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The Speed of Light

In Our Time

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Aristotle Challenges Galileo

Aristotle challenged by Galileo along where it gets going this investigation of the speed of light. Ben Monnell in the 17th century with Olé Romer's work in Paris. He was observing Jupiter which has several moons and as the moons go round Jupiter they go into eclipse, the sunlight gets cut off. And he found that there was something slightly wrong with the timings. They fluctuated a bit. But what he was actually measuring was the time it took for the light to get from the moon to us - and that changed. So he was demonstrating that the speed oflight was not infinite.

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