What is the significance of the speed of light squared?

[spacester]

Did the Romans have Visa cards? <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Amerigo Espress.<br /><br />But the eventually left home without it... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[rogerinnh]

Newonian,<br />I have to take excption to your statement that many of the physical relationships and constants in the universe are "fine-tuned" and that that has some implication as to the existence or nature of God.<br />In order for any physical relationship or constant to have the possibility of being fine-tuned it must be possible for it to be something other than the observed relationship or value. Certainly we can imagine that c (the speed of light) might be different than it is, but there is no justification for believing that it indeed CAN be anything other than it is. We have only one Universe to observe. And in this Universe c is as it is, and that's the most you can rationally say about it. Deriving the existence or characteristics of God from a conjectured "fine-tuning" of a constant that has only one observed value or a relationship that has only one observed equation is simply not justifiable.

 

[lukman]

I think Eistein use C, because that is the speed limit in the 3d universe, hence, the maximum energy output will be maximum at C.That mean, if we can annihilate a matter with anti matter, we will get the max output, as well as if a matter is accelerated into C, it will be annihilated, disappear, gone, invisible,maybe... -) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kelvin_zero]

c-squared appears in simpler-to-derive formula than the famous one. The first appearance I can think of comes from combining (i) the assumption that the speed of light is the same to all observers and (ii) pythagorus's formula x^2 + y^2 = r^2 to find a relation between speed and time dilation<br /><br />let me see if I can attach I diagram<br /><br />

 

[kelvin_zero]

Let me try that again

 

[kelvin_zero]

sorry about the multiple posts. This image posting is confusing. <br /><br />What I am trying to show is<br />(a) imagine you define a sort of 'clock' using two mirrors a light second apart, so a photon takes exactly one second to travel from the bottom mirror to the top mirror.<br />(b) now imagine this 'clock' is moving relative to you in the x axis.. but the photon IN the clock still has to be moving at the speed of light from your point of view. In the diagram B the photon is moving at 45 degrees from our point of view, so it hasnt made it up to the top of the clock although a second has passed for us. From our point of view the clock has slowed, but not from the point of view of someone moving with the same velocity as the clock.<br />(c) is just an extreme case where the clock as moved along x at the speed of light. The clock has not been able to advance at all, and the photon is still at the bottom. Time is frozen.<br /><br />If we try to imagine what happens when the clock moves FASTER than the speed of light, we cannot even keep the photon between the mirrors which doesnt make sense.<br /><br />Anyway the upshot is that you can solve simple problems of time dilation using trigonometry, and c^2 pops up as the square of the hypotenuse before we start talking about energy.<br /><br />from my physics book the actual formula is<br />dt = dt'/sqrt(1-u^2/c^2)<br />where u is the speed of another frame of reference and t' is the time passed in that frame.

 

[xmo1]

Unqualified speaker:<br />You get a quantity of energy because at speed the atomic bonding of an element loses the force necessary to contain it. In other words, the element is traveling at a speed equal to the speed of the quantum particles that make it an element, therefore the bonding is lost (related to entropy). The energy is observed at the release of the bonds, when complex atomic events occurs.<br /><br />This can happen at less than or equal to, but not greater than E^2.<br /><br />Feel free to comment. I'm just guessing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>DenniSys.com</p> </div>