Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Speed of light

Speed of light

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This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 2, 2022 by Gog the Mild (talk) 18:58, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 
Rømer's observations of the occultations of Io from Earth

The speed of light in a vacuum is a physical constant denoted as c that is exactly equal to 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 186,282 miles per second, or one foot per nanosecond). According to standard modern physics, visible light and all other electromagnetic radiation moves at this constant speed in vacuo, and c is the fastest speed at which matter, energy or any signal carrying information can travel through space. Ole Rømer first demonstrated in 1676 that light travels non-instantaneously by studying the apparent motion of Jupiter's moon Io. In a paper published in 1865, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light was an electromagnetic wave, and therefore travelled at the speed c. According to the theory of special relativity, which interrelates space and time, all observers will measure the speed of light as being the same, regardless of the reference frame of the observer or the velocity of the object emitting the light. (Full article...)