2006-11-02 00:08:00 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
I have always been a fan of this discussion. I propose that ANYTHING can travel faster than the speed of light (SOL). I also believe that was the driving force behind Einstein's assumptions. When we start talking about time slowing down as we approach SOL, we are talking about time RELATIVE to something else...If two people are together on a SOL spacecraft, then the time they experience is the same as if they were standing still.
Before I ramble on too much, What stops light from going any faster? If we had a theoretical spacecraft that could travel at 1/2 SOL, and we shot a laser off the front of it, how fast would the light be travelling? To the observers on the SOL-craft, the light would be travelling at absolute SOL, but to someone standing next to the craft when the laser was activated, would the light NOT be travelling at 1.5 SOL?
2006-11-02 01:43:43 · answer #1 · answered by Samuel G 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The speed of light (in a vacuum) is the absolute limit for anything with mass in the universe, it can be approached but never reached or exceeded as your effective mass increases as you approach light speed and you would need an infinite amount of energy to accelerate you to this speed. Massless particles (including photons which make up light) all travel at exactly this speed. The particles in the answer above (quarks, electrons etc) travel slower but can be accelerated very close to the speed of light.
As mentioned previously light can travel slower in a medium, but so would people. If a concious person was massless (hypothetically obviously) then the effect of travelling at the speed of light would be for time to stop, so you wouldn't experience this travel.
2006-11-02 00:28:21 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There were some scientists who recently made some light travel faster than the speed of light, through some sort of vacuum tube filled with some very special particles. I cannot remember anymore than that though.
Essentially it exited the tube before it had finished entering.
I guess the application would be in telecoms, where the speed of light will eventually like the speed of electricity over copper, become the limiting factor in how fast cimputers can talk.
2006-11-02 00:27:21 · answer #3 · answered by holly_cat_uk 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, I don't know if anything can actually travel faster than the speed of light but if it could then I guess the implications would be painful! It would hit you before you saw it and stepped out of the way. People would stand around you shaking their heads and saying "Poor soul, he didn't know what hit him"!!!!
2006-11-02 00:22:22 · answer #4 · answered by Rae 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes things can tavel faster than light but they cant be detected.
What is impossible is accelerating through the light barrier - this means anything travelling slower than light can never travel faster, and vice versa.
So these theoretical faster-than-light objects will always have travelled faster than light, if indeed they exist. The implication for these crazy objects are that they will seem to move backwards through time because they will appear before they can be observed. It is highly confusing, but not something we can make toomany statements about as they are purely theoretical.
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OR! You can make light travel through special crystals. you can slow light down to about 38mph and then hop in your car and drive alongside it. Then you can travel faster than light.
2006-11-02 00:16:15 · answer #5 · answered by Stuart T 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nothing can travel faster than light. Some scientists believe that if there is anything thatcan travel quicker than light then it will have the capacity to break the limits of space and time.
2006-11-02 00:18:14 · answer #6 · answered by Friend 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
in accordance to Einstein's particular theory of Relativity, various issues take position as a body with mass techniques the speed of sunshine. among those is a upward push contained in the article's mass. considering that increasing mass calls for increasing quantities of capacity to accelerate more effective, the article will require further and extra and larger capacity to get in route of the speed of sunshine. certainly, the capacity required to achieve the speed of sunshine is countless. subsequently, no huge merchandise (even an electron, which does not have a lot mass in any respect) can ever commute on the spped of sunshine.
2016-12-05 11:16:02 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Einstein proved that time travel, along with traveling at or above the speed of light is impossible. i cant exactly remember how, but i remember watching a video on it in physics class.
a kid was riding his bike at the speed of light. colors became skewed and then when he got off of his bike, he had aged only a matter of minutes. however everyone else had aged several decades.
2006-11-02 00:16:55 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
no, no power source with efficiency or power to drive something beyond the speed of light. no structural substance availiable to build a vehicle out of that would be able to withstand pressure of traveling that fast. And no computers able to contol steering devices needed to avoid obstacles while traveling that fast.
2006-11-02 00:13:27 · answer #9 · answered by chrishenderson08 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
i think u cant, but as u approach the speed of light things will seem to slow down if im not wrong.
if there's anything that travels at the speed of light it would be the subatomic particles electrons, protons, quarks etc i think.
2006-11-02 00:16:59 · answer #10 · answered by premiumcarrot 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋