if you suspend a few things and submit that the craft could even exist, go that fast, and stay in tact with you in tact as well,
what would theoretically happen?
2007-09-07 14:34:57 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
You put so many "if" already, your guess is as good as any, since the conditions are so hypothetical.
There is a reason why you cannot go to the speed of light, one of them is that the mass of the ship would go up exponentially, reaching infinity (and thus heavier than all of the universe) when reaching the speed of light. What would be the consequence of an infinite mass? It would attract everything and the universe would collapse onto the spaceship (of course, one would have to factor the propagation of the gravity wave, which is believed to also travel at the speed of light).
2007-09-07 14:45:45 · answer #1 · answered by Vincent G 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Everything on the space ship would be in your same frame of reference and so be stable with respect to you.
According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity the closer you get to the speed of light the more your mass, the shorter your length in the dimension of travel and the slower time will pass. So at just short of the speed of light your mass will approach infinite, your time will seem to stop and you will seem to be squished to nothing. However, for you nothing will look wrong. The effects will only be observable from someone outside of your frame of reference.
Without artificial gravity then you would be in microgravity and the objects would be suspended in space.
At a near infinite mass I don't know of any structure that could survive, but in your frame of reference it would retain its normal weight and mass.
The problem comes in when you try to decelerate or dodge some sort of debris in space. The huge inertia would smash the crew against the wall and crush them to a fine jelly.
If you are familiar with a parabola then you know that the function will describe a line that never approaches the X or Y axis. The speed of light is the same constant. It will take all the energy in the universe, and then some to go that fast. Infinity is infinity and you can only approach it, not reach it.
The Enterprise on Star Trek is a space ship that travels very fast. However, when it goes faster than speed of light it generates a warp bubble in space time. The ship itself never exceeds the speed of light the bubble of space time that it is in does.
2007-09-07 21:41:32 · answer #2 · answered by Dan S 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Wow i mean that would be crazy. We would have traveled almost the entire univers ( still not logical)
But my only downside is that if humans did go that that fast!!!
We would have a really hard time riding the rocket i mean even current ships are so fast and so much pressure is needed. A rocket as fast as light would be just crazy to steer with pressure
But that would be great to humanity if it worked>
2007-09-07 21:42:08 · answer #3 · answered by Jake 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The question has no merit. You are essentially saying "pretend the laws of physics and motion don't exist for a minute" and then asking us to make predictions about something, which we cannot do without a structured set of rules (that you've told us to ignore) to go by.
Theories are based on observations and the physical laws we take to be true. You can't form a theory based on those laws if the premise of the thing about which you are theorizing violates those selfsame laws.
2007-09-07 22:31:54 · answer #4 · answered by Arkalius 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
If you put the numbers into Einstein's equations of Special Relativity you get IMAGINARY answers. That is the numbers under the square root sign are negative numbers. So you can interpret Imaginary time, mass and length as you will.
2007-09-12 19:51:06 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, hypothetically, suspending all the reasons why you couldn't travel faster than light, you would travel back in time. Then you would have some serious problems with causality.
2007-09-07 21:42:01 · answer #6 · answered by Lucas C 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Any device that could be used for faster than light travel, could also be used for travel to the past.
2007-09-08 00:05:47 · answer #7 · answered by modax42 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
you would consume an infinite amount of energy and have an infinite mass. thats why nothing with a mass can go the speed of light. and lets say that didnt happen. stopping would proably rip apart the shuttle and you.
2007-09-07 21:40:51 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
you'd get to the space 7-11 a lot faster
2007-09-11 09:53:38 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
above posters claimed you would travel back in time. that's not true. what would happen is you'd be able to see the universe as it was in the past, because you are traveling to the distance for the light reaches it.
2007-09-07 21:44:28 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋