If you stand on a truck traveling 20 mph and throw a ball forward at 30 mph (relative to you at the point you threw it), the ball travels at 50 mph or at least nearly 50 mph for a milliesecond or so...in essence, the speed is the sum of the two speeds, or nearly. Now, consider a star that is moving away from the location of the big bang at a speed lets say 1,000 miles per second, shining photons forward at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. Relative to the original location of the big bang, is that light travelling 187,000 miles per second (faster than the speed of light)? Is the speed in space the sum of the two speeds like the ball thrown from the truck?
2007-05-04 05:35:59 · 13 answers · asked by Bud Just A Man 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
No and this is the whole argument for special relativity. Light always travels at the same speed, space and time simply alter themselves to maintain this condition (length contraction, time dilation etc.)
2007-05-04 05:41:27 · answer #1 · answered by mistofolese 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Here is your very same question from the website below and your answer:
" In Newtonian mechanics, speeds are additive. Therefore, if a pitcher throws a baseball at 90 miles an hour (a bowler throws a cricket ball at 145 kilometres per hour, for those of you on the other side of the pond) and he's facing forward on a train travelling at 60 miles an hour (100 kph), then the net speed of the ball, relative to the ground, is 90+60 or 150 miles an hour (245 kph). All well and good and sensible.
However, at very high speeds, Newtonian physics breaks down. One tenet of relativity is that the speed of any light is always c. Therefore, speeds cannot strictly be additive. If you shine a light on a 60 mph train, the forward light beam doesn't travel at c plus 60 mph; it can only go at c. "
2007-05-04 05:47:33 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The light will travel at 186,000 miles per second. If you observe the light from the source of the Big Bang, then the light will appear red as the star recedes. If you observe the light from a position on the path that the star has not yet reached it will appear blue as the star advances. This color shift is caused by the frequency shift of the light waves and is called the Doppler Effect. So you can increase or decrease wave frequency in space or you can bend light with gravity and make something appear where it is not, but light speed remains constant.
2007-05-04 05:54:23 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The warp drive works by the fact that even though matter or anything with mass cannot travel faster than light, space itself can. Meaning it's not the ship that moves, it's space that moves by the Enterprise collapsing the space in front of the ship and expanding the space behind it. Basically it shortens the distance from light years to a few hundred million kilometres. As to the G forces, there are no G-forces to to worry about. The warp drive is not a super powerful antimatter rocket, but an engine that moves space. And since it's space that moves and not the ship, then there are no G-forces because the ship doesn't accelerate.
2016-05-20 05:04:55 · answer #4 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is infact possible to travel faster then the speed of light.
The thing about the speed of light, is the speed of light is 187,000 miles per hour, in a vacuum. Like if you sucked all the air out of a 187,000 mile long tube, and shot a light through it, it would take an hour to cover the distant.
Now, the theory is that the universe is expanding faster then the speed of light.
How.
Because at the edge of the unvierse, there is absolutely nothing. It's literally nothing until the Universe collides with it. Now why is this important?
Because the universe is expanding through utter nothingness. Not a vacuum, complete nothingness. Which means in theory, the Universe can and is travelling faster then the speed of light.
Since the speed of light is 187,000 milers per hour in a vacuum, if a vacuum is non exsistent, then in theory, you can travel faster then the speed of light, like the Universe is doing.
2007-05-05 16:38:50 · answer #5 · answered by eversky_2000_2001 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, light moves very funny. If you have two rocket ships flying in the same direction. Rocket A is flying half the speed of light and Rocket B is flying the speed of light intuitively you would think that Rocket A would see Rocket B flying away at slower than light speed but for some reason it isn't true. Rocket A will still see Rocket B moving away at light speed.
Wikipedia has a better example. In fact it has a whole section called "Constant velocity from all inertial reference frames" which pretty much says that light speed is constant no matter how fast you're moving relative to it. Check it out!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_speed
It's really weird stuff :)
2007-05-04 05:48:59 · answer #6 · answered by alexk 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The speed of light is not influenced by the velocity of its source.
Also you mentioned a star moving away from the 'location' of the Big Bang. The Big Bang had no 'location' because prior to it there was no space in which any location could be established. The Big Bang happened everywhere at once..!
2007-05-04 05:46:39 · answer #7 · answered by Chug-a-Lug 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The problem with present day understanding of relativity is a concept of of what mass is. Mass is formed of electromagnetic energy. This is seen when a high frequency electromagnetic wave is formed into a negative and positive electron pair. Although formed into three dimensional mass, the intrinsic value of "c" within the mass does not change.
As a mass nears the speed of light the kinetic energy is described as mk = hf (mass kinetic energy is equal to Plank's constant times its frequency), the same for electromagnetic energy E = hf. It is for this reason that a mass appears to shrink as it moves. The line density of energy (hf) is increasing in direction of travel at the expense of energy (hf) at right angles to direction of travel. A mass that reaches the speed of light is no longer dimensional mass but converts back into radiation.
There is a short, easy to read writing at http://360.yahoo.com/noddarc entitled "The Twin Paradox" that may be of interest to you.
2007-05-04 05:51:35 · answer #8 · answered by d_of_haven 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Light *always* moves at 186,282 Miles/second relative to the observer. If the object emitting the light is moving toward you, that gives the light more energy, and shifts the light towards the blue. If the object is moving away from you, the light has less energy, and is shifted toward the red.
2007-05-04 06:23:31 · answer #9 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
NO! According to Einstein, two light beams traveling in OPPOSITE directions still are going no faster than 186, 000 mps. (miles per second).
Not at the cumulative speed of 272, 000 mps.
2007-05-04 05:45:07 · answer #10 · answered by robert2020 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋