Man made.
2007-02-22 05:52:51 · 17 answers · asked by Nexus 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No. Not possible as the mass of the particle goes to infinity at the speed of light.
2007-02-22 06:13:45 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a rather weasle style answer.
Yes, man made objects can travel faster than light. My car went faster than the speed of light on the way home from work tonight. What's perhaps most surprising is it's a beaten up 8 year old Skoda Estate.
Ok. I cheated. The key to this is that you have to slow light down. A couple of years ago some scientists managed to reduce the speed of a photon to 38mph in some sodium. I don't know the details but I made 58mph at one point on the way home tonight (downhill with a tailwind) but that's nearly 50% faster than the speed of light in sodium.
If you're talking about the speed of light in a vacuum, however, the answer is NO. Nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum.....or can it?
Tachyons are a particle which supposedly travels faster than light. I'm not sure any physicists are actually convinced that they really exist.
But most interesting is that space isn't a pure vacuum. It's full of neutral hydrogen, as much as 1 atom per m^3 in some places. Plus some dust. It all adds up you know.
So much so that it slows light down just a little tiny bit. Not a lot but enough to allow neutrinos from distant supernova to arrive here before the light of the explosion. Neutrinos are so weakly interacting that they don't care about dust and hydrogen. They're massless and so travel at the "proper speed of light" unlike light which goes a bit slower, even in space. Duh! So they arrive first. Neutrinos travel faster than light through space.
2007-02-22 15:06:58 · answer #2 · answered by BIMS Lewis 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No they have not. As a particle accelerates close to the speed of light, its relativistic mass becomes much higher than its invariant mass. They are related by the formula:
M = m x 1/SQRT(1-(v²/c²))
Where:
M = relativistic mass
m = invariant mass
v = particles velocity
c = speed of light in a vacuum
So for any particle with non-zero invariant mass, travelling at the speed of light would cause its relativistic mass to be infinite! This would require an infinite amount of energy and so it is unlikely it could be done.
Hope the formula displays OK - this is the first time I have used extended characters on Y!A
2007-02-22 16:21:07 · answer #3 · answered by dm300570 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Well, sort of.
If you mean faster than the speed of light in a vacuum (c0) then no, but the speed of light in other materials is c0 divided by that materials refractive index.
e.g.
c0 is about 3.0x10^8 m/s
The refractive index of water is about 1.33, so c(water) = 2.26x10^8 m/s.
If you take a particle that has been accelerated to close to c0, then when it enters a denser material it will be going faster than that material's speed of light. You then get something like the optical equivalent of a sonic boom when an aircraft goes through the sound barrier. This is a rather nice blue glow called Cherenkov radiation.
2007-02-23 04:34:34 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Here's a question to make you think about that question: If they did accelerate a particle faster than the speed of light, how would they know? Clue: if a particle goes faster than light, no light can catch up to it, therefore, you could not see it - it would seem to suddenly dissapear. So then how would you know where it went?
2007-02-22 14:34:22 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's not possible in a vacuum, and I'm not sure neutrinos have been proven to exist yet, have they?
However, in certain types of matter, it is possible to make some particles move through it faster than light does.
In this case we get an emission of Cerenkov Radiation (pronounced che ren kov), a sort of a "sonic boom" for light.
Sadly though it's been a few years since I finished my degree, so I can't remember any specific examples.
2007-02-22 16:12:10 · answer #6 · answered by andrew m 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope.
The theory of relativity implies that nothing can go at the speed of light. As you accelerate a body to the speed of light you approach infinite mass and infinite energy required to reach the speed of light.
2007-02-22 16:42:23 · answer #7 · answered by MSDC 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sorry to answer your question with another one . Is faster than the speed of light possible.
2007-02-22 14:08:39 · answer #8 · answered by derek 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Special Relativity exludes the possibilty of anything travelling faster than the speed of light.
2007-02-22 14:09:08 · answer #9 · answered by Alan Y 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Light is the cosmic speed limit.
2007-02-22 16:22:32 · answer #10 · answered by CLIVE C 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋