i heard somewhere that if an object travels faster than the speed of light it ceases to exist why is that?

Question

also, what if, hypothetically speaking an object could withstand the pressure what would happen?

isn't the speed of light 186000.2 miles per second, so surely anything above that exceeds the speed.

this is resonse to S's answer about fabric of space time, r u saying the object would be in a world of pictch black, until object "slowed down"?

(this is to bud13kv) because it isn't really there yet!! ??? come one if you dont know the answer please dont "chat". Juan D you again, obviously you dont understand the term hypothetically speaking.

Answer 1

It's all theory, we don't know if (something) can exceed the speed of light. I would argue that time would be void at that moment, but again it's my theory. Interesting thought though.

Answer 2

In theory, it is impossible for anything to travel faster than light. There is no pressure involved; it is just that space and time change as things go faster and faster, and they change in such a way that no matter how much the object accelerates it is always going slower than light. If you try to write the math for a hypothetical faster than light object you have to take the square root of a negative number. As a result, some people have proposed a hypothetical faster than light particle called a tachyon. A tachyon would have an imaginary number for its rest mass, would be unable to move as slow or slower than light, would be capable of infinite speed, would loose energy as it went faster and gain energy as it went slower and would have infinite energy at the speed of light. But it is just hypothetical; not a proposed theory of a real particle.

Answer 3

No. Nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light (not even a single electron) because to accelerate the particle would take an infinite amount of energy. Light has no mass so it can travel ONLY at the speed of light. Particles called tachyons, which have never been observed, have a mass that is a multiple of the square root of minus one (called imaginary mass) and they display the curious properties of having LESS energy the faster they go and they require an infinte amount of energy to SLOW DOWN to the speed of light. Tachyons can only travel faster than light speed.

If you want to understand this, you need to understand Lorentz transformations and Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. You casually mention that light speed is 186,000 miles per second and say anything faster than that is faster than light, but you are not taking into account the effects of relativity that only appear traveling at close to the speed of light. This is an example where "common sense" will lead you astray because common sense situations (i.e. those we experience personally) do not include traveling close to the speed of light.

Answer 4

It may become less visible or invisible to us - but it will certainly still exist. Some objects have already been made to travel faster than light. That is what particle accelerators do. Thye measure the decay rate of the substance, then shoot it around an accelerator track and measure it again.

Answer 5

mathmatically, it would take infinite enrgy to get ANY amount of mass moving at the speed of light. Moving beyond that is just not possible according to Physics as we currently understand.

Answer 6

PARTICLE accelerators ARE ALSO limited by the speed of light-


nothing can travel faster than the speed of light that we are aware of. There is no evidence to support this at all. NO object detected by man travels faster than light. AS SUCH its viewed as a speed limit that isnt surpassable. But heres an interesting note- did you know that a GRAIN OF SAND travelling at the speed of light, would DESINTIGRATE anything that it came in contact with?

HOWEVER Einstein never claimed that it was IMPOSSIBLE to go faster than light: it was ASSUMED from his equations. He however has no objections to accepting that spacetime fabric can travel faster than light. It is hypothesized that at the beginning of the universe, spacetime fabric travelled faster than light. Therefore, if we could bend spacetime, we could travel faster than light. Miguel Alcubierre theorized that it would be possible to "warp" spacetime by shrinking spacetime in front of you and expanding it behind you. Such warping would require a source of negative energy which would act as anti-gravity.

But since your be WARPING spacetime, your perception of OBSERVING the object would also be 'warped'....
BUT...IF, for the sake of hypothetically speaking, you COULD move beyond the light speed barrier, time and space would seem to break down and there would be no way to observe the effect on the object as it may seem to appear and disappear in the time space continuum forwards, backwards perhaps occupying all spaces of time at once. Or maybe even breaking a hole in the fabric of space time.

Hypothetically speaking.

And what Im saying is that when you observe something you AFFECT its outcome, which may seem difficult to comprehend depending on your current knowledge. And IF something COULD travel faster than the speed of light, your OBSERVING IT would be quite strange. First off, the only reason that we see anything is because light is reaching our eyes from having bounced off the object. Which is why you cant see through lattice very easily if your porch screen is covered with it. The holes or tiny squares affect the way that light enters through them to reveal objects on the other side. So.....if you WERE to be able to observe something traveling at the hypothetical speed, most likely you wouldnt be seeing the object as it truly IS or was. It may APPEAR to be in multiple places at the same time, or it may seem to be closer to you while at the same time being infinately far away. Youre dealing with a complete unknown because as I said nothing has been observed to be able to move that fast. So, in effect it would br BREAKING a known law of the universe and as such looking at it would not be the same as looking at anything else. It may even be CONVERTED into a DIFFERENT object due to this. Perhaps even an exotic material.... It may even effectivly be rendered INVISIBLE because its moving faster than light. And you need LIGHT to contact your eyes in order to see the object the light is reflecting off of, but if its FASTER Than that then how can light reflect off of it? See, things get really really weird at this point. Its completely hypothetical but just seeing it would affect it. Think of shroedingers cat. Is it alive or dead? Until its observed its in a state of BOTH being alive AND Dead at the SAME time. (im editing this before Ive had coffee so I hope this makes SOME sense) Id also expect that the object due to this speed would be generating constant explosions in its wake the entire time it traveled at this speed. WHich is why I supposed it could rip the fabric of space time. And theres no reason to believe that it would "slow down" as you say, because in space, an object in motion stays in motion until it becomes affected by something near it or impacts. And 'god' help us if something THAT fast impacts anything....the explosion might cause the universe itself to light up at all points, revealing black space to be BLINDINGLY white- who knows- its a pretty scary and fascinating concept when we start dealing with unknowns as powerful as this. Imagine the radiation something travelling at that speed must emit, just to fuel its very existance. NOt to mention what would be emitted in its destruction. We're talking god like power far beyond mans ability to produce or comprehend, which is why the term exotic material comes into play. Maybe when and if something travels that fast , by its nature alone it creates a big bang and extinguishes itself in the process. Which goes back to the ideal that at the BEGINNING of the universe, spacetime fabric travelled faster than light. If something should reach that speed again, well, lets hope its not in our dimension, cause if its in OUR universe I think we would be history from the resulting "big bang".

Answer 7

it's impossible

Answer 8

because it isn't really there yet!! ???