Speed of light the fundamental excitations (or quanta) of the electromagnetic field, called photons. In QED, photons are massless particles and thus, according to special relativity, they travel at the speed of light in vacuum. Extensions of QED in which the photon has a mass have been considered. In such a theory, its speed would depend on its frequency, and the invariant speed "c" of special relativity would then be the upper limit of the speed of light in vacuum. No variation of the speed of light with frequency has been observed in rigorous testing, putting stringent limits on the mass of the
One-way speed of light in the one-way speed of light due, for example, to the motion of the source. Such experiments are the De Sitter double star experiment (1913), conclusively repeated in the X-ray spectrum by K. Brecher in 1977; or the terrestrial experiment by Alväger, "et al". (1963); they show that, when measured in an inertial frame, the one-way speed of light is independent of the motion of the source within the limits of experimental accuracy. In such experiments the clocks may be synchronized in any convenient way, since it is only a change of speed that is being measured. Observations of the