If you travel faster than light, what happens?
- Thread starter iholla
- Start date
- Status
That wouldn't happen.
Light acts weird. It's not at all like sound, although both travel fast. Light always moves away from you at the same speed - the speed of light - no matter how fast you're going.
If you stand still and shine a light, it travels just as fast as if you go 500mph and shine that light. EXACTLY as fast.
It's all relativity. You see, in Einsteinian physics (most commonly accepted by scientists today), there is no absolute time. There's no absolute space. There is only absolute space-time.
Imagine for a second that we're in a 2d world. This is just because we can more easily imagine the third dimension as time than we can the fourth dimension as time. You would have a "block" of space-time. The thickness is time.
Now we all move at the same speed all the time. We move, as humans, at exactly the speed of light. Always. Most of the time, our velocity is aimed more at the time dimension. Thus, as you speed up, you travel through time slower. Since the speed at which the light moves away from you (or in this case, velocity, since you're talking about it moving backwards) is a function of TIME, as time slows down, the speed seems to speed up. Thus, no matter how fast we travel, we always percieve light moving away from us to be moving at the same speed -- the speed of light.
On and while we're on the subject that is why people tote around time travel and moving faster than the speed of light. As you move towards the speed of light, time slows to a stop. So they assume that as you move faster, time goes backwards. Personally I think it's ridiculous, although a neat idea -- it has long been known that time is an "arrow", it only goes one way.
/end wall of text
IonCannon218
New Member
- Messages
- 177
- Reaction score
- 2
- Points
- 0
No, you're wrong.
Today, my physics teacher said that if anything goes faster than the speed of light (NOTHING DOES! PERIOD.), the object will go back in time.
To understand this phenomena you should first be able to understand Einsteins explanation of special relativity for this ,The easiest way to understand Einstein's explanation understand the simple equation that you have probably seen before: e = mc2. Inorder to understand this equation, let's consider a similar equation, one for converting between square inches and square feet. If i is the number of square inches and f is the number of square feet, then we can write the equation: I =144 f . The 144 comes from squaring the number of inches per foot (122 = 144). writing the same equation would be i = c2f, where c in this case is equal to 12 inches per foot. Depending on what units we use, this equation can be used to convert any measure of area to any other measure of area; just the constant c will be different. For example, the same equation can be used for converting square yards to square meters, where c is 0.9144, the number of yards per meter. The c2 is just the conversion constant.
The reason why these area equations work is that square feet and square inches are different ways of measuring the same thing, namely area. What Einstein realized, to everyone one's surprise, was that energy and mass are also just two different ways of measuring the same thing. It turns out that just a little bit of mass is equal to a whole lot of energy, so in the equation, the conversion constant is very large. For example, if we measure mass in kilograms and energy in joules, the equation can be written like this: e = 90,000,000,000,000,000 m. This means, for example, that a charged-up battery (which contains about one million joules of energy) weighs about 0.0000000001 grams morethan a battery that has been discharged.
If we work with different units, the conversion constant will be different. For instance, if we measure mass in tons, and energy in BTUs, then c will be 93,856,000,000,000,000. (It happens to work out that the conversion constant in a particular set of units is always the speed of light in those units, but that is another story.) If we measure both energy and mass in what physicists call "the natural units" (in which c = 1), we would write the equation: e = m, which makes it easier to understand; it just means that energy and mass are the same thing.
It doesn't matter whether the energy is electrical energy, chemical energy, or even atomic energy. It all weighs the same amount per unit of energy. In fact, the equation even works with something physicists called "kinetic" energy, that is, the energy something has when it is moving. For example, when I throw a baseball, I put energy into the baseball by pushing it with my arm. According to Einstein's equation, the baseball actually gets heavier when I throw it. (A physicist might get picky here and distinguish between something getting heavier and something gaining mass, but I'm not going to try. The point is that the ball becomes harder to throw.) The faster I throw the baseball, the heavier it gets. Using Einstein's equation, e = mc2, I calculate that if I could throw a baseball one hundred miles an hour (which I can't, but a good pitcher can), then the baseball actually gets heavier by 0.000000000002 grams — which is not much.
Now consider in a starship case, Let's assume that your engines are powered by tapping into some external energy source, so you don't have to worry about carrying fuel. As you get going faster and faster in your starship, you are putting more and more energy into the ship by speeding it up, so the ship keeps getting heavier. (Again, I should really be saying "massier" not "heavier" since there is no gravity in space.) By the time you reach 90 percent of the speed of light, the ship has so much energy in it that it actually has about twice the mass as the ship has at rest. It gets harder and harder to propel with the engines, because it's so heavy. As you get closer to the speed of light, you begin to get diminishing returns — the more energy the ship has, the heavier it gets, so the more energy that must be put into it to speed it up just a little bit, the heavier it gets, and so on.
The effect is even worse than you might think because of what is going on inside the ship. After all, everything inside the ship, including you, is speeding up, getting more and more energy, and getting heavier and heavier. In fact, you and all the machines on the ship are getting pretty sluggish. Your watch, for instance, which used to weigh about half an ounce, now weighs about forty tons. And the spring inside your watch really hasn't gotten any stronger, so the watch has slowed way down so that it only ticks once an hour. Not only has your watch slowed down, but the biological clock inside your head has also slowed down. You don't notice this because your neurons are getting heavier, and your thoughts are slowed down by exactly the same amount as the watch. As far as you are concerned, your watch is just ticking along at the same rate as before. (Physicists call this "relativistic time contraction.") The other thing that is slowed down is all of the machinery that is powering your engines (the dilithium crystals are getting heavier and slower, too). So your ship is getting heavier, your engines are getting sluggish, and the closer you get to the speed of light, the worse it gets. It just gets harder and harder and harder, and no matter how hard you try, you just can't quite get over the light barrier. And that's why you can't go faster than the speed of light.
Courtesy : How Things Are: A Science Tool-Kit for the Mind
The reason why these area equations work is that square feet and square inches are different ways of measuring the same thing, namely area. What Einstein realized, to everyone one's surprise, was that energy and mass are also just two different ways of measuring the same thing. It turns out that just a little bit of mass is equal to a whole lot of energy, so in the equation, the conversion constant is very large. For example, if we measure mass in kilograms and energy in joules, the equation can be written like this: e = 90,000,000,000,000,000 m. This means, for example, that a charged-up battery (which contains about one million joules of energy) weighs about 0.0000000001 grams morethan a battery that has been discharged.
If we work with different units, the conversion constant will be different. For instance, if we measure mass in tons, and energy in BTUs, then c will be 93,856,000,000,000,000. (It happens to work out that the conversion constant in a particular set of units is always the speed of light in those units, but that is another story.) If we measure both energy and mass in what physicists call "the natural units" (in which c = 1), we would write the equation: e = m, which makes it easier to understand; it just means that energy and mass are the same thing.
It doesn't matter whether the energy is electrical energy, chemical energy, or even atomic energy. It all weighs the same amount per unit of energy. In fact, the equation even works with something physicists called "kinetic" energy, that is, the energy something has when it is moving. For example, when I throw a baseball, I put energy into the baseball by pushing it with my arm. According to Einstein's equation, the baseball actually gets heavier when I throw it. (A physicist might get picky here and distinguish between something getting heavier and something gaining mass, but I'm not going to try. The point is that the ball becomes harder to throw.) The faster I throw the baseball, the heavier it gets. Using Einstein's equation, e = mc2, I calculate that if I could throw a baseball one hundred miles an hour (which I can't, but a good pitcher can), then the baseball actually gets heavier by 0.000000000002 grams — which is not much.
Now consider in a starship case, Let's assume that your engines are powered by tapping into some external energy source, so you don't have to worry about carrying fuel. As you get going faster and faster in your starship, you are putting more and more energy into the ship by speeding it up, so the ship keeps getting heavier. (Again, I should really be saying "massier" not "heavier" since there is no gravity in space.) By the time you reach 90 percent of the speed of light, the ship has so much energy in it that it actually has about twice the mass as the ship has at rest. It gets harder and harder to propel with the engines, because it's so heavy. As you get closer to the speed of light, you begin to get diminishing returns — the more energy the ship has, the heavier it gets, so the more energy that must be put into it to speed it up just a little bit, the heavier it gets, and so on.
The effect is even worse than you might think because of what is going on inside the ship. After all, everything inside the ship, including you, is speeding up, getting more and more energy, and getting heavier and heavier. In fact, you and all the machines on the ship are getting pretty sluggish. Your watch, for instance, which used to weigh about half an ounce, now weighs about forty tons. And the spring inside your watch really hasn't gotten any stronger, so the watch has slowed way down so that it only ticks once an hour. Not only has your watch slowed down, but the biological clock inside your head has also slowed down. You don't notice this because your neurons are getting heavier, and your thoughts are slowed down by exactly the same amount as the watch. As far as you are concerned, your watch is just ticking along at the same rate as before. (Physicists call this "relativistic time contraction.") The other thing that is slowed down is all of the machinery that is powering your engines (the dilithium crystals are getting heavier and slower, too). So your ship is getting heavier, your engines are getting sluggish, and the closer you get to the speed of light, the worse it gets. It just gets harder and harder and harder, and no matter how hard you try, you just can't quite get over the light barrier. And that's why you can't go faster than the speed of light.
Courtesy : How Things Are: A Science Tool-Kit for the Mind
khopcraft77
New Member
- Messages
- 80
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
Good question. It isn't actually possible, but it is fun to pretend it is (and my friend believes fully that it is in fact possible). Going faster than the speed of light, I think it would pretty much just be teleportation.
- Messages
- 764
- Reaction score
- 27
- Points
- 0
Technical Answer:
As Albert often said "it's all relative to the observer"
Trekkie Answer (no flaming Gene Roddenberry coined the phrase)
Faster than light no turning left or right - Tom Paris STV
There are some more quotes like that last one from Red Dwarf where Rimmer takes his Starbug driving test.
As Albert often said "it's all relative to the observer"
Trekkie Answer (no flaming Gene Roddenberry coined the phrase)
Faster than light no turning left or right - Tom Paris STV
There are some more quotes like that last one from Red Dwarf where Rimmer takes his Starbug driving test.
slowmassacrelabz24
New Member
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
First, what type of light? As all light colors are of different frequency, they must (by definition) have different speeds. In addition, gravity affects light so it can be slowed or increased in speed. Also, many consider space to be a vacuum, but its more likely filled with stuff such as gases and rocks, all of which affect the speed of light (like light through water doesn't travel the same speed as light through the atmosphere 1 foot above sand).
What would happen if you traveled faster than one of those? I think you would be ripped to shreds by all the small particles between you and your destination if you didn't have proper shielding.
It's kinda funny, I wrote NASA once about this very issue in the 1990s (traveling at high velocities without proper shielding) and asked if the person would be ripped to shreds or die of "radiation" poisoning. THEY said radiation poisoning, but I theorize "ripped to shreds" based on a "bullet" theory.
What would happen if you traveled faster than one of those? I think you would be ripped to shreds by all the small particles between you and your destination if you didn't have proper shielding.
It's kinda funny, I wrote NASA once about this very issue in the 1990s (traveling at high velocities without proper shielding) and asked if the person would be ripped to shreds or die of "radiation" poisoning. THEY said radiation poisoning, but I theorize "ripped to shreds" based on a "bullet" theory.
- Messages
- 1,408
- Reaction score
- 30
- Points
- 48
m an engineering student and according to us we can not travel faster than light. Even if u reach the velocity of light then ur mass will become infinite, time will stop for you and any u'll not be able to define your position in space. Velocity of light is the greatest velocity in this univrse.
m = \frac{m_0} {\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}
}}
Understand this latex code. U'll b able to figure it out urself.
---------- Post added at 09:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 AM ----------
haha.. Frequency affects wavelength nd so the velocity remains constant. But ur post was interesting.
---------- Post added at 09:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 AM ----------
light has both wave nd particle nature nd velocity comes under wave nature. i don't think that it will b affected by gravity.nd btw she'll able to turn her craft so she'll not collide with rocks
m = \frac{m_0} {\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}
}}
Understand this latex code. U'll b able to figure it out urself.
---------- Post added at 09:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 AM ----------
haha.. Frequency affects wavelength nd so the velocity remains constant. But ur post was interesting.
---------- Post added at 09:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 AM ----------
light has both wave nd particle nature nd velocity comes under wave nature. i don't think that it will b affected by gravity.nd btw she'll able to turn her craft so she'll not collide with rocks
- Messages
- 1,577
- Reaction score
- 60
- Points
- 0
Actually, light(consisting of massless photons) is affected by gravity.
This may sound inconsistent with the traditional Newton's Gravitational Law given that the interacting bodies/particles(here photons) are massless, thereby F proportional to m1 x m2 = 0.
But, we have theoretical evidences(blackholes in the cosmos) which proves that it is actually true.
FACT: speed of light = constant, this barrier can't be breached.(at least our current understanding of the universe says so)
As snshusat correctly wrote to an extent, time will stop for you when you travel even with a 0.99999999.....999999c; c =velocity of light.
Though not completely, as universe is defined in terms of space-time coordinates (x,y,z,t) - which are all relative(frame of reference) and based on this very fact, we have the so-called time-travel concept bothering our physicists.
*time-travel - we can't travel back in time, as this would create a paradox and universe doesn't allow paradoxes to exist.
So,yeah....you CANNOT UNDO whatever mistakes that you did in the past.
So,live with it.
Peace Out!
This may sound inconsistent with the traditional Newton's Gravitational Law given that the interacting bodies/particles(here photons) are massless, thereby F proportional to m1 x m2 = 0.
But, we have theoretical evidences(blackholes in the cosmos) which proves that it is actually true.
FACT: speed of light = constant, this barrier can't be breached.(at least our current understanding of the universe says so)
As snshusat correctly wrote to an extent, time will stop for you when you travel even with a 0.99999999.....999999c; c =velocity of light.
Though not completely, as universe is defined in terms of space-time coordinates (x,y,z,t) - which are all relative(frame of reference) and based on this very fact, we have the so-called time-travel concept bothering our physicists.
*time-travel - we can't travel back in time, as this would create a paradox and universe doesn't allow paradoxes to exist.
So,yeah....you CANNOT UNDO whatever mistakes that you did in the past.
So,live with it.
Peace Out!
Bryon
I Fix Things
- Messages
- 8,149
- Reaction score
- 101
- Points
- 48
I was about to yell at everyone for failing at physics, and say that they need to take some modern physics courses. Then I saw some nice factual replies like snshusat's correcting everyone.
Quick summary: Accelerating a mass to c requires an infinite energy source, which does not exist.
Quick summary: Accelerating a mass to c requires an infinite energy source, which does not exist.
Last edited:
- Messages
- 1,577
- Reaction score
- 60
- Points
- 0
I was about to yell at everyone for failing at physics, and say that they need to take some modern physics courses. Then I saw some nice factual replies like snshusat's correcting everyone.
Quick summary: Accelerating a mass to c requires an infinite energy source, which does not exist.
No one credits me ! Ever ! Me Sad!
- Messages
- 1,577
- Reaction score
- 60
- Points
- 0
Me happy now! xD
Nah! Don't give GOD all the credits for the misery that we have on the Earth.snshusat said:
HE(or may be SHE or may be IT) should be discredited too!
BTW, Man is the de facto God!
- Status