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THEORY OF MATTEREALS AND JAIN PHILOSOPHY/ 109
In other words only massless particles (!) can travel at the speed of light. This condition is defined by the following equation of Einstein
M
m
=
who?
No law of physics remains valid at the speeds greater than that of light - mass, volume, time all will assume negative or imaginary values in such a case.
Light comprises of massless 'packets (quanta)' of energy called photons. Some scientists also call them as ‘massless particles' because, light is observed to travel like a wave, and also interact like a particle. This duality is called principle of uncertainty in scientific terminology.
Light is therefore a boundary between existence and nothingness. Light is the substance which carries and transact the whole information. But, light itself is uncertain in its behaviour! This observation of absolute nature of speed of light gave birth to the two great theories which are of immense importance to science as well as anekant aspect of philosophy -
i. special theory of relativity which was later extended to the general theory,
ii. principle of uncertainty.
3.2. Relativity
It all started with the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine the absolute speed of the Earth in the space. The experiment could not achieve what it actually envisaged but accidently concluded that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the observer. This means that two persons that follow the same light ray at different speeds will measure the same relative speed for the ray. In our day to day experience, if two vehicles are travelling at 60Kmph and 40Kmph respectively, they will measure their relative speeds as either 100K mph or 20Kmph depending on wehther they are travelling parallel or opposite to each other. But, surprisingly the same is not true if they both measure the speed of light. They will obtain the same result!
Einstein postulated his special theory of relativity around this spectacular experimental finding. He proposed and proved that it could be
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