i remember reading somewhere that it was impossible for hmans to build a device that could travel at the speed of light but i cant remember why. can anyone please explain?
2007-10-21 01:55:18 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Einstein came up with this proposal. His E = mc^2 equation basically said energy and mass were the same kind of thing, and can actually be converted to each other ( this is what makes Nuclear powerplants release energy - mass is converted to energy).
Ok so tying this into the speed of objects.....einsten found through his equations that if you try to accelerate a body you will find that some of the energy applied to the body goes to increasing its speed and some of it goes to increasing its mass ( as per E= MC^2 eqn). At low speeds there is a bias towards almost all of the energy applied to the object going towards increasing the speed of the object and not really increasing the mass that much( e.g when you throw a ball).
But as the object moves faster and faster the bias shifts towards increasing the mass of the object rather that increasing the speed. When the object gets very close to the speed of light the proportion of energy going towards incresing the speed of the object rapidly approaches zero (mathematically speaking in 'asymtotic fashion' ) , and you reach a certain point whereby the energy required to accelerate the body further is more that the total energy encapsulated within the universe. As you can only ever accelerate the object with the available energy from the universe, you will always have a shortfall of energy when attempting to take a body to the speed of light.
2007-10-21 02:18:17 · answer #1 · answered by martin s 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because the speed of light is constant.
Imagine running behind a light flash, trying to catch up to it. No matter how fast you run relative to the surface of the Earth, the light flash still recedes from you at the speed of light, c. You can never catch up to it, so you can never go faster than it goes.
2007-10-21 02:03:06 · answer #2 · answered by ZikZak 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Travelling at the speed of light is impossible.
Theoretically we could travel faster than the speed of light but never being able to deaccelarate back down to the speed of light 2.86x10 8 M/S by using tachyons (e.g we travel at 1.1c- 10c but never at exactly 1c)
However, there's no way of us actually detecting tachyons so they are entirely hypothetical.
2007-10-21 02:06:59 · answer #3 · answered by Chris W 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Actually nothing is impossible. Some things are wildly improbable, but not impossible. 100 years ago breaking the sound barrier was impossible, before that flight was a scientific impossibility. Be careful of locking your mind in stone about anything.
2007-10-21 02:09:53 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
the mass of an object according to relativity theory increases with the speed according to
M = M(0)/ (1-(v^2/c^2))
v the speed of matter, c speed of light
When v nears c the denominator nears zero and the mass becomes infinite
2007-10-21 02:01:55 · answer #5 · answered by maussy 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
true i learned that in 3rd :) and 'll learn till 10
2007-10-21 02:03:57 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
because it's change to energy ( photon)
2007-10-21 02:21:30 · answer #7 · answered by dr-Fouad 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋