this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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I don't even know what this means but I'm just gonna leave it right here (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Did... She just set the speed of light to 1?

[–] [email protected] 58 points 8 months ago

This isn't uncommon in lots of physics calculations where you are working at the same scales a lot and its cumbersome to keep carrying the constants around and it adds risk of making a mistake.

Think of it as assuming you are working in a system of units where you measure all your speeds relative to the speed of light. So rather than saying the speed limit of a road is 30mph you would say its .000000045c.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

She's measuring distances in light-seconds. Then the speed of light is 1 light-second per second

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

1 what? Cucumber per nanosecond?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

1 speed of light of course.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Light-second per second

[–] Tranus 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Actually, yes. Light travels about 30cm in a nanosecond, around the size of a cucumber.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Which is why I updated my comment from "banana per nanosecond", which itself was originally updated from "apple per picosecond" that I just put there randomly, without any thought.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Is there another way to measure the speed of light?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's just a number, and all units are relative. So if you set it to 1 and make sure the equation still is valid it doesn't matter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It is matter, though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Except at the speed of light?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What about plaid?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It’s ludicrous!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just use the only practical unit of length, "lengthunit", which is equal to 299792458 meters (whatever those are...) times the only practical unit of time, "time unit", divided by a "second" (whatever that is...).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

A "second" is the 2nd division of an hour.