you do a little math, you arrive at the speed of light in terms of other constants of E&M.

Specifically, the speed of light c turns out to be

c=(m*e)^(-1/2), where m=the magnetic constant and e=the electric constant.

So the speed of light, while a fundamental constant, isn't quite as fundamental as both e and m.

The important point here is that you can define c using maxwells equations, but since every inertial reference frame is physically equivalent, c has to be equivalent in every reference frame as well.

Before einstein, physicists were scratching their heads about this and had proposed that there is only one TRUE reference frame, the "ether", but the michelson morley experiment falsified this idea, not to mention the fact that there was already plenty of evidence to the contrary. The physists of the time were, dispite obvious contradictions to their logic, just too reticent to take the step that Einstein was willing to take... Keep Galileaen relativity and E&M intact, and therefore dismantling our notions of the constancy of both time and space. Because for c to be experienced as the same speed for every nonaccelerating person, we have to allow that time, and distance, are experienced differently for objects moving with different relative speeds.

That's like asking why a 12'' x 12'' x 6'' cardboard box is twelve inches by twelve inches by six inches. It's just the shape of things. Why would you expect anything different?

Surely there must be a reason past "there just is"

you're not "curious", as if that's some great unattackable virtue, you're just directionless.

it's the same kind of "curiosity" that will drive you eventually to stick your fingers in an outlet.

>ooo look at me i'm a martyr for curiosity praise me neil degress tyson

blow it out your ass

What reason do you have for believing there needs to be a reason why a certain dimension of measure exists in the way it does? What if every possible maximum speed exists in its own universe and the one you're seeing in our universe is completely arbitrary?

the question isn't "why is there a speed limit" but "why do things slow down"

and it's been explained to you that things slow down by interacting with the higgs field

just as darkness is simply the absence of light

and cold is the absence of heat

speed is the absence of mass

the closer you get to C, the slower everything around you looks to be going, until it stops completely.
if you were to go faster, what is everything else supposed to do relative to you?

super-megastop moving?
what's the clock going to do?

I just see maximum speed as a consequence of something, not something that causes consequences, I don't really know how to explain

This helps, thanks

>Because for c to be experienced as the same speed for every nonaccelerating person, we have to allow that time, and distance, are experienced differently for objects moving with different relative speeds.

brilliant, thank you

Of course it isn't, it's a finite measure.
Are there any models in which c can be thought of as an infinite speed that has been given a finite measure?

>an infinite speed that has been given a finite measure?

What does that even mean?

>retarded

heh

i heard it described as the speed of causality

waves travel through water at a constant speed
sound travels through steel at a constant speed
light, gravity waves, and other massless things travel through a vacuum at a constant speed

MM showed that light doesn't propagate through the aether; it has no comment on the existence of aether.

Why is C 300k ? Why not 301k. Genuine question which I haven't found the answer too anywhere

In a way, yes. Ask the light itself what its speed is. Distance divided by time where time is always zero.

If you pick your units right you can make it 301k something

All photons under the constitution guaranteed the same speed regardless of the observer's race, religion or position in space.

It's not about the speed of light,
it's about the max speed of Causality.

Anything massless goes that speed,
for example gluons and gravitons.

For a thorough explanation, see

youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo

>why are the numbers we prescribe these ones and not other ones

Why do things not move when the are moving 0m/s? Why not 1m/s?

Its a limit. Not a legal limit, just a limit. Things cant go slower than stopped, cant go faster than c. We just happen to have a number for it

>gravitons
Wew

all particles are basically illusions

youtu.be/RwdY7Eqyguo?t=14m30s

Thats why he fucking asked you fag.