this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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It's the law! (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sure, but if we take it as true that light speed is the same in every direction – which is perfectly consistent with everything ever measured – you can measure speed between two endpoints using two atomic clocks and a synchronised experiment, with corrections for the relativistic effect of moving the clocks to the different places

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

if we take it as true that light speed is the same in every direction

This is the crucial assumption, that to my knowledge hasn't been proven or disproven. Because the alternative, light goes faster in one particular direction, is also perfectly consistent with everything. And if you're moving atomic clocks, correcting for time dilations requires you to make assumptions about the one-way speed of light (which we only know from measuring roundtrip times)