The speed of light is one of the mysteries that has intrigued scientists for centuries. The ancient Greeks had the hypothesis that human vision was an active event initiated by the eye.
From this hypothesis they concluded that the speed of light was infinite, as one could see arbitrarily distant objects the moment the eyelids are opened.
As early as 429 BC, the Greek thinker, Empedocles believed that light travels at a finite speed though it seems to arrive instantaneously. He drew the logical conclusion that light takes a certain amount of time to travel from the source to the surface showing the shadow.
Empedocles thus stated that the speed of light is finite. He was, though, a notable exception among the ancient thinkers, for most agreed with Aristotle that the speed of light was infinite.
The first attempt to challenge this assumption and measure the speed of light was made by Galileo in 1667 using a very primitive method. Galileo, with his firm belief in the experimental approach, was one of the first 17th century scientists to attempt to calculate the speed of light.
The first precise measurement of the speed of light was made in 1849 by the French physicist Hippolyte. His value was only 5% greater than modern one.
Measure speed of light by Empedocles
The Most Popular Posts
-
Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutchman first observed bacteria through his single-lens microscope in 1674. He made his own simple lenses to try...
-
History of Genetic Engineering The origins of biotechnology culminated with the birth of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering based on ...
-
Chlorophyll is a green pigment found in almost all plants, algae and cyanobacteria. The chloro portion of the word chlorophyll is from the ... -
Protons Protons are positively charged atoms that reside in the nucleus of an atom. These protons add the overall positive charge of a mole... -
The photon is known as the quantum of electromagnetic radiation. In physics, a quantum is a basic indivisible unit or state that may be pres...