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Benjaphar t1_j26zlcr wrote

Reply to comment by Narwhal_Assassin in How fast does the Milky Way spin? How far does Earth move through space in a year? by Sabre-Tooth-Monkey

> There also is no “absolute” speed: everything is relative to something else, whether it’s the earth or the sun or the CMB or whatever

Couldn't we say that the speed of light is the absolute standard?

If it were possible to measure it accurately somehow, you could send photons away from you in opposite directions and determine your true motion through space based on how quickly the photons moved away from you. Let's say you got lucky and happened to pick the direction of your true motion as one of your two directions. The photons moving the same direction you are moving would be blue-shifted as they are receding from you at c - (your true speed) and the ones going the opposite direction would be red-shifted at c + (your true speed).

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MattieShoes t1_j27bwfe wrote

You can't see the photons going away from you. The only way to measure the speed of light is by round-trip -- ie. stick a mirror out there and let the photons come back, and measure round-trip time.

... but I'm sure you see where this is going -- if the speed outward was faster, the return trip will be slower, canceling out the difference.

Now, you could stick an observer out there to try and measure the transit time in one direction... but how do you synchronize your watches without relying on the speed of light? Well, you could sync them before moving apart, but the act of traveling apart will make time pass at different rates for you, so your watches instantly become un-synchronized. The equations you might use to cancel out this desyncing all rely on... the speed of light :-D

There's a fun video on it, lemme find it.

EDIT: found it! Veritasium

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Benjaphar t1_j27cn2k wrote

Yes, Veritasium covered those issues in a really interesting video earlier this year. My question wasn't really about the logistics of the measurement for the experiment, but rather if you could hypothetically get the measurements, could you calculate your own speed relative to light emanating from your position.

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