An Indirect Measurement of the Speed of Light Using EMF Meter

Authors

  • Firdaus Firdaus Physics Education Program, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, Indonesia
  • Lanang Maulana Aminullah Physics Education Program, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, Indonesia
  • Hamdani Hamdani Physics Education Program, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22373/p-jpft.v12i1.33041

Keywords:

EMF Meter, The Speed of Light, Electromagnetis Field

Abstract

This research aims to measure indirectly the speed of light using EMF meter. An EMF meter is a device to measure separately magnetic and electromagnetic field sources. In this research we use 44 different smartphones as the sources and calculate the speed of light using ratio of magnetic field to electromagnetic field (c=E/B). Standard deviation or relative error is also calculated to make sure the speed of light measured is within the range speed of light in vacuum which is 3 x 108 m/s. This method provides relatively straightforward method way to determine speed of light. In this measurement, we find the speed of light is 3.21 x 108 m/s. However, there is an anomaly with the data due to standard deviation higher than the speed of light. This anomaly caused by high variability of data, strong outlier and right skew distribution which has relation to uncalibarated device. By reducing the accepted speed of light data measurement between 2 x 108 m/s - 5 x 108 m/s we then obtain the speed of light 3.22 x108 m/s and the standard deviation is 0.85 x 108 m/s.

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Published

2026-01-20

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