The Speed of Light is EXTREMELY Slow

Though it's notorious for being extremely fast, the speed of light is actually very slow! So slow in fact, that even a snail is faster!
In this video we'll find out how the speed of light is so slow and explore some other interesting facts about light.

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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:35 What is light made of?
02:29 Light vs Sound
03:12 Comparing the speed of light
07:22 The speed of light is slower than a snail

[ace-gineering]

I would argue that light is actually fast. If you're going to use cosmic distances (like from Earth to Proxima Centauri) you have to use cosmic timeframes as well. 4 years is basically nothing on a cosmic scale, making light fast for the universe (although maybe not for humans).

[tokajileo]

Important fact: if you travel at the speed of light your time stops so you are immediately at your destination. If you travel 99% speed of light, the 4 light year journey to Proxima centauri only takes a couple of weeks for you. Of course you have to slow down at arrival but that is another issue. so the time in this video is representing the time of how an outside observer experiences the traveling of the spaceship and not the people ON the spaceship.

[BoiledFrawg]

Well done. Even if a viewer knows most of the information, you conveyed it in such a compelling way that it was an excellent watch! I'm one of the first 100 subscribers

[killa]

Everything is affected when you use a scale. However, oddly enough, this helped me understand the scale of the universe much better than videos mainly featuring it.

[RGC_animation]

However, due to time dilation, the amount of time that you felt when traveling is probably much shorter and can actually be a reliable way to travel.

[rarebeeph]

the fun thing about the speed of light is that, for observers on the ship, they would feel like they get there instantly (because the length to the destination would contract to 0). observers on the ground, on the other hand, explain the younger age of the passengers by that those on the ship had their time dilated to infinity, and so none passed for them during the trip.
if i were to write a science fiction story, i would probably lean into this, and express speeds not as velocity (or even rapidity, for that matter) but as the value of the lorentz factor ɣ correlated with your chosen velocity, as when it's above 2, you can reasonably approximate the time you will experience while crossing a (non-expanding) distance of n light years as n/ɣ. (for v approaching c, ɣ tends to infinity obviously)

[Linuxdirk]

This doesn't show how slow the light is, it shows how absolutely huge the universe is.

[ahmedrommani]

The guy who built the ship and spent more time than the universe existed traveeling it is an absolut beast, hats off to him

[slavsquatsuperstar]

Props for this guy for building a spaceship and traveling around the universe. Definitely looking forward to your future videos.

[Syuvinya]

Well according to relativity, for the passengers on the ship, they would travel any distance instantly. So, the speed of light is actually infinite from their perspective. Too bad the ship will instantly collapse into a blackhole with infinite mass.

Edit: OK yeah i got some relativity wrong but reaching the speed of light does create some form of singularity, gravitational or not.

[kahverengi]

Never seen a represantation of light with snails this is mindbending 🔦

[rogerphelps]

Actually if you travel close to the speed of light the elapsed time for you can be very short even for vast distances. You could set off and arrive in the Andromeda galaxy tomorrow. The problem is that getting to such speeds requires stupendous amounts of energy, far more than your rest mass energy.

[paul.facciolo]

I think the best thing that made me originally realize how slow the speed of light is was elite dangerous. That game does an excellent job of putting into perspective how unfathomably big the galaxy let alone the universe is.

[wlockuz]

There is a catch tho, If you hit the speed of light, you'll be at the maximum time dilation which would make you stop experiencing time. So what would seem like 300 billion years to outside observers, would be quite literally instantaneous for you!


On a side note, your channel is underrated as hell! Earned a sub.

[halilibrahimustun]

Woow. The way you explained it is extraordinarily good. The animations, that subtle touches, man you deserve millions. Top notch quality. Keep it up!

[FebruaryHasDays]

1:48 *THE COLOR DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GREEN AND BLUE, COMPARED TO THE OTHERS IS BLINDING ME*

[ChrisRaynorMD]

Great explanation! Great way to visualize the vastness of our universe and the relative speed of light.

[sebbasbaoz]

I have to say, that unironically, it's really good that you did that snail thing at the end, because we, humans, aren't capable of realising in our minds how ridicilously big that number at the end was, or how fast or slow the speed of light is, so saying that a snail can travel around Neptune about 3000 times before we can get around the universe once at the speed of light really did let me know how slow it is, relatively to the observable universe. I recommend doing those types of comparisons more often, just to make people realize and relativize the numbers more effectively! Great video!

[Linguae_Music]

Light speed is slow to outside observers...
But if you are moving at the speed of light then your travel is instantaneous, as light does not experience time.
An observer may see light take millions or even billions of years to travel between galaxies... but to the photon this takes an infinitely small amount of time to travel :D it essentially teleports to the future from its own perspective.

Relativity is

[Utc_black_XD]

0:00 what a nice way to start a conversation