THE SPEED OF LIGHT Sta,—In your issue of the 30th
October, Mr. R.. L. Kitching writes that although light radiations from the sun to this earth travel at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, how do'we know that light from more distant stars does not slow down or stop altogether ?
Radiations, sometimes called energy of motion, cannot lose energy while speeding through space—there is nothing to which it can be transferred—and therefore the radia- tions could neither slow down.nor stop. These phenomena can only happen when the energy comes into contact with matter in any form.
Secondly, Einstein's Theory of Relativity postulates 'that what is true of this earth now is true of the whole universe for all time, Obviously such a theory cannot have positive proof but all tests made against it to date have proved it to be valid. Therefore, if we know that electro-magnetic radiations (light, etc.), from the sun travel at a certain speed we may assume with reason that similar radiations from distant stars travel at the same speed.— Yours faithfully,
Previous page
