The historical investigations and experiments that led to the determination of the speed of light: part 1
Parte 1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22481/rbba.v14i2.15117Keywords:
Speed of light, Propagation of light, Emersions and Immersions, Satellite Io, EphemerisAbstract
In this article, we present a brief historical study on the development of human understanding of the speed of light. This is a bibliographic research aimed at describing events in the history of science. Throughout history, human beings in various cultures have always been curious about light and its properties. One of these is its extremely fast speed. Light spreads in all directions simultaneously, and many have questioned whether light would need time to fill all points in space. Throughout history, many philosophers have been undecided. After all, does light have a finite speed or is it simultaneous? The definitive answer to this question would only come in the 17th century, with the astronomical work of Olé Roemer, who, studying the immersions and emergences of Jupiter's first satellite (Io), observed that, in order to explain the delay in Io's predicted orbit, it was necessary to assume a finite speed for light. Roemer obtained an estimate for the time it takes for light to travel the Earth-Sun orbit. With this data in hand, Huygens calculated the speed of light, which was 210,000 km/s.
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