What do you think about this?

Question

Okay, they say when we look out into the universe, we are studying history, because it takes the light from those stars thousands of years to reach us. So what we see is from thousands of years ago. If that is true, then couldn't we take a camera traveling faster than the speed of light(I know, considered impossible...so far) and push it away from the earth, but facing earth, and we would see the earth traveling back in time? Wouldn't that solve the problem of where the world came from. Of course you have to set aside petty things like can it zoom, how big is it, nothing can travel that fast. Assuming all those things were possible, wouldn't that be amazing? I believe it will happen one day. What do you think?

wow ben_of_marlow, I really didn't think about that....great point. It's people like you we need to think out experiments before they are run!

ben_of_marlo, I thought about it and the light wouldn't have to reach you, because it's already there, the camera is what has to catch up to the light beams emitted from thousands of years ago.

Answer 1

So basically you want to make a camera that outruns the light coming from Earth. Thats a pretty cool idea, but ALL THINGS POSSIBLE>>> traveling at a speed greater than the speed of light would mean that the camera would have to transmit the pictures back at a rate at least twice the speed the camera is moving in order for the pictures to get back to earth and it would still take billions of years to get back to the start. By then earth may be no more and humans may be living in another place.

Answer 2

You can't, given that faster that light travel is possible and that you are watching directly on that camera, the camera is moving at the other side of the light cone which means you can't capture any light from Earth at all, if you travel at a portion of light speed then you'll capture a 'late" sight of the Earth, not past.

Answer 3

If you COULD travel faster than light, you might have to point the camera AWAY from earth to capture any light coming from earth--sort of like if its raining and you have a bucket traveling traveling downwards faster than the rain is falling, it would have to be upside-down to capture any rain. I'm not sure because speeds near the speed of light distort the geometry of space, and there is no geometry known that corresponds to faster-than-light travel.

You'd also need one very strong camera to survive collisions with interstellar gas at faster-than-light speeds.

Answer 4

Yes, if you could travel faster than light you would see light that emitted from earth at a time earlier than when it left. And if you could travel fast enough and far enough you could watch the creation of the earth.

Answer 5

I never thought of that. You would have to slow down, at times, to let light catch up. But if you were traveling faster than light, you were passing up much light that left the earth before you did. As Spock would say, "fascinating."

Answer 6

It doesn't work that way. A camera taking pictures while moving away from its subject at a speed faster than light wouldn't capture any pictures at all.

Answer 7

Traveling faster than the speed has been proven to be impossible. So there is no so far about it. They might see other worlds forming from earth however.

Answer 8

WITH MAN KINDS DESTRUCTION TO MOTHER EARTH i see no possibility that the human race will ever evolve to that point to have the technology and advanced ..it would take another 100 years to do so.. it would be great to see it.. but mankind needs to learn how to manage the problems here on earth first.

Answer 9

to add to Ben of Marlo you would have to travel sufficiently faster than the speed of light for a while and then stop and then photograph the photons as they reach you.