Ask any college student about Einstein, and you will most likely get the equation "e=mc squared" as a response. Well, that might not be completely accurate anymore.

When formulating his theory of relativity, Einstein supposed a universe wherein there were objects moving through a vacuum, thus, the speed of light could be constant (the 'c' in e=mc²). According to the Alpha Galileo Foundation however, the long-held belief that the speed of light stays the same may no longer be true.

Two studies are coming to light that show for the first time that the light speed of 186,000 miles a second is more of a variable approximation than it is a rigid constant. That is not to say our conception of light is necessarily wrong though. The studies indicate that it is actually our understanding of space that is to blame for this one.

The authors of the studies include Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud, as well as Gerd Leuchs and Luis L. Sanchez-Soto from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany.

Normally when we consider the vacuum of space, we often think that it is just completely empty and devoid of any objects at all. In his study, however, Marcel Urban identified a mechanism for defining a vacuum as being filled with virtual particles with changing energy values. For this reason, the inherent characteristics of a vacuum (such as the constant speed of light) may need to be modified.

Leuchs and Sanchez-Soto were able to establish a quantum mechanism that would establish the existence of a limited number of ephemeral particles per unit volume in a vacuum. Despite being a vacuum, space is actually filled with particles that blip in and out of existence very quickly. The result of this density of particles would then be the reason for the speed of light, and not because of some inherent constant energy within light.

It appears that the vacuum of space is not as empty or calm as we once thought. Despite these new findings, current theories for particle physics and quantum mechanisms should not be too disrupted, but will have to account for the variance in the speed of light.

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