And if the speed of light for some reason slowed to 10mph would you then be able to travel faster than it or is it a case that light travels at the maximium possible speed and if for some reason that maximum possible speed was increased then so would the speed of light?
2006-08-01 03:57:55 · 17 answers · asked by RSWN 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
OK here's the math everyone has been talking about. In special relativity, there is something called relativistic mass and rest mass. E=mc^2 is the formula for calculating the rest mass. Now if you want to know what the energy of a massive particle moving is then you have to use a Lorentz conversion factor which makes the formula become. E=mc^2/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2) so mc^2 over square root of 1 minus v (your speed) over the speed of light and this ratio squared. So let's say you're going at .6c which if 60% of the speed of light. then v^2 = .36c^2 . This divided by c^2 will simply give .36.... 1-.36 is .64 and the square root is .8 Now you take your initial mass, let's say 100kg. Then youre relativistic mass will be 100/.8 = 125kg . It is easy to see that as you go to c, your mass goes to infinity and therefore takes an infinite amount of energy to go to that speed. Therefore if special relativity is correct, then it is so far impossible to do this... Hope the math clarified this a bit for everyone.
2006-08-01 04:58:22 · answer #1 · answered by jerryjon02 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
jerryjon and gilgethan are on the money, but a couple of asides:
You can travel at the speed of light if you don't have any mass. Photons don't have any mass, so they bowl along at the speed of light.
There's nothing in the theory that stops faster than light travel but two odd results come out. First, because of the mass thing, you have to have an imaginary number mass (ie. some multiple of the square root of -1). I don't think anyone knows what that would mean, but if anyone does, let me know. Second, cause and effect could get screwed up if any information travelled faster than light (ie. in some frame of references the cup would break before it was knocked off the table). This is too screwy for most people so we assume that information can't go that fast.
So if the speed of light were 10 mph, your mass would have to be imaginary for you to travel at 11mph, and all the information in you would be lost.
2006-08-02 12:21:15 · answer #2 · answered by Sam B 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No of course..the speed of light is the fastest in the universe. About 300,000 kilometers per second. Nobody could reach that. Not even the fastest thing on earth or the most advanced technology could reach that feat. It is said in Einstein's theory of relativity that no physical matter can travel faster or equal to the speed of light. It is also said that when you approach this speed, time slows down and objects get smaller and heavier.
2006-08-02 09:54:46 · answer #3 · answered by John Leo A 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ye cannae change the laws of physics, laddie...
According to Einstein's theory of Special Relativity (see wiki below), you can't travel faster than light because events would start happening before each other and time would get screwed. It all gets a bit iffy after that.
In any case, humans definitely can't travel faster than light at the moment, because it's a bit impractical. If you put yourself in a starship and accelerated it at 1G per second (10 metres per second per second), it would take you a year to reach the speed of light. Even assuming relativity doesn't start slowing down your acceleration at higher speeds, you simply couldn't carry enough fuel for that.
The other problem is that space isn't empty. If you took a kernel of sweetcorn and accelerated it to lightspeed, it would unleash enough energy on impact to blow a large hole in the Moon. Hitting a few dust particles when your ship was travelling at a respectable fraction of lightspeed would be quite a terminal fender bender.
Sci-fi starships cheat their way around this using Hyperspace (where you drop out of real space and shortcut through another dimension where physical and liquor laws are laxer) and "Warp Drives" (where you create a bubble of space around you that then gets squeezed by "real" space, shooting the bubble forwards while the ship effectively stands still).
Warp theory is the only one of those that might work, although it would take the entire power output of our Sun to achieve.
Oh, and of course, the famous "inertial dampening systems" that every self-respecting starship needs. (When one Trek designer was asked how they work, he said, "They work quite well, thanks.")
The only vehicle on Earth known to move faster than light is a New York taxi, since they ignore all laws including physics. Oddly, the effect stops if you're actually inside one, but this is probably something to do with causality and experienced time. And the Queens tunnel.
2006-08-01 11:20:31 · answer #4 · answered by DreamWeaver 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The thing is: the speed of light is a limit velocity. The relativistic formulations of work tells us that the amount of energy spent to accelerate a certain body is progressively larger with the increase of its velocity. This means that, when a body is nearing the speed of light, the amount of energy required to increase its velocity will be astonishingly huge and, in the limit, it would require infinite energy. That's what special relativity says. So, it is theoretically impossible to accelerate a material particle to the speed of light, for it would require an infinite amount of energy. It's like the speed of light was an uncrossable barrier between two distinct realms: one slower than light and one faster that it.
2006-08-01 11:11:58 · answer #5 · answered by Gilgethan 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's impossible because...
According to Special Relativity the total energy of an object increases as its speed increases and approaches infinity as the object's speed approaches the speed of light. This means that it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light.
2006-08-01 11:02:20 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You might miss the big one if your planet says it can't travel faster than the speed of light.
2006-08-01 17:34:01 · answer #7 · answered by Balthor 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is porbally possible to travel faster than light but we have not yet found that way, if we did we would need s shield (similar to heat shield) to stop the rocket/plain/car or what ever is travelling from catching fire or discinagrating.
2006-08-02 15:14:34 · answer #8 · answered by Gareth 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, it is possible to travel the speed of light, but our technological capabilities are no where near achieving this yet. One day, it will happen though.
2006-08-01 11:03:28 · answer #9 · answered by joshman 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You've got to believe that you can travel faster than light, if you give up on that idea you may as well give up on everything else mankind tries to do, and stay in the dark ages.
2006-08-01 17:19:11 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋