In
<!&!AAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAIH+nruO4exAufAxNTnNpHSCxBIAEAAAALVeCLtuU3xOv9Pj7Y0nSmMBAAAAAA==@gmail.com>,
on 01/18/2013
at 05:05 PM, Don Williams <[email protected]> said:
>Just curious... Both electricity and light are both slower than c
>when not in vacuum.
Not quite; there's actual speed and effective speed. The actual speed
of light is always c and the actual speed of electrons is always less
than c. However, photons in a material medium are subject to
scattering and absorption. When an electron absorbs and re-emits a
photon, that introduces a delay, leading to a slower effective speed.
For both electircal and optical signals there are details of the
medium that can affect the effective speed.
>I guess electricity is slowed down more by the dielectric constant,
>than light is slowed down by the reflective index...
ITYM refractive.
BTW, the wiki articles oversimplify.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
Atid/2 <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
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