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2007-05-08 17:38:23 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Physics

4 answers

Depends on whose time you're talking about. If you're talking about the time passing on board the ship traveling at light speed, nothing happens to time. The fast as light space travelers will see no change in their clocks, ship's mass, or its length.

However, the observers on Earth (or some other stationary platform) would see major changes. They would see time slow down to zero passage on the space ship, while their own time stayed the same. They would see the length of the spaceship shorten to nothing, while everything on Earth was fixed. And, if they could measure it, they would find the mass of the space ship had grown to infinite mass.

Of course, zero time, inifinite mass, and zero length are impossible to attain because light speed is impossible to attain. Remember F = ma? Well how much force do you think a space ship would need to accelerate that last little bit to reach light speed? Remeber m is almost infinity at this point. Yep, the ship would need nearly an infinite amount of force to finally reach light speed. There isn't that much force in the whole universe...can't be done.

The equations that specify what happens to time, length, and mass near light speed are rather easy to follow. You can look them up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_transformation which covers the Lorentz trasnformations that cause the time, mass, and lenght to vary with the speed of the space ship.

2007-05-08 17:57:29 · answer #1 · answered by oldprof 7 · 0 0

Theoretically, time slows down as speed increases. At light speed, time stops.

2007-05-08 17:41:56 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

time does not stop at light speed. it just slows down, and not as much as one would think either.

2007-05-08 17:46:02 · answer #3 · answered by Mister 5 · 0 0

you merely can't try this. The question isn't smart you're asking what might bodily take place in case you ought to do the bodily impossible. Relativity prohibits speedier than mild trip. that's not a query of coming up a rapid sufficient spaceship, the guidelines of physics merely do not enable it. the fee of light is the excellent, unbreakable, cosmic velocity shrink.

2016-10-15 04:06:13 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

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