Speed of light special theory of relativity, in which the speed of light in vacuum "c" featured as a fundamental constant, also appearing in contexts unrelated to light. This made the concept of the stationary aether (to which Lorentz and Poincaré still adhered) useless and revolutionized the concepts of space and time. In the second half of the 20th century much progress was made in increasing the accuracy of measurements of the speed of light, first by cavity resonance techniques and later by laser interferometer techniques. These were aided by new, more precise, definitions of the metre and second. In 1950, Louis Essen
Speed of light which all massless particles and changes of the associated fields travel in vacuum (including electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves). Such particles and waves travel at regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial reference frame of the observer. In the special and general theories of relativity, interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass–energy equivalence . The speed at which light propagates through transparent materials, such as glass or air, is less than ; similarly, the speed of electromagnetic waves in wire cables is slower than . The ratio between and the speed