The Speed of Light

Published: Nov. 30, 2006, 9 a.m.

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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the speed of light. Scientists and thinkers have been fascinated with the speed of light for millennia. Aristotle wrongly contended that the speed of light was infinite, but it was the 17th Century before serious attempts were made to measure its actual velocity \\u2013 we now know that it\\u2019s 186,000 miles per second. Then in 1905 Einstein\\u2019s Special Theory of Relativity predicted that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. This then has dramatic effects on the nature of space and time. It\\u2019s been thought the speed of light is a constant in Nature, a kind of cosmic speed limit, now the scientists aren\\u2019t so sure. With John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Gresham Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University; Iwan Morus, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at The University of Wales, Aberystwyth; Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University.

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