Speed of light difference in the speeds of photons of different energies, confirming that Lorentz invariance is verified at least down to the scale of the Planck length ("l" = ≈ ) divided by 1.2. In a medium, light usually does not propagate at a speed equal to "c"; further, different types of light wave will travel at different speeds. The speed at which the individual crests and troughs of a plane wave (a wave filling the whole space, with only one frequency) propagate is called the phase velocity "v". An actual physical signal with a finite extent (a pulse of light) travels
Speed of light direction of propagation; in many cases, though, it can be treated as a material-dependent constant. The refractive index of air is approximately 1.0003. Denser media, such as water, glass, and diamond, have refractive indexes of around 1.3, 1.5 and 2.4, respectively, for visible light. In exotic materials like Bose–Einstein condensates near absolute zero, the effective speed of light may be only a few metres per second. However, this represents absorption and re-radiation delay between atoms, as do all slower-than-"c" speeds in material substances. As an extreme example of light "slowing" in matter, two independent teams of physicists claimed to bring