So a rocket moves by having a big explosion push it. A car moves by little tiny explosions moving things and then mechanics to get it to the wheels, how does light power itself to move? especially with how fast it moves?
In: 1
When you throw a rock into a pond you get waves that ripple out from where you threw the rock. If you throw a bigger rock you get bigger waves, but the waves don’t move any faster. That the waves exist at all is because you threw a rock into the pond and the height of the waves is due to the size of the rock/how hard you threw it, but how fast the waves move away from the place where the rock hit the water is due to the properties of the water (and stuff like how strong gravity is).
Light is the same way, but the waves are 3d waves in the electromagnetic field instead of the surface of the water. The waves exist because the field was perturbed by something, generally an accelerating electric charge and the speed is due to the properties of the field.
Light didn’t start stationary and then accelerate up to some speed, it was always at that speed because that’s the speed perturbations of the EM field move at!
Latest Answers