Article View: sci.physics
Article #916Re: Speed of light symbol - "c"
From: Pedlar, Todd K.
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1992 11:52
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1992 11:52
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In article <uang-040892152722@chlorine.ops.lmsc.lockheed.com.>, uang@lmsc.lockheed.com (Yea Uang) writes... >I was asked why lower case letter "c" is used to stand for speed of light. >Is it just a symbol or with certain historical reason? > >Yea Uang >Lockheed Missiles and Space >Sunnyvale, CA >Internet mail: uang@lmsc.lockheed.com >Phone: (408)-742-2809 >Fax: (408)-742-6428 I think there really isn't any special reason for the letter c, except that it was at one time (and still is for the most part) to denote the speed of any kind of wave by the letter c (usally subscripted, as in c-sub-s for the speed of sound), so they just decided to let c stand for the speed of light. Todd _____________________________________________________________________________ |Todd K. Pedlar | []\ [] | |Graduate Student | [] \ [] [] [] | "...My God! It's full of stars!" |Dept. of Physics | [] \[] [] [] | |Northwestern U. | [][][] | D. Bowman |_____________________|__________________|____________________________________
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Newsgroups: sci.physics Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!lanl!mpx2.lampf.lanl.gov!pedlar From: pedlar@mpx2.lampf.lanl.gov (Pedlar, Todd K.) Subject: Re: Speed of light symbol - "c" Message-ID: <8AUG199205522317@mpx2.lampf.lanl.gov> Followup-To: sci.physics News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41 Sender: news@newshost.lanl.gov Organization: LAMPF Data Analysis Center, Los Alamos, New Mexico References: <uang-040892152722@chlorine.ops.lmsc.lockheed.com.> Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1992 11:52:00 GMT Lines: 24