Would it be possible for a solar car to travel faster than the speed of light?

Question

Your thoughts please.

Answer 1

It is impossible *as far as we know*, which doesn't rule it out in the long run. Some scientists claimed to have gotten around the limit already:
Mostly, those who postulate the existence of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, also admit that it is impossible for said particles to cross the speed of light boundry.

However, to explain the current rule, you can look to Einstein's theory of relativity. There are many equations, but they basically say that as velocity approaches the speed of light, your mass would increase to infinity, your length would decrease to infinity, and time would dialate to infinity (stand still). We cannot mathematically explain anything crossing the speed of light boundry. To be more precise than saying "infinity", what actually happens is that a term in the equation becomes a complex number, causing a singularity.

Traditional methods of propulsion (rocket engines, jets, ion engines, solar sails, etc) are of no use either. This is becasue that the amount of energy necessary to increase one's velocity increases as you approach the speed of light. When you are very close to the speed of light, in order to speed up more, you would need vast amounts of power. We just don't have the technology to do it that way.

Answer 2

This question of how do we know travelling light speed is impossible is simple to answer. In the macro scale, take a torch, the measuring object (let's take us as the white rat) and a simple stopwatch. Place the torch beside you and start running. Ask your friend to on the torch at the same time. You will notice light travels faster than you do. This shows that we travels slower than light speed. While running, try measuring the light's speed from the torch. You will notice that the speed is the same as the light's speed while you are travelling at the same speed or in opposite direction with the torch. (This is one of Einstein's postulate, and it is proved to be true from experiment). Do you smell something fishy? If the light's speed you measure while moving or stationary is the same, then this just shows that you cannot win light speed because while you are moving, you will find light speed still be light speed. As for your question on the relevance for calculating speed if no firm anchor point can be made, you can safely take yourself as the anchor point. Let's say if you are always stationary and you are on the car moving from point A to B, you will find the trees to be moving at some speed towards and away from you. You will be able to calculate the energy the tree possesses. You can calculate the impact if the tree collides with you. This shows that all these calculates are still valid, and you can take any point to be the anchor point. All calculations will be relative, and this is what we are interested in rather than the absolute speed.

Answer 3

A solar car just might reach a speed of 50 MPH if it also had sails, a strong tail wind, and somebody got out and pushed. This is considerably slower than the 186,000 Miles per Second that light travels.

Answer 4

You mean a car solar powered, if so no, as photons that power it could not hit it if it was going faster than them. Anyway Einstein showed you need to transform all your mass to energy to accelerate to the speed of light so unless your inherently traveling faster than light in the first place no chance.

Answer 5

errm, a solar car is simply a car powered by the suns rays instead of maybe petrol or gas. nothin more, nothin less. thats it. just a solar powered car. how fast it travels depends on the engineers who build it, the kinda metals and materials used to build it, the shape of the body, the type of engine, the overall weight etc. but i seriously doubt we'll be making anything wiht faster-than-light speed within the next 700 years.

Answer 6

Consider that the mass of an object stretches and increases as the object approaches the speed of light - as well, the amount of energy required to accelerate an object to those speeds increases exponentially - it would require an enormous amount of solar power. Nothing we currently have boasts that kind of energy output. A possibility is learning how to accelerate several atoms, smashing them into each other under extreme gravitational effects, to generate a "miniature star" through which we could hardess its energy. Even this is unlikely, if creating such a thing were possible. To even cause a small object to approach the speed of light could require an amount of energy equal to or greater than half the lifetime of our sun.

Answer 7

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
The speed of light is governed by a time pulse of minimum duration.
The time pulse can't be divided and still exist.
To attempt to increase the speed of light you would have to shorten the basic time pulse.
As an aside,if a sunlight powered car exceeded the speed of light,no sunlight could catch up to it to power it.

Answer 8

if the car traveled faster than the solar rays that it was powered on... i dont see how this is feasable... also the faster something goes, the heavier it gets, theoretically at the speed of light you weigh infinity. this is also a problem. light has no mass remember, its a wave!

for some perspective, the fastest man made object is Voyager 1. its currently traveling at .006c or 0.6 percent the speed of light.

Answer 9

Possible, if its solar cells can power a rocket engine providing enough thrust to accelerate to above 300,000 km/s, which is highly unlikely. Currently, the power output of solar panels is dependent on surface area. In your case, the car should be really really wide.

Answer 10

Not according to Einsteins theory of relativity. The theoretical speed limit of the universe is light speed nothing faster.

Not to mention any contemporary design would break up or melt long before it reaches even close to light speed.