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 light as measured directly by Fizeau. The following year Gustav Kirchhoff calculated that an electric signal in a resistanceless wire travels along the wire at this speed. In the early 1860s, Maxwell showed that, according to the theory of electromagnetism he was working on, electromagnetic waves propagate in empty space at a speed equal to the above Weber/Kohlrausch ratio, and drawing attention to the numerical proximity of this value to the speed of light as measured by Fizeau, he proposed that light is in fact an electromagnetic wave. It was thought at the time that empty space was filled with