Is it true that in order to accelerate to the speed of light you need an infinite amount of energy?

Question

If yes/no, please explain why.

Answer 1

Yes it is, except for particle of zero mass like photons, which already travel at the speed of light.

Due to the properties of relativity, your mass increases the closer you get to the speed of light. That means it takes more energy to accelerate you by the same increment. The closer you get to the speed of light, the higher your mass becomes; in fact, it rises asymptotically so that if you actually did reach light-speed, your mass would be infinite. And moving something more massive than the entire universe takes, needless to say, more energy than exists.

As you approach the speed of light, there are also time-dilation effects that kick in. This is because time and space are essentially two sides of the same coin, so travelling in one has an effect on how you travel thru the other.

For more on relativity, see the links below.

Answer 2

Einstein's equations state that, the closer you get to the speed of light, the higher your mass becomes.

This is verified experimentally every day in all particle accelerators, so the equations are know to hold.

Now of course, the bad thing is that those equations call for an infinite amount of energy, if you wanted to accelerate something to the speed of light (the equations has a singularity). But anything like infinite energy does not sound good in physics. So it may be that our understanding is incomplete, and that at some speed very very very close to the speed of light, the equation is not valid anymore. But it holds for speeds that are 99.999 (up to 9 decimal places) percent of the speed of light.

It may be that it proves to be a bit like boats on water. The energy required to accelerate the boat further increases and increases and increases, to the point that it looks like one would never go beyond a certain speed, even if one applied an infinite amount of energy. But then what happens, as we all know, is that the hull starts planing over the water, and the boat accelerates massively.

But again, at present, this is pure speculation. For the time being, Einstein's relativistic equations are verified every day in many labs.

What of photons, that travel at the speed of light? Well we never accelerated them to that speed in the first place. And they have no mass.

hope this helps

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Answer 3

Never witnessed anything faster than the speed of light yet. And I don't think I'll see in my life time.
I do believe you need a massive amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light.
Since no such thing as an infinite amount of energy in our real world, you'd need a massive energy to accelerate and eventually stop in a matter of seconds.

Answer 4

Yes, the closer you get to the speed of light, the more energy you need to keep accelerating. Also, time will flow more and more slowly (for you, not for any observers) as you near the speed of light. Either way the increase is exponential, so you end up never having enough energy, no matter how much you use. I don't know the exact equations to calculate either of these things, but I'm sure someone will post them eventually.

Answer 5

It is true if you're trying to accelerate an object with mass, like you or me, or a spaceship. For massless particles, they will always travel at the speed of light.

The reason that an object with mass would require an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light (this is actually equivalent to saying that it is impossible for an object with mass to reach the speed of light) is because an object's mass would increase as it approaches the speed of light. As it gets faster, its mass would get larger. And a more massive object would require even more energy to push it to go faster. Eventually the object is just too massive to push it any faster, unless of course you can have infinite amount of energy, then you can push it beyond the speed limit of C.

Answer 6

each and every theory disproved?! i'm sorry, yet maximum theories you listen about have not been disproved mate. you won't be able to use that on your argument. Newtons guidelines have not been disproved (thermodynamics), neither have the suvat equations, f=ma, etc. those are all theories. in reality, very few theories were completely disproved. . and the basics of why you cant pass the more beneficial 5000mps, is because its a plateauing curve. Graph of ability necessary vs. speed produced is curved so as that the faster you pass the more beneficial ability you opt to position in to get it to pass that speed. It seems that on the speed of light you desire both limitless ability, or an infinitely mild merchandise: the photon. Thats why remember won't be able to commute faster than the speed of light. for sure, its surely a lot more beneficial complicated, yet thats the basics. EDIT and why do you imagine your extra information make any huge difference to our answer? merely because one theory has been disproved does no longer advise all should be.

Answer 7

Yes.

Which is why it is impossible.


It is impossible to contain infinite energy within a system. Think about it for a second. Infinity exists everywhere at once, without bounds.

So it can't possibly exist o_O, therefore, even though this is an odd concept, in terms of energy, you'll always be just as far from reaching the speed of light as you were before, even if you arn't moving.

Answer 8

The question is nonsense in that it supposes that you CAN accelerate to the speed of light. You can't. Also, there is no such thing as an infinite amount of energy.

Answer 9

Ah, but light has no mass.

Under Einstein's theory of relativity, an attempt to accelerate an object to a the speed of light gets successively more difficult as the object approaches the speed of light.

What would you use to push it faster?

Answer 10

No. Light itself doesn't have an infinite amount of energy and it travels at the speed of light.