Lightspeed: The Ghostly Aether and the Race to Measure the Speed of Light

· Oxford University Press
1 review
Ebook
272
Pages
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About this ebook

This book tells the human story of one of man's greatest intellectual adventures - how it came to be understood that light travels at a finite speed, so that when we look up at the stars, we are looking back in time. And how the search for a God-given absolute frame of reference in the universe led most improbably to Einstein's most famous equation E=mc2, which represents the energy that powers the stars and nuclear weapons. From the ancient Greeks measuring the solar system, to the theory of relativity and satellite navigation, the book takes the reader on a gripping historical journey. We learn how Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter and used their eclipses as a global clock, allowing travellers to find their Longitude. And how Ole Roemer, noticing that the eclipses were a little late, used this to obtain the first measurement of the speed of light, which takes eight minutes to get to us from the sun. We move from the international collaborations to observe the Transits of Venus, including Cook's voyage to Australia, to the achievements of Young and Fresnel, whose discoveries eventually taught us that light travels as a wave but arrives as a particle, and all the quantum weirdness which follows. In the nineteenth century, we find Faraday and Maxwell, struggling to understand how light can propagate through the vacuum of space unless it is filled with a ghostly vortex Aether foam. We follow the brilliantly gifted experimentalists Hertz, discoverer of radio, Michelson with his search for the Aether wind, and Foucault and Fizeau with their spinning mirrors and lightbeams across the rooftops of Paris. Messaging faster than light using quantum entanglement, and the reality of the quantum world, conclude this saga.
This book tells the human story of one of man's greatest intellectual adventures - how it came to be understood that light travels at a finite speed, so that when we look up at the stars, we are looking back in time. And how the search for a God-given absolute frame of reference in the universe l...

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1 review
Fabiana R. de Oliveira NOTSugarDrugsLgbtq
September 14, 2026
URGENT PLEASE URGENT HELP ME URGENT PLEASE I still eat meat and am nourished by the Holy Spirit, who DEVOURS THE FLESH and convicts of righteousness, sin, and judgment Mangio ancora carne e mi nutro dello Spirito Santo, che DIVORA LA CARNE e convince di giustizia, di peccato e di giudizio Life inspires Game🎮 before the thefts, before the torture in the hospital, the ten years of the stolen cell phone, and all the crooked schemes of the auqadelas lgbtq drug-trafficking ringleader; the Polices 🚔 were already hunting Pokémon back then, and they still are No intelligent person wants to use drugs, so they mix drugs with sugar to lure children No drugs, no addictions; respecting the law is the most important religion in the universe Socialism, communism, and injustices for example lgbtq+ mutilation psychopatism issues are criminal pandemics that kill people rampantly across the globe 🧊🪖 ICE 🧊🪖 DHS 🧊🪖 CBP 🧊🪖 ERO Assistenza sanitaria senza furti Healthcare without theft for body RESPECT FOR THE LAW THE MOST IMPORTANT REGION OF THE UNIVERSE RISPETTO PER LA LEGGE LA REGIONE PIÙ IMPORTANTE DELL'UNIVERSO Todos e serpenti infidi che mi hanno derubato in questi dieci anni di ingiustizia raccoglieranno gli stessi frutti e faranno la stessa fine di quel auqadelas 🐍 judas All the treacherous snakes who have robbed me during these ten years of injustice will reap the same harvest and meet the same end as that judas🐍 auqadelas HELP ME URGENT PLEASE
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About the author

John C. H. Spence FRS is Snell Professor of Physics at Arizona State University, where he teaches condensed matter physics with research in biophysics. He is currently Director of Science for the National Science Foundation's eight-campus "BioXFEL" consortium. This is devoted to applications of the recently invented hard x-ray free-electron laser to structural biology, providing movies of molecular machines at work with femtosecond time resolution. John is the author of texts on electron microscopy, and a keen musician, pilot and sailor.
John C. H. Spence FRS is Snell Professor of Physics at Arizona State University, where he teaches condensed matter physics with research in biophysics. He is currently Director of Science for the National Science Foundation's eight-campus "BioXFEL" consortium. This is devoted to applications of t...

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