Cosmic Adventure 3.04-6 World of Infinite Light Speed

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THE SPEED OF LIGHTCosmic Adventure 3.04

Iris – the goddess of light


Extraordinary speed

Most of us are familiar with the fact that light travels at a tremendous speed about 3⤬108 m. per second. It can travel round the world eight times in a second.Compared with the speed of objects observed in our daily lives, this figure is indeed astronomical. That is why for all practical purposes, the speed of light is regarded as infinite. However the ancient Greeks had a different idea.

Seven and a half times round the world in a second


Idea of Light in ancient Greek

The idea that light has a finite speed has long existed in the mind of the ancient Greeks. The nature of light was truthfully depicted in the great ancient epics of Iliad and Odyssey as early as about the 9th century BC. Homer was traditionally regarded as the author of both epics. It is widely recognized that these Homeric epics had become the foundation of early Greek culture. Homer’s idea on light was the contemporary concept at the time. The blind poet Homer and his guide - Painting of

by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905).


Iris – the Goddess of Light

In the Homeric poems, light was personified by Iris, the goddess of light and a messenger of the gods. She carried messages around Olympus, from gods to gods, and from gods to men.

Iris appeared in ancient Greek vase painting as a beautiful young woman with golden wings to signify her fleetness. She is often seen as a flying maiden carrying a herald's wand (an kerykeion) in one hand, and sometimes a water-pitcher (oinochoejug) in the other. The herald’s wand is the precursor of the caduceus and the pitcher contained nectar with which she served Zeus and Hera.


Iris The Goddess of Rainbow

In Greek mythology, Iris is also regarded as the goddess of the rainbow.In the Homeric poems, Iris did not appear as the goddess of the rainbow, but the rainbow itself was called iris (xi. 27, xvii. 547).Iris is able to change shapes. When she delivered messages to mortals, she would usually assume the appearance of a mortal known to the message receiver.


Iris replaced by Hermes

As Iris worked as the messenger for the gods and men, she needed great speed. However Iris only appeared in the Iliadand as figures on Greek vases. In Odyssey and in Roman times, she was replaced by Hermes. But one thing was certain - the idea that light has a finite speed has long existed in the mind of the ancient Greeks.


SPEED OF LIGHTIN ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY


The Four Elements

The idea of light has a finite speed was finally shed its mythological shroud when it was first supported with philosophy by Empedocles of Aragas (492-432 BC). He was best known as the Greek philosophers who advocated the idea of the four classical primary elements - earth, fire, water and air.

Empedocles and his four cosmogonic elements


Finite Speed

Empedocles later found that sight is not a simple issue and postulated that the images in their various colors from the world outside the body were carried by light from the objects to the eyes. This light, according to him, was also one form of the four elements, that is, it is a kind of matter in a specific form under transportation.Since all material objects took time to travel from one place to another, light should be no exception.


Image in between

Aristotle (385-322 BC) thought that if light took time to travel, "any given time is divisible into parts, so that we should assume a time when the sun's ray was not as yet seen but was still travelling in the middle space ... before it reaches the earth." De sensu and De anima.

With finite speed, there are bound to be images in between the object and the observer. The observer sees the image a moment later. But this did not appeal to Aristotle.


AristotleWhat Aristotle said did not mean that he was supportive of Empedocles’ idea of light having a finite speed, he was only expressing the unlikely situation of having light in between the object and the observer when every vision was so instantaneous.Aristotle was a strong advocate for the infinite speed of light. He quoted Empedocles simply for the purpose of criticism. He often did this as his favorite way of denouncing his opponents while making way for his arguments.


Plato - Infinite Speed

The second main idea of a different nature about the speed of light came from Plato (429–347 BC) and was augmented by Aristotle (384 – 322 BC). Aristotle favored the idea of an infinite speed - that light traversed space in no time at all. Once light was emitted from the source, reached the receiver instantly.

∞


Lucretius – Infinite Speed

Even if light was made up of particles, these particles would travel across space in not time. Lucretius (ca.99-55 BC Roman poet), furthered this idea in his epic philosophical poem De Rerum Natura (On the nature of the Universe - 55 BC):

“The light and heat of the sun are composed of minute atoms. When shoved off, they lose no time in shooting right across the interspace of air in the direction imparted by the shove.”


Heron’s Night Vision

In the first century BC, Heron of Alexandria (c. 10-70 AD the greatest inventor and experimenter of antiquity) believed in the theory that images could be seen because light was emitted from the eye to the object. When the light bounced back to the eye, vision was established.


Heron’s Infinite Speed

Infinite speed was evident to Heron because when he closed his eyes at night and opened again, he could see the stars immediately. This only meant that light took no time in travelling from his eyes to the distant star and back.


Heron’s Night Vision

Heron thought in such a way because he was already prejudiced by the idea that light rays were emitted only when he opened his eyes in the first place; secondly he did not realize that the light rays from the stars were already there in front of his eyes even before his eyes were open. As soon as his eyelids were lifted, the images of the star entered immediately, giving him the impression of an instantaneous transfer of image.

Light already there all the time


Heron’s Stone Throw

By pure reasoning, Heron further argued that one can find conviction in the analogy of objects falling freely after release. When an object is thrown horizontally, it first travels in a straight line and then drops to the ground (a, b, c). The harder is the throw, the longer is its horizontal path. If the object is thrown with an infinite velocity, it would keep on moving in a straight-line forever (d). Similarly, for light to travel in a straight line, it must move with an infinite velocity.

Heron’s infinite stone throw


Pure Speculation

There were also other schools of thinking on the speed of light. However as a general practice, these ancient Greek philosophers did not bother to verify their ideas by observation or experiment, particularly on the issue of light speed. They just entertained themselves by pure reasoning or intuitive guesswork and did not bother to go to the length of actually measuring the speed of light.


Dominance of Infinite Speed Theories

With Aristotle’s influence and the support of many renown philosophers, the idea that light travels at an infinite speed became the dominate theory over two thousand years. Although Galileo knew something was not going right with the idea, he also had no way or instrument with enough precision to to measure tremendous speed of light.


Medieval Age

The Middle Ages in European history lasted from the fall of the western Roman Empire (circa A.D. 395) to the Renaissance in the 14th or 15th century. During this period, the civilisation of the Greeks and Romans were replaced by barbarism. Most of the ancient teachings and their records were lost or destroyed. Fortunately some of them were copied and preserved and developed in the Muslim countries. The ruins of Roman civilizations


Revival of Greek Learnings

From the thirteenth century onwards these writings came to see the light again in Europe. They were recovered as rare copies from forgotten corners in the attic or store rooms. Some of them were also brought back from the Muslim countries and were translated in Latin.After emerging from a thousand years of darkness, the European civilisation was in a badly retrograded shape. The ancient knowledge and philosophies appeared so much superior to theirs that they were treated with almost superstitious reverence. The teaching of Aristotle in particular became the guiding light of the time.


Authority of Aristotle’s Teachings

The weight of Aristotle's teachings were later further enhanced by St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274 B.C.) who brought them in line with the Bible, making them the answer books to all scientific enquiries. In the centuries to come Aristotle's philosophy was regarded as the ultimate truth throughout Europe. When Aristotle said that light travels at infinite speed, no one else would have thought otherwise.


LIGHT SPEED IN RENAISSANCECosmic Adventure 3.05


Infinite Speed of Light

Since the days of Greek cultural revival, the idea of an infinite speed of light was persistent and influential mainly because of the influence of Aristotle.

Even in the days of renaissance in the16th century, the great French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650 A.D.) was in favour of such an infinite speed idea.


Instant Transmission

Descartes believed that space is filled up with a stable fluid made of microscopic spherical particles (the Plenum), acting as a medium for the propagation of light. The light particles transmitting motions in a straight line across the medium instantly, “like a stick transmits a push on one end to the other end” In other words, light is a kind of pressure transmitted through a medium at infinite velocity. . . . .Descartes' Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) published in 1644.


Johannes KeplerJohannes Kepler (1571-1630), the renowned astronomer who established the first two laws of planetary motion, also put his faith on an infinite velocity of light. He believed that the speed of light was infinite since empty space had no obstacle to it.

In fact, most of philosophers of the time were quite happy with the ancient idea. So the idea of light with an infinite speed remained popular for a further 200 years after Descartes.


THE WORLD OF INFINITE LIGHT SPEEDCosmic Adventure 3.06


The Infinite Speed of Light

In the world before 1676, the popular believe was that light travelled at an infinite speed. That is, light is instantaneously everywhere at once. What one sees is what one gets. In the picture, the moon and the tower at the distant hill is simultaneous with the objects nearby.


Universe with Infinite Light Speed

So whatever people saw in their life were instantaneous what they got. The entire universe would have appeared to them all at the same time.The distant stars were there as the castle close by were in front of us simultaneous.


Classical Position of Objects in Motion

This was particularly so in daily life where objects are so close together, the delay due to light speed was usually not taken into consideration. Things happens as they were regardless how fast they moved.

𝑣𝑣


𝑑𝑑

Classical Position in Infinite Light Speed

The position of a moving object is simply: 𝑑𝑑 = 𝑣𝑣𝑣𝑣, without the slightest notion that light actually took time to cross the space between them.

𝑣𝑣


Universe in Antiquity

The idea or the non-idea of infinite speed prevailed in all religious drawings and paintings.The events in the heavens beyond the clouds were perceived to be happening at the same time as the events happening on earth.This is how light work – diligent but unobtrusive. People didn’t even notice that it is there, not even border to argue if its speed is finite or infinite.


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MEASUREMENT OF LIGHT SPEEDTo be continued on: Cosmic Adventure 3.07

Cosmic Adventure 3.04-6 World of Infinite Light Speed

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Transcript of Cosmic Adventure 3.04-6 World of Infinite Light Speed