Speed of light...?

Question

why do people say we can't achieve the speed of light? Whos to to say that there isn't a force out there, that exceeds the speed of light... could it be that such a force is invisible?

Answer 1

If you are flying in a rocket at 90% the speed of light and you fire another rocket from yours at 90% the speed of light, you would expect that rocket to be going 180% of the speed of light, right? But it wouldn't. It would only be going 99% the speed of light. You, in your rocket see it moving away from you at 90% the speed of light, but another person standing still behind you sees that other rocket moving away from him at 99% the speed of light. From his point of view, the other rocket is only moving away from you at 9% the speed of light. I know that makes no sense to you, but it has been proved by experiment and really is true. Space and time change as you go faster and faster, and they change in such a way as to make all speeds appear slower than light. And they also change so that light itself is always seen to move at the speed of light. So if you shine a flashlight ahead of you as you travel at 90% the speed of light, you yourself see that light beam moving out ahead of you at 100% the speed of light but that person standing still behind you sees that beam of light moving away from him at 100% the speed of light too! I know it is weird and unbelievable, but it really is true!

Answer 2

ALL forces are invisible. Only their effects can be seen. It's natural to think that a bigger gun will fix the problem, but in the case of the speed of light, the math is against it. Scientists who run those big atomic accelerators and particle colliders to do physics experiments know exactly how much energy it takes to accelerate atomic particles to near light speed. It's tremendous, and increases exponentially. When they graph the curve, the end of the line points toward infinity. It simply can't be done. And this is talking about individual particles.

Physics gets strange as one approaches light speed. Not only does time slow down but mass literally increases. The reason it takes infinite energy is because the object's mass is exponentially increasing, even though it "looks" the same. That's why only mass-less particles (like photons) can travel at the speed of light.

Physicists have theorized the existence of "tachyons", particles that only travel faster than light. In fact, they would have the same problem "slowing down" to the speed of light as we have speeding up. But these particles would be a very different kind of matter, a kind that is very hard to verify or even detect. So we can't say much about them or how we could "use" them someday. Under the current understanding of physics, normal matter simply cannot be accelerated to the same speed as light. The math and the experiments prove it.

Answer 3

Speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s

Answer 4

Interesting concept. There are many things in the universe that are beyond our understanding or even an approach to understanding. What was it the Bard once wrote, "There are more things in heaven and earth, my dear Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Einstein was working on the unified field theory but hesitated in the area of entanglement. This he termed "spooky science". It's basics are that more things are connected, even interconnected, than we had previously considered. It is probably in this area that the light barrier will be resolved of conflict. In the meantime, there is the joy of science fiction entering the realm of possibilities. Albert once said, "Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the globe."

Answer 5

The speed of light is controlled by time.
When light travels through glass at any point it exists for a certain length of time,the optical density of the glass allows it to travel at a certain speed which is slower than in empty space, At any point in the glass it exists for a certain amount of time.say two quantum seconds.
When it travels through empty space it exists for one quantum second.
A quantum second is the shortest amount of time that can exist.
If you try to make it go faster you are trying to force it to exist for a shorter amount of time that can exist in this universe.

Answer 6

The force hat you need to reach the speed of light is infinite. accordingly to relativity, the mass of the object increase when spped increase, and therefore you need more force to have a further increase of speed.