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The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its exact value is 299,792,458  m/s (approximately 3.00×108 m/s, or 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/s)). It is exact because the unit of length, the metre, is defined from this constant and the international standard for time.[1] According to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all conventional matter and hence all known forms of information in the universe can travel. Though this speed is most commonly associated with light, it is in fact the speed at which all massless particles and changes of the associated fields travel in vacuum (including electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves). Such particles and waves travel at c regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer. In the theory of relativity, c interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalence E = mc2.[2]

References[]

  1. Penrose, R (2004). The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe. Vintage Books. pp. 410–11. ISBN 978-0-679-77631-4. "... the most accurate standard for the metre is conveniently defined so that there are exactly 299,792,458 of them to the distance travelled by light in a standard second, giving a value for the metre that very accurately matches the now inadequately precise standard metre rule in Paris." 
  2. Uzan, J-P; Leclercq, B (2008). The Natural Laws of the Universe: Understanding Fundamental Constants. Springer. pp. 43–4. ISBN 0-387-73454-6. https://books.google.com/?id=dSAWX8TNpScC&pg=PA43. 
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