Google Doodle 7th Dec 2016
(340th Anniversary of Determination of The Speed of Light) (Youtube VIdeo)
Romer's determination of the
speed of light was the demonstration in 1676
that light has a finite speed, and so
does not travel instantaneously.
The discovery is usually attributed to
Danish astronomer Ole Rømer (1644–1710),
who was working at the Royal Observatory
in Paris at the time.
By timing the eclipses of the Jupiter moon Io,
Rømer estimated that light would take
about 22 minutes to travel a distance
equal to the diameter of Earth's orbit
around the Sun. This would give light
a velocity of about 220,000 kilometres per second
in SI units, about 26% lower than the true value.
Rømer's theory was controversial
at the time he announced it,
and he never convinced the director
of the Royal Observatory, Giovanni Domenico Cassini,
to fully accept it. However, it quickly gained support
among other natural philosophers of the period,
such as Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton.
It was finally confirmed nearly two decades
after Rømer's death, with the explanation in 1729
of stellar aberration by the
English astronomer James Bradley.
Info Credits: WikiPedia
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