Speed of light can be calculated, "often with less than 5% error". Interferometry is another method to find the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation for determining the speed of light. A coherent beam of light (e.g. from a laser), with a known frequency ("f"), is split to follow two paths and then recombined. By adjusting the path length while observing the interference pattern and carefully measuring the change in path length, the wavelength of the light ("λ") can be determined. The speed of light is then calculated using the equation "c" = "λf". Before the advent of laser technology, coherent radio sources were used
Variable speed of light in 1957, and by several researchers starting from the late 1980s. The speed of light in vacuum instead is considered a constant, and defined by the SI as 299792458 m/s. Variability of the speed of light is therefore equivalent with a variability of the SI meter and/or the SI second. VSL should not be confused with faster than light theories; nor should it be confused with the fact that the speed of light in a medium is slower than the speed of light in vacuum depending on the medium's refractive index. While Einstein first mentioned a variable speed of light