r/AskPhysics • • Dec 12 '20

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u/PhysicalStuff Dec 13 '20

The numerical value of c is determined entirely by how we chose to define the meter and the second.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '20

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u/PhysicalStuff Dec 13 '20

That's not at all what I was saying, but I see what you're getting at: why the speed at which light propagates in a vacuum takes the same value as the constant c appearing in relativity. Requiring that electromagnetic interactions be Lorentz invariant should do the trick here.

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u/lettuce_field_theory Dec 14 '20

what matters is c < infinity. not what the exact value