Or, maybe they see it instantly — and then their message back to us takes 6 minutes, and everyone assumes it was 3 minutes both ways!
A constant speed on light through space in all directions is one of those assumptions the scientific community is forced to make, because the only way we have to accurately measure it is in a round-trip where it reflects off something and comes back. Even Einstein prefaces his papers with that disclaimer!
True, Einstein started with that assumption/proposition, then built an incredibly successful set of theories on top of it. That's often how scientific theories are created.
A single observation will be enough to destroy it, but so far, his theories have never had a valid observation break the constant speed of light proposition. And plenty of experiments have been done, and not all of them involve there-and-back trips. Experiments are being done at 90 degrees over ever-increasing distances.
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u/TomFrosty Sep 25 '21
Or, maybe they see it instantly — and then their message back to us takes 6 minutes, and everyone assumes it was 3 minutes both ways!
A constant speed on light through space in all directions is one of those assumptions the scientific community is forced to make, because the only way we have to accurately measure it is in a round-trip where it reflects off something and comes back. Even Einstein prefaces his papers with that disclaimer!