lightspeed question?

Question

if a lifeform move in lightspeed, will it crash when something blocks its way? scientific answer would be better

Answer 1

No, you will bend, if not red shifted and if not blue shifted.

Answer 2

If you are moving at exactly lightspeed then, from your perspective, any finite distance parallel to your velocity will measure exactly zero.

L = Lo * SQRT(1 - v^2)
where Lo is the finite distance between any two object (or the "proper length" of an object.
v is your speed in fractions of the speed of light,
L is the perceived distance (or length).

(according to theory of relativity, you can use this Lorentz transformation because it is just as valid to say that you are stopped and the rest of the universe is moving)


Since v = 1 (exactly the speed of light), then 1 - v^2 = 1-1 = 0;
then L = Lo*0 = 0 (as long as Lo is finite).

Therefore, there will be a lot of matter (i.e., not zero) to cross in a distance of zero = infinite density.

If you are a photon of light (or some other massless particle), then your wave function will determine (along with the nature of the matter) whether you make it through or not.

My personnal opinion: I suspect that given enough time (infinite?), every single photon emitted in our universe will eventually be absorbed by something.

If you are not a massless particle, then infinite density will block you. All your mass will be transformed in pure energy.

So, either way, I think that blockage is inevitable. Will it be a "crash"? Because photons are massless, they have finite energy at lightspeed. Therefore, when they are absorbed, the energy (being finite) can be absorbed (e.g., an electron jumps up a few orbits around a nucleus).

However, the energy of a "massive" particle moving at exactly the speed of light is too much for anything to absorb: tremendous crash.
Any object can only absorb a finite amount of energy. It would therefore require an infinite quantity of matter to absorb the infinite amount of energy of the "collision".

Answer 3

It would.

Objects with mass can't reach that actual speed, but can come 99.99999....% close to it if you keep spending energy to accelerate it further.
Lorentz contraction shrinks the object toward zero size only in the dimension of the direction it is travelling in. If I flew like Superman at lightspeed, My 6 foot length would contract to zero but I would still have all of my width and height, so I wouldn't truly have zero size.

As the first answer suggests, you'd get a boom. Since E=mc^2, the more energy you pour into the object's energy of motion, the more massive it actually gets (significant only when at speeds near lightspeed). This energy would all be released if the object were stopped (like if it hit a planet), and could be on the order of a nuclear explosion. It will depend on how just fast it was in fact travelling.

Even if the very fast object hit something very small that was standing still, from that "Superman"'s point of view, it is as though he were stationary and the little object hit him with that much speed, and even that could release enough energy to destroy both objects even if the pieces kept moving at high speed. They could both turn into very long, hot clouds.

Answer 4

If you are massless particle capable of traveling with c-speed, then your obstacle should be the same or smaller "size" the yours, otherwise it would not be an obstacle.

If you are a massive body, you wil burst off before you achieve the speed of light. But, if you want to ignore that fact, you will shrink to 0 size (Lorentz contraction) so there would be no obstacle for you.

Answer 5

Lightspeed is just a speed. If you're traveling at light speed (theoretically impossible) or at .99999% light speed and you hit something?

Boom.

Answer 6

If we were able to accelerate to light speed the space craft would have a mass of infinity and form a black hole.

Answer 7

That Infidel Silver Suffer goes through objects all the time. Him and his power comic. Fool