When you turn on a lightbulb in a room, the entire room appears to flood with light at the same time. Your eyes cannot perceive light originating at the bulb and then moving outward from it. This either means that light has infinite speed (appears everywhere instantaneously), or it moves so fast that it is difficult to tell the difference. How might you improve your chances of detecting the motion of light if it moves at finite speed?

Question

Physics

Tyree Burch

2 March, 17:33

When you turn on a lightbulb in a room, the entire room appears to flood with light at the same time. Your eyes cannot perceive light originating at the bulb and then moving outward from it. This either means that light has infinite speed (appears everywhere instantaneously), or it moves so fast that it is difficult to tell the difference. How might you improve your chances of detecting the motion of light if it moves at finite speed?

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Mariela Short · Answer 1

Assuming we can turn on the lightbulb from any distance with a device. We can gradually increase the distance that separates us from lightbulb, in this way, if the speed of light is finite we can see a temporary delay between the moment we turn on the lightbulb and the moment in which we observe its light.