Re: what an old "c"

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Wed Dec 13 2000 - 17:58:15 MST


> cycles as well; and, speed of light to be 4,404 yojanas per nimesa,
> which is almost exactly 186,000 miles per second.

"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:

> this is one more april fools joke.

I suspected as much. I cant think of any reason why ancient
societies would need to measure time to smaller units than a
second. So if a nimesa is longer than a second, then a yojana
is longer than 42 miles, also an improbably long unit for an
ancient society.

> the speed of light was not first
> calculated by measuring the time differences that light took to travel
> from Io to Earth in the 1600's depending on whether it was moving toward
> or going away from earth (how would they measure these times? The could
> only have done so by redshift of spectral lines, which would have given
> us relativity long before Einstein).

Could they not measure the time that Io was eclipsed by
the planet, then assume this equal to the time required to
cross in front of Jupiter, then work out a means knowing
the light is delayed more on the far side than the near
side? Given good telescopes and watcher, seems like
one could estimate c with that info. spike



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