Second talk on Speed of Light: New Information

[exoeight]

I found the thread focusing on traveling at the speed of light immensly interesting and decided to make a new thread based on what I read at cnn.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/01/18/universe.speed/index.html

I was wondering if anyone would like to talk about it in reference to the other thread and maybe exchange how this will change current theories on matter traveling at such speeds.
Interesting at the least to find that matter can travel so close to the speed of light and not be destroyed, is it not?


Everything is only a matter of time.

 

[Gray Fox]

Hmm cool. But I was wondering myself, can't we do the same with particle accelerators, you know accelerate them to the speed of light.

 

[Tr0n]

I found the thread focusing on traveling at the speed of light immensly interesting and decided to make a new thread based on what I read at cnn.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/01/18/universe.speed/index.html

I was wondering if anyone would like to talk about it in reference to the other thread and maybe exchange how this will change current theories on matter traveling at such speeds.
Interesting at the least to find that matter can travel so close to the speed of light and not be destroyed, is it not?


Everything is only a matter of time.

Well that article says those blobs of matter only go 99.999999999999999999% of light speed.

So really it ain't light speed yet. It's close, but it ain't light speed.

 

[oberGeist]

nice article

haven't heard of them blazars yet, pretty interesting thing.
imagine the amount of energy that is involved - they are the size of a large planet and yet travel at 99,(9)% speed of light.
the question is - are they still accelerating? is this speed constant?

it is said, that there are particles that travel only faster than light (Tachyons probably). so as we can see - things can only travel BELOW or OVER the speed of light. apart the light itself of course.
so maybe when matter will be accelerated to the speed above c it will change it's state to somehing completely else, like tachyons maybe and continue to accelerate? maybe speed of light is indeed the gateway to another universe, but also to another state of things.
just a thought

and yes - I think that someday we'll find out. as history shows - sooner that we think

 

[Feath]

Travelling faster than the speed of light is not impossible according to relativity. If you imagine a graph of the energy required for a particle to reach a certain velocity; you'll see a symetrical graph. But it would have an asymtote (spelling?) at the same velocity of light. The barrier of light speed is impossible to pass through. Like, a particle that is going faster than the speed of light would require an infinate amount of energy to go as slow as the speed of light.

If I recall correctly, particles that go faster than the speed of light (called Tachyons) obey a strange behaviour. They speed up as they lose energy (as opposed to slowing down, like sub-light particles do).

And nothing would change as a result of the information in the article. They still aren't going at the speed of light, so the theory of relativity is safe.

 

[Edcrab]

It's been argued that Einstein proved that "time" is merely another dimension (and not a fabrication of the human mind), and that since it is experienced relative to our velocity in the universe the issue is not so much breaking the light barrier as warping it.

I suppose there's an interesting point there- if, using whatever method of propulsion, we eventually hit light speed (as in, as fast as light, not faster) travel would be revolutionised. Even light takes decades to cross the galaxy, but because of the "distortion" of time we'd barely be aware of the shift.

To us, when we slowed down (which is again open to debate, since theoretically hitting light speed would cause an immediate deceleration, presuming that LS truly is reality's speed limit) and emerged at our destination, we'd have been travelling for an undisclosed period (i.e., god knows how we'd experience it), when it truth we'd been absent for half a century.

Bit of an unpractical long-distance transit method then- stasis/supsended animation wouldn't be needed for the passengers so much as for the rest of the universe...

 

[lePobz]

What if one of these Blazar things hits earth... if there's so many of them and they're all moving at the speed of light, isnt planetary collision just a matter of time?

 

[Tr0n]

Well lePobz let me make it as simple as I can....

Blazer > Earth.

So yes it is a matter of time.

 

[KoreBolteR]

if we travelled at the speed at light, wouldnt our bodies mess up?

u know skin rip off face, blood going everywhere ? :O

but if we cud be able to travel light speed, travel from Wales to Australia in a second and walk off the "shuttle" with all limbs intact, id be happy

 

[.Jezus.]

Einstein, nearly 100 years ago, said it's not possible. For us,

What does he know, dumbass

 

[Steve]

Blazar...heh...."Allow me to introduce you to Team Globo Gym...this is Blade...Laser....Blaser..."

 

[mindless_moder]

the reason einstein said that its not possible is because as we start accelerating towards this speed our bodies would starting increasing in mass (and i mean till infinity) ...
so its just impossible for humans or ships to do it ...im sure we wont be able to solve this atleast not in our life time .
light has 0 mass which is why it can gain such a speed
but lately ive been thinking ....what if infinite mass actuallly means the lack of mass ie: when an object increases its mass towards infinity it actually starts getting lighter ........ so light is actually so heavy that it weighs nothing at all.
edit:
also since its all relative we could be traveling at light speed right now and not even know it ...if everything around us was trveling at the same speed ....umm...right ?

 

[dream431ca]

Now THAT is cool...so something can reach the barrier of the speed of light but cannot surpass it. I always thought you could get at least 90% of the speed of light but 99.9%!!?? That's very interesting. Good find man. :thumbs:

 

[gcomeau]

What if one of these Blazar things hits earth...

Roughly that same thing that would happen if a pulse rifle shot hit a mosquito.

if there's so many of them and they're all moving at the speed of light, isnt planetary collision just a matter of time?

Not necessarily, the universe is a ridiculously large place and earth is a very verysmall target. That said however, the Andromeda galaxy could very well be meeting up with ours in about 3 billion years.

That should be interesting... too bad I'll miss it.