🚀 go-pugleaf

jl...@internetMCI.com wrote:
> 
> >Of course, there is no known way to
> >slow down or speed up a photon.
> 
> Yes, there is. Hold a glass container filled with water in front of
> it.
> That is, I THINK that's a way to do it. Sound travels faster than
> light under water, so I'm assuming that the light slows down.

Ummm..... NO.  I don't know where you heard that, but light travels at
just under 300,000 kilometers per second!  Sound can't even boast of a
ten-thousandth of that speed.

It is true that sound travels quite a bit faster underwater, and that
light slows down a teensy, tiny bit.  But they are by no means anywhere
close to each other.

AFAIK, the reason light slows down in water (and other transparent
mediums) is because there's mass in the way for the photons to run
into.  :)  The principle of refraction is based on the fact that
different frequencies of light travel at different speeds through
certain mediums.  I don't recall enough physics to remember why exactly
this happens, but it is not actually a violation of the speed of light.

Even in a black hole, the photons never slow down; they simply no longer
travel in straight paths.

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