🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MATT.92Nov6134208@physics3.berkeley.edu>, matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes...
>In article <6NOV199212364099@csa1.lbl.gov> sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
> 
>> The speed of light is what it is for *some* reason, or it would have a
>> different value!  (I know I'll get flamed for this one.)  I expect that
>> this reason will ultimately be accessible to us.
> 
>I agree that the speed of light is what it is for some reason, but I
>don't think that the reason is particularly interesting or
>fundamental.
> 
>The speed of light is a dimensional quantity, so it has the value that
>it does only because we happen to use a certain set of units; I think,
>then, that a better way to phrase the question is: why do we choose to
>measure distances in centimeters and times in seconds?  

Oh, come on.  That's just a dodge.  The speed of light is independent
of the units you choose to measure it in.  If I take two light beams,
and you measure the speed of light in cm/sec and I measure the
speed of light in droobles/flimbat, the light from the two beams will
still travel at the same speed.  Why *that* speed?

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas