Faster than the speed of light?

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Originally posted by Quasar
Say you have a large motor in space, like your ceiling fan, with "fins" that project extremely far out away from the motor. There is a capsule with a seat in it close to the motor, that can run on a track from the motor out to the edge of the "fin." If this was long enough to accelerate you to the speed of light, (670,616,629.2 mph) would it be possible to fling you out faster than the speed of light?

No, it doesn't work that way.

To my understanding, the Theory of Relativity states that it is close to impossible to achieve the thrust needed to propel you faster than the speed of light. What if the thrust was centrifugal force?

It's all still acceleration, whether it's in a straight line or a curved line.

But how about this for your next science question: When you play laser beam on the wall with the cat, the tip of the laser beam can travel as fast as you can change the angular momentum, right? As you pivot the laser beam, the speed of the dot on the wall can be very fast. If you had a huge laser beam and was able to reflect it off planets several light years away, could the speed at which the dot of the beam moves from planet to planet ever travel faster than light? After all, you'd only have to move the beam a fraction of a degree here on Earth for the dot to travel light years across the deep sky.

Heh.

I see what you are saying. I have wondered about similar things. I think we would actually be talking about perspective effecting location. Very cool.

Now, if a craft could be kept in some sort of focused bubble of that light, at the end of the beam, it could be moved at that incredible speed.
Which, in a way, is a kind of improved Light-Sail concept.

Isn't it?

I will post a exelent link about all the possibilities of "Faster then light"!

the best canditates are the Tachyon particles, but even that ones need yet to be prooven they exist.

Funny the laser beans and shadow exemples they talk about.

enjoy:

FAster then light theorys

Why cant we travel faster than light? Theres no proof we cant

No one has proven we cant, only theorised, therefore there is always a probability that we can go faster.

Remember only a few hundred years ago it was deemed impossible to travel at the speeds we attain now.

Only time will tell.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
But how about this for your next science question: When you play laser beam on the wall with the cat, the tip of the laser beam can travel as fast as you can change the angular momentum, right? As you pivot the laser beam, the speed of the dot on the wall can be very fast. If you had a huge laser beam and was able to reflect it off planets several light years away, could the speed at which the dot of the beam moves from planet to planet ever travel faster than light? After all, you'd only have to move the beam a fraction of a degree here on Earth for the dot to travel light years across the deep sky.

Heh.

Is it just me or does this sound like a very easy question? It seems you don’t comprehend that the distance involved in this experiment makes it completely different from playing with a laser at home on your wall.

The light being emitted from the laser is a constant stream of energy, it’s not some sort of “solid string line”. Therefore the minute you change the laser to point to another part of the sky even by 1 degree, the light then has to travel from its original starting point (i.e. the laser earth) to get to the planet it is now pointing towards.

The same concept applies when you are playing with a laser at home on your wall. The moment you change the direction of the laser it appears that it is instantly showing up on the wall at the new point. However it is not instant at all.

I have my own question I find ultimately interesting:

Let’s say you have two ships in deep space, there’s no stars or galaxies in a 100 light year radius. Now, one of the ships, lets call it ship A, has an artificial gravity generator on board as powerful as our own sun. The generator is turned off by default. Ship B then travels away from ship A until it reaches a distance of 5 light minutes. Now, in an experiment, if ship A turns the switch to enable the gravity generator, how long will it take for Ship B to feel the effects of said generator?

Will it take 5 light minutes or will it be instant or something entirely different?

I posted this initially as anonymous post, then decided to log in and post again so that I can read responses.

After struggling for a long time, I decided to understand this speed of light problem in a more simpler (but wierder) terms. This theory requires 3-D multiverse (note just space, not time) at every possible time points.

Here goes, first speed = c is fixed, but this speed is not in the three dimensional universe, but in the four dimensional space time. If you stay still , then you are moving at speed of 'c' in spacetime, but in the axis of time alone where 'c equals one second'. Now any movement you make in the three dimensional world reduces your speed in the time axis. You calculate this change by assuming that the speed in the 3-d world( spacetime minus time axis) is a projection of a unit diaognal in the spacetime, where the value of this unit is 'c'. For example, if you travelled 10 metre per second. Then instead of travelling one second on the time axis, you just travelled square_root(square(c) - 100) divided by c seconds on the time axis. The strange thing here is, if one of your parent was sitting idle while you were travelling 10 metre per second, then he/she would have travelled more in time than you are, yet you see them. The best way to resolve this paradox is to assume multi-verse at every possible time points (If there is a limit to measurable time, then can we use this as absolute minimum ?). So while you moved at 10 meter per second, you moved from one (3-D)universe and landed on another that was just behind the one you were originally in. The parent you see now is actually from another 3-D universe. Ahh...but how to account for the absence of duplicates. Why should everyone of you in the multiverse choose to do the same thing all the time... well, all I wanted was to understand Einstein's relativity but I ended up creating more questions than answers.

BTW, according to the above, since light travels at 'c', it never leaves the time it was created, since it is always moving in the same 3-D space at speed 'c', the projection on time axis is zero. It is objects/matter that keep moving from one 3-D universe to another depending on their speed, light just stays put in the universe/time it was created.
I posted this initially as anonymous post, then decided to log in and post again so that I can read responses.

Originally posted by Quasar

Originally posted by Togetic
The really wacky part is that if two ships move away each at nearly c, then in a Newtonian model one ship would perceive the other ship as moving away at 2c. The really wacky and strangely elegant part is that if one of the ships were to send a photon to the other ship, the other ship would calculate it as traveling at c! Why do they get that measurement? It's because time actually starts to change. Basically, the universe says "Well, it needs to be observed as going at at c, because that's the law, but since distance and velocity are both fixed, and velocity x time = distance, then the only thing left to do is change time!"

Blows my mind. Still does, years after learning that for the first time.

I got into a good conversation with my father tonight, which is why I posted this. I have had this idea for awhile, but I have always contradicted myself once we start talking relativity. He says theres no way to reach the speed of light. But relative to us sitting in our house, the speed of light is C. Take into account the speed of the earth rotating on its axis, plus the revolution around the sun, plus the revolution around the black hole in the center of our galaxy, plus however fast our galaxy is travelling through space, how fast are we going?

If you observe light from your moving house on the earth, all light travels at c. If you are on a ship moving away from earth, light moves at c. You will observe the light moving at c, because the time is going to stretch and slow to make sure that you do measure it at c. There is, according to current models, no way around it.

Originally posted by VladTheImpaler
I have my own question I find ultimately interesting:

Let’s say you have two ships in deep space, there’s no stars or galaxies in a 100 light year radius. Now, one of the ships, lets call it ship A, has an artificial gravity generator on board as powerful as our own sun. The generator is turned off by default. Ship B then travels away from ship A until it reaches a distance of 5 light minutes. Now, in an experiment, if ship A turns the switch to enable the gravity generator, how long will it take for Ship B to feel the effects of said generator?

Will it take 5 light minutes or will it be instant or something entirely different?

Current theories have the force of gravity traveling on illusionary particles called gravitons, and when they hit you, you feel the force of gravity. In these models, gravitons can't travel faster than light.

The only circumstance in which information can move faster than light, allegedly, and it is probable an illusion, is Einstein's "Spooky action at a distance" phenomenon.

If memory serves (and I'm getting on a bit so it may not) Einsteins theory that you can not travel faster than the speed of light was worked out using the spead of light as a constant speed that never changes.

However, I am pretty sure that recent studies have found that at the dawn of the universe, milliseconds after the "big bang" light travelled faster than it does now and slowed down to the speed we now regard as being a constant. If this is true, then which speed of light can we not travel faster than, its original speed or its speed now, and if its the speed now, then how did it originally travel faster if you cant go faster?

Now that I've created my own little paradox there I'm off to shoot a paintball from my car at 30 mph and see what happens

[edit on 6-2-2007 by timeportal]

Einstien is not the end all be all of physics. There was a breakthrough not too long ago that suggested that light had actually slowed since the "Big Bang". Another breakthrough is that E=MC2 is not plausible for it is an unbalanced equation.

The speed of light is not constant. www.eurekalert.org...

Originally posted by AlphaAnuOmega
Einstien is not the end all be all of physics. There was a breakthrough not too long ago that suggested that light had actually slowed since the "Big Bang". Another breakthrough is that E=MC2 is not plausible for it is an unbalanced equation.

The speed of light is not constant. www.eurekalert.org...

I am familiar with this research; that effect is explained as a quirk of quantum mechanics and doesn't bend relativity at all.

This, of course, doesn't mean that there is a way around traveling faster than light, at least in our four dimensions. Most likely, we haven't found it yet, because we can't perceive the extra dimensions implied by string theory and other unified models. I hope we'll figure out how to do it someday.

[edit on 2/6/2007 by Togetic]

Watch dan akroyd's video, with david sereda

It explains how its possible to go faster than the speed of light. look for the part where he goes into detail about the GALAXY CLOCK. It's on part 2 of the video.

Very intriguing none the less.

And IMHO i think Einstein wasnt correct about everything he stated, He might not have been way off but enough.

I think we live in a world were we have to prove those theories wrong or well never get out of this void were living in.

First off, in order to travel near the speed of light, we have to fully understand light. We first stated that light was energy, pure energy. We have hashed and rehashed this theory for years. Light started off as energy, then a fluid, and now particles. We have to have a standard of what light really is before we can use it as a speed standard.

Here's a good read:

en.wikipedia.org...

Some guys at Yale shoot some laser faster than the speed of light a few years ago? I could be wrong, its been know to happen.

The only thing that would work is if you could build a shield, force, laser what ever that would be like a bubble.

Everything around it could be traveling faster than the speed of light including the bubble.

But inside the bubble time, G-fore is normal for humans to handle

You CANNOT just sit on your hands because Einstein said. If we as a people stopped trying everytime someone said, we would still be living on a flat earth were the water flowed off into the Gods domain.

this may have been covered but it is possible to go faster then the speed of light. My frineds, a physics and electronis prodegy was able to recreate an experiment where he took two prisims made of parphim wax, spaced exactly the wavelenght of one radio wave apart. He then created a drirectional radio atenna and pointed it at the prisims. The radio waves hit the prism and are instantaliously teleported to the other prism, jumping the gap. They do this instantaniously, so they go faster then light.

And to answer the origional question, nothing that has mass can every go fater then light. period.

That is not true according to the theory of relativity. E=MC2 so if you are an Einstienian, you will see his loophole. In order for there to be electricity...ie, energy, Mas is accelerated at least twice the speed. It's simple...if it wasn't possible, we wouldn't be here.

Originally posted by squidbones
this may have been covered but it is possible to go faster then the speed of light. My frineds, a physics and electronis prodegy was able to recreate an experiment where he took two prisims made of parphim wax, spaced exactly the wavelenght of one radio wave apart. He then created a drirectional radio atenna and pointed it at the prisims. The radio waves hit the prism and are instantaliously teleported to the other prism, jumping the gap. They do this instantaniously, so they go faster then light.

And to answer the origional question, nothing that has mass can every go fater then light. period.

Experiments like this are often quirks of quantum mechanics, but don't disprove relativity. The information is mostly likely not going faster than light, we just observe it that way.

Originally posted by AlphaAnuOmega
That is not true according to the theory of relativity. E=MC2 so if you are an Einstienian, you will see his loophole. In order for there to be electricity...ie, energy, Mas is accelerated at least twice the speed. It's simple...if it wasn't possible, we wouldn't be here.

The problem here is that energy and electricity are not the same. Energy has a specific meaning; it is a quality that everything, even rubber, which doesn't conduct, has. Electricity is the movement of electrons through a conducting material. Energy is essentially the insubstantial "quality" that makes the electrons move.

It is a very vague concept, one I still have trouble wrapping my head around sometimes, but understanding it is important in picking apart E=mc^2.

Here is what I don't understand as far as E=MC^2...why hasn't anyone been allowed to disprove it. You see in the news that people are almost there and someone disproves it. This theory isn't proven, hence the theory, so why believe it. Isn't that just a form of control??