1. The Speed of Light (or How the Laws of Physics are Slightly Different on the First floor of Thornton Hall)

2. Group Members: Rich Breazeale Jack Young Ryan Phelan

3. Outline The Ultimate Speed Experimental Setup Data and Analysis Conclusion

4. Our Experiment To Ch A To Ch B Photocell Box HeNe laser Oscilloscope Lens Beam splitter Mirror To ext. trig, laser A B Δx = L / 2

5. Our Experiment ABAB Δt = 0Δt = a small fraction of a second

6. Data μ-sTime 10.29100.15300.09460.0249-0.0179 Time 20.29200.14200.08620.0159-0.0152 Time 30.28900.14000.08940.0190-0.0124 Distance (m)97.555.131.713.11.17 Average time0.29070.14500.09010.0199-0.0152 Standard Dev 0.00150.00700.00420.00460.0028 1/simga^2428571.420408.1655637.9847839.26132216.8 # of tiles16090.33335221.5 97.53655.0671831.699213.1064

7. Analysis

8. Our slope: 1/c = 0.0031 microsec./m  c = (3.16 * 10^8 ± 0.04) m/s ! Our c is 1.07 times the usual value for the speed of light.

9. The Obvious Conclusion The speed of light on the first floor of Thornton Hall is slightly faster than elsewhere: c = 3.16 * 10^8 m/s rather than the usual 3.00 *10^8 m/s. This begs the question: does any physical law apply at the bottom of Thornton Hall?

10. Fin