Why is The Speed of Light Not So Fast?

For any person, the expression “at the speed of light” is equivalent to “instantly”.A long time ago, physicists have established a limit value with which it is possible to move in space – 299,792,458 m/s. Is it a lot or a little? Of course, it is more than enough for our daily activities. But if you look at the speed of light on the scale of the universe, it becomes clear that the limiting speed of interaction is depressingly small.

NASA employee James O’Donoghue clearly showed the limitations that nature has imposed on us. In the first video, he “launched” a beam of photons along the equator. Really, incredibly fast!

But the second video, where a beam of photons moves from the Earth to the Moon and back, makes us look at the rapidity of light a little differently.

And from the third video it becomes sad at all. Even to Mars — photons fly for a depressingly long time — at the moment of the maximum approach of the Earth to the red planet, we transmit a signal there for as much as 3 minutes and 2 seconds!

It turns out that this rule is true only for those who observe the object from the outside: for an observer on Earth, a spacecraft flying to the nearest star will have to cover this distance within tens or even hundreds of years. But for the crew of a spaceship, such a journey will take only a couple of months or even weeks.

Theoretically, particles moving at the speed of light can instantly appear anywhere in the universe, despite the vast distances.