The Discoverer of the Speed of Light : Armand Fizeau

- વિશ્વના વિજ્ઞાનીઓ

Sunlight travels at a speed of 299,792 kilometers per second. While it is easy to measure the speed of vehicles on the ground, flying planes, or birds, measuring the speed of light is a difficult task. A ray of light cannot be caught or stopped, and its motion is not visible to the naked eye. Many scientists tried to measure it.

• Ole Rømer (1676): By studying the moons of Jupiter, he announced the speed of light to be 214,000 km/s.

• Armand Fizeau (1849): He was the first to measure the speed through a physical experiment. He set up two mirrors facing each other with a rotating toothed wheel in between. Light would pass through the teeth of the wheel, hit a mirror, and reflect back. By calculating the speed of the wheel's rotation and the resulting reflection, he declared the speed of light to be 315,000 km/s.

About Armand Fizeau: Born in Paris on September 23, 1819, he was the son of a doctor and professor. Though he initially studied medicine, he switched to physics due to poor health. He became deeply involved in studying light and also invented a way to photograph moving objects. He became famous after his discovery of the speed of light and passed away in 1896.