What is the Symbol of Velocity of Light
Answers
Answer:
The symbol of velocity of light is "c"
Explanation:
It's a fundamental constant that represents the speed of electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum and equals approximately 2.9979 × 10^10 centimeters per second
Answer:
Although c is now the universal symbol for the speed of light, the most common symbol in the nineteenth century was an upper-case V which Maxwell had started using in 1865. That was the notation adopted by Einstein for his first few papers on relativity from 1905. The origins of the letter c being used for the speed of light can be traced back to a paper of 1856 by Weber and Kohlrausch [2]. They defined and measured a quantity denoted by c that they used in an electrodynamics force law equation. It became known as Weber's constant and was later shown to have a theoretical value equal to the speed of light times the square root of two. In 1894 Paul Drude modified the usage of Weber's constant so that the letter c became the symbol for the speed of electrodynamic waves [3]. In optics Drude continued to follow Maxwell in using an upper-case V for the speed of light. Progressively the cnotation was used for the speed of light in all contexts as it was picked up by Max Planck, Hendrik Lorentz and other influential physicists. By 1907 when Einstein switched from V to c in his papers, it had become the standard symbol for the speed of light in vacuum for electrodynamics, optics, thermodynamics and relativity.
Weber apparently meant cto stand for "constant" in his force law, but there is evidence that physicists such as Lorentz and Einstein were accustomed to a common convention that ccould be used as a variable for velocity. This usage can be traced back to the classic Latin texts in which c stood for "celeritas" meaning "speed". The uncommon English word "celerity" is still used when referring to the speed of wave propagation in fluids. The same Latin root is found in more familiar words such as acceleration and even celebrity, a word used when fame comes quickly.
Although the c symbol was adapted from Weber's constant, it was probably thought appropriate for it to represent the velocity of light later on because of this Latin interpretation. So history provides an ambiguous answer to the question "Why is c the symbol for the speed of light?", and it is reasonable to think of c as standing for either "constant" or "celeritas".