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$19.95 The Speed o f Light Davi d A . G r a n dy Co n sta n c y + Cosm os T h e S p e e d o f L i g h t G r a n d y INDIANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis www.iupress.indiana.edu 1-800-842-6796 INDIANA Science · Philosophy “A brilliant and distinguished book . . . Grandy introduces a trans-scientific understanding of light as a deep ordering principle within the universe.” Thaddeus J. Trenn, University of Toronto David A. Grandy is Professor of Philosophy at Brigham Young University and author (with Dan Burton) of Magic, Mystery, and Science (Indiana University Press, 2004) and Leo Szilard: Science as a Mode of Being. Imagine you are in a craft traveling at great speed in the vacuum of space. Your task is to measure the speed of a light ray coming from a star you have left behind. Just as you pass a stationary space platform nearby, another observer will measure the same light ray. Your intuition tells you that the light speed you measure should be less than that observed on the space platform by exactly the velocity you are moving relative to the platform. Yet, you both get the same result. How is that possible? The fact is that when it comes to measuring and calculating speed, only light returns the same value to all observers. Moving from the scientific to the existential, from Einstein to MerleauPonty , from light as a physical phenomenon to light as that which is constitutive of reality, this mindexpanding exploration of light and how we experience the universe is quite a trip. David A. Grandy asks what is the nature and role of light in relation to mind and matter. Light—our experience of light, our measurement of light, and the notion that light speed is constant—can be understood to mark our interface with the cosmos. To measure the speed of light is to measure something about the way we are measured or blended into the cosmos, and that universal blending predetermines our measurement of light speed in favor of a universal or constant value. SpeedLmec2.indd 1 5/5/09 3:25:39 PM The Speed o f Light ...