Light in Vacuum

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
hello, how does light travel in a vacuum.Since there is nothing in space.
- LYL (age 16)
Singapore
A:
Would you ask how an atom can travel in a vacuum? Probably not, because the atom already is something. The same applies to light- its electromagnetic fields are one of the basic constituents of the universe, at least at the level we know it. They are as much something as protons, etc.
It would be nice to someday understand ALL the different types of particle fields as modes of behavior of some mathematical substrate someday, but that’s no more true for light than for other things.

Mike W.

(published on 10/22/2007)