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Given the speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second and that it is constant through out the universe, (i.e a person who measures the speed of light while standing still will get the same result as a person moving through space in a rocket)

My question is: if I'm standing still, what is the speed of me moving through the universe? Compared to the speed of light?

The following variables should be taken into consideration

  1. the speed at which the earth is rotating,

  2. The speed at which the earth is moving around the sun,

  3. The speed at which out solar system is moving around our galaxy,

  4. The speed at which our galaxy is moving in our universe.

bobie
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Tien Dinh
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1 Answers1

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In relativity there is no absolute speed because there is no notion of absolute space or time--your speed can only be measured relative to some reference frame (a coordinate system which assigns a position coordinate to each object at each time coordinate), usually an inertial frame (the speed of a light ray is the same regardless of which inertial frame you choose, for a numerical example showing how this works see my answer here). So you can be "standing still" relative to the Earth, or relative to the Sun, but no physical meaning can be assigned to "standing still" in a non-relative sense.

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Hypnosifl
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