Speed of light less uncertain than the previously accepted value. The remaining uncertainty was mainly related to the definition of the metre. As similar experiments found comparable results for "c", the 15th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1975 recommended using the value for the speed of light. In 1983 the 17th CGPM found that wavelengths from frequency measurements and a given value for the speed of light are more reproducible than the previous standard. They kept the 1967 definition of second, so the caesium hyperfine frequency would now determine both the second and the metre. To do this, they redefined the
One-way speed of light preferred frame in principle only, in practice all inertial frames must be equivalent, as in special relativity. One-way speed of light When using the term 'the speed of light' it is sometimes necessary to make the distinction between its one-way speed and its two-way speed. The "one-way" speed of light, from a source to a detector, cannot be measured independently of a convention as to how to synchronize the clocks at the source and the detector. What can however be experimentally measured is the round-trip speed (or "two-way" speed of light) from the source to the detector and back again.