2006-12-17 02:54:43 · 31 answers · asked by curious_2006 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No, the speed of light is an absolute.
2006-12-17 02:56:39 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 8⤊ 2⤋
The answer is A DEFINITE YES!
It has been done! I have seen a number of faster than light experiments. This is where light is made to travel faster than the speed of light!
Light traveling through short distances through a caesium atom has been measured at 300 times the speed of light! The physics behind these experiments is far beyond degree level and I am unable to explain them to you. If you don't believe me read some research papers on the subject.
Here's a more simple example of something that travels faster than light:
If I have a really powerful laser and point it at the moon a red dot will appear on the moons surface. (Here we are ignoring the effects of the atmosphere etc) Now if I move the laser to the left it is possible for the red dot to shoot along the surface of the moon faster than the speed of light.
If you are referring to something which has mass moving faster than light then the answer is no. There is currently nothing we know of, that travels faster than light. But maybe one day...
2006-12-20 07:54:57 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No.
This does not mean you cannot reach a point in space faster than something traveling at the speed of light. This would just mean you found a shorter distance.
Information sharing, as described by quantum physics, is instantaneous. This means that at some dimension, the two "separate" particles are really at the same place and time. Humans, not able to comprehend this dimension, see a distance between the two particles and conclude information travels faster than light but in reality this is simply not true.
2006-12-17 03:30:35 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
According to Einstein's theory of special relativity, published in 1905, nothing can exceed the speed of light. That speed, explained Einstein, is a fundamental constant of nature: It appears the same to all observers anywhere in space.
The same theory says that objects gain mass as they speed up, and that speeding up requires energy. The more mass, the more energy is required. By the time an object reached the speed of light, Einstein calculated, its mass would be infinite, and so would the amount of energy required to increase its speed. To go beyond the infinite is impossible.
One hundred years of testing have only reinforced what Einstein wrote, said Donald Schneider, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State. "There is no experiment that has contradicted special relativity. We have accelerated sub-atomic particles to well over 99 per cent of the speed of light, but not equal to or exceeding the speed of light.
2006-12-20 09:57:43 · answer #4 · answered by Chill_Out 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are two schools of theories about this universe: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Ignoring String Theory as an attempt to unite these two theory schools, let's look at each of them individually:
Relativity is built on the concept that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. From there, special relativity defines the very dimentions of space and time as being dynamic quantities related to the speed of light. This dynamic spacetime makes it impossible for anything to travel superluminously. The concepts of general relativity (built from special relativity have been proven and used (for example, to view distant galaxies that are actually 'behind' other's due to the lensing effect of gravity)
Now, quantum mechanics does not include such a restriction and, therefore, says that it is possible for things to travel faster than the speed of light. The only quantum mechanical experiments that have been done to prove this are about quantum entanglement. Changing the state of one particle instantly changes the state of it's twin particle no-matter how far apart they are. This violates causality and relativity.
Somebody mentioned that information can travel faster than the speed of light. You mean that the group velocity can be different from the phase velocity of light. Information itself can not travel faster than light.
The reason that relativity states that nothing can travel superluminously is that it only includes the four dimentions of spacetime (through which particles travel) and these dimentions are defined by the speed of light itself. If there were other spacetime dimentions (like string theory suggests and quantum mechanics doesn't rule out) there would be no reason why the speed of light can't be violated in the first four dimentions but, ultimately, our relativity laws would have to be re-written for super-dimentional spacetime. This task is not easy and no-one has yet achieved it.
And that is where string theory steps in.
So, NOTHING CAN TRAVEL FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT as long as you realise that the speed of light has to be defined super-dimentionally and that light itself (and most other bosons) only exist in the first four dimentions. This means that things can appear to travel superluminously to us (who can only percieve those first four dimentions) but in reality, they don't.
This is such a complicated topic and this is the best description I can give. To understand these concepts I recommend you apply to study for a PhD in string theory.
Good luck.
2006-12-19 01:02:26 · answer #5 · answered by Mawkish 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
there are two ways to look at this question. If you're talking about the speed of light in a vacuum, then no. (other than the purely theoretical tachyon particle). However, if you're talking about a specific set of photons, yes. For example, the speed of light is not constant. When photons travel through a medium, they will slow down as they collide with the medium and loose energy. In that sense, photons in a vacuum (or other massless particles) will be moving faster than the speed of light in that medium.
2006-12-17 18:23:11 · answer #6 · answered by yanni576 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Yes, actually, there probably is.
It seems that the speed at which light travels acts as a kind of barrier, which is impassable from either side. By that I mean, anything that travels slower than light cannot accelerate to a velocity faster, and anything that's faster than it cannot go slower than it.
I have no idea what, or how we will ever be able to study anything faster than light, but the answer to your question is probably yes.
2006-12-17 03:54:37 · answer #7 · answered by Hello Dave 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋
Faster-than-light (also superluminal or FTL) communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light. This concept is a staple of the science fiction genre, but is generally considered impossible by the mainstream physics community, due to special relativity.
Feinberg, Gerald (1967). "Possibility of Faster-Than-Light Particles". Physical Review 159: 1089-1105.
2006-12-17 03:00:21 · answer #8 · answered by Luke L 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Apparently so, but only "information"; the information about the "spin" of two subatomic partics that originate from the same collision, and both leave the site at the speed of light can be shown to be twice the speed of light. When one is intercepted and its spin measured, the other instanteneously adopts the opposite spin, implying that some kind of information travelled from one to the other faster than the speed of light!... (This is called "quantum entanglement")
Read all about it at the links below:
2006-12-17 03:05:50 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Well no "thing" (normal matter) can travel faster than the speed of light but there are subatomic particles that can.
2006-12-17 03:47:21 · answer #10 · answered by knock knock 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No, not yet anyway, according to theory if you travel faster than the speed of light you will travel back in time. But if this is for physics homework, say no.
2006-12-17 02:57:11 · answer #11 · answered by atheist kid 3 · 3⤊ 3⤋