by kcairns » Sun Oct 08, 2017 8:01 am
Chris, surely space has a refractive index, very small, but it is clearly not a vacuum, photons from distant stars must have been bounced around as they go, so have traveled further than the direct distance between here and their source. Prisms separate wavelengths into the visible spectrum due to the refractive index of glass, same with rainbows, so why is it not possible that space is acting like that. High energy violet photons might be scattered more than lower energy red ones?
Best Answer: Through any transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, light has a lower speed than in a vacuum; the ratio of c to this slower speed is called the refractive index of the medium (the actual speed is not affected, the speed of light is constant, the fact that the light is reflected around inside the glass will make a greater amount of time necessary for it to reach the next point). Changes of gravity, however, warp the space the light has to travel through,
Chris, surely space has a refractive index, very small, but it is clearly not a vacuum, photons from distant stars must have been bounced around as they go, so have traveled further than the direct distance between here and their source. Prisms separate wavelengths into the visible spectrum due to the refractive index of glass, same with rainbows, so why is it not possible that space is acting like that. High energy violet photons might be scattered more than lower energy red ones?
Best Answer: Through any transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, light has a lower speed than in a vacuum; the ratio of c to this slower speed is called the refractive index of the medium (the actual speed is not affected, the speed of light is constant, the fact that the light is reflected around inside the glass will make a greater amount of time necessary for it to reach the next point). Changes of gravity, however, warp the space the light has to travel through,