Why you can't go the speed of light ( for some people who asked)

[hasan]

clarky, who gives you these ideas?

listen: it's been tested and proven: take two identicl atomic clocks, synchronize them, put one of them in a airplane (or a fast vehicle) for a period of time, bring them back again: voila! they are out of sync!

the starting point for of this is: C is the only absolute speed in the universe, everything else is relative to you.

if you are standing still, starting at a tree, you see that the tree is standing still, on the ground.
but actually, both you and the tree are moving in space, because the earth is moving. but relative to you, the tree and the earth are not moving.

if you are driving a car at 80km/h, a person standing on the groud would see you move at 80km/h, but another driver going 70km/h would see you going at 10km/h (maybe my math is scrwed, butr you get the point )

this is not ture for the speed of light, it was found that no matter what speed you move at, you always see light moving at C. (this is not a theory, it's been tested many many times and it's always true).

 

[Parrot of doom]

Clarky its quite simple. Get on a spaceship. Travel 10 light years at near c. Come back. To everybody on earth, this voyage would have taken 20 years. To you, it would have taken a few days/weeks.

 

[clarky003]

okay, ill just go and prove that.

:O

anyone got a starship ?..

seriously, near C it would take me 20 years to do the whole journey, its just light at that speed would play tricks on me, but time wouldnt change, id just spend 20 years seeing everything go very slow, then when i came back to normal speed everything would correct itself, and id find id aged 20 years no matter how i end up percieving it. along with everyone on earth,

I tell you light has no correlation with actual time, we think it does because its our means of measuring time, its just one great big illusion, and as reliable we think light is as a source of information, it really isnt, its just misleading in this way.

I dont get these ideas from nowhere, im trying to think outside the box here, as if i werent human, trying to find the truth behind it all, and only as a human being in my mind it realises that light matters to us, but only us, as an 'intelligent' being. Now weither our senses tell us the truth about the universe or not is still a strong point of thought, they only tell us half truths,

and if you think our senses are not atall limiting our comprehensive abilities of the universe, say so now.

 

[DavE0r]

yes.. like clarky said... as you approach the speed of light, time relative to you (i.e your own little dimple in the space time continum) slows down. This HAS ben proven...they stuck an atomic clock on a spcae ship..cos thats like tha fastes thing we have atm. Anyways, it was synchronised with one on earth. WHen they finished getting up in to orbit, it was slow. This is because time had passed more slowly within the object (and for the people and clocks in this case) because they were also travelling at the same speed as the craft.

So essence...there is the posibility of traveling foreward in time..i mean we do it all the time...everytime you drive your car, time is passing more slowly for you ( however miniscule) than the guy your overtaking, or the guy on the pedal bike you just passed. Its all relative.

The closer you get to the speed of light...the slower time passes for YOU..no one else..jsut you and/or the object your traveling in!!

 

[dream431ca]

The theory of relativity also explains that nothing is ever standing still or (not moving at all). It basically explains..even though something may be standing still...to you (who is moving) will see it move past you (if you past the object that was still). Basically nothing can ever be not moving. If we were to say that something was absolutly not moving it would have to be an object that ABSOLUTLY everything could say that it wasn't moving. (which you will not find.)

 

[hasan]

okay, ill just go and prove that.

The atmoic clock expermient has been done many times.

Einestines' theories are still being tested, and so far it has passsed all the tests.

You know, I personally don't agree with many theories, like the mutliverse theory, they're just theories, just because they are accepted widely doesn't make them true.

However, Eistien's relativity is not just a theory, it's been tested many many times, and it always passsed the test.

 

[DavE0r]

einstein owns j00!!

 

[Lil' Timmy]

The closer you get to the speed of light...the slower time passes for YOU..no one else..jsut you and/or the object your traveling in!!

make sure you are distinguishing between time "for you" and "to you". time flow is the same in all reference frames, because c is the same in all reference frames (so is length, mass, etc.). for you, within your own reference frame, all of these properties of reality are normal. for others observing you from outside of your frame, your properties will appear to be different (you'll be more massive, you'll be moving more slowly in time, you'll be stretched, etc).

clarky, your notion is cute and all, but it's just a bunch of arm waving. the fundamental connection between spacetime and velocity as a function of c has been shown before, as hasan and others have pointed out. science can indeed give you answers to the 'whys' of existence, that's precisely what physics has been trying to do for over 100 years. the theories are constantly refined though.

problem is, the human mind can always ask an infinitely reducible "why". but just because you can ask a question doesn't mean it's not nonsensical.

edit: edge, yes my avatar is irresistibly cute isn't it? the avatar has you

 

[dream431ca]

okay, ill just go and prove that.

:O

anyone got a starship ?..

seriously, near C it would take me 20 years to do the whole journey, its just light at that speed would play tricks on me, but time wouldnt change, id just spend 20 years seeing everything go very slow, then when i came back to normal speed everything would correct itself, and id find id aged 20 years no matter how i end up percieving it. along with everyone on earth,

I tell you light has no correlation with actual time, we think it does because its our means of measuring time, its just one great big illusion, and as reliable we think light is as a source of information, it really isnt, its just misleading in this way.

I dont get these ideas from nowhere, im trying to think outside the box here, as if i werent human, trying to find the truth behind it all, and only as a human being in my mind it realises that light matters to us, but only us, as an 'intelligent' being. Now weither our senses tell us the truth about the universe or not is still a strong point of thought, they only tell us half truths,

and if you think our senses are not atall limiting our comprehensive abilities of the universe, say so now.

Think about this for a minute...if a star is 10 light years away you are "seeing" the star about 10 years in the past...the question is...if you had a space ship coming from that star coming to earth at the speed of light how long will it seem to take you..very mind bending question...especially if you try and use the theory of relativity to explain it. :x

 

[Parrot of doom]

seriously, near C it would take me 20 years to do the whole journey, its just light at that speed would play tricks on me, but time wouldnt change, id just spend 20 years seeing everything go very slow, then when i came back to normal speed everything would correct itself, and id find id aged 20 years no matter how i end up percieving it. along with everyone on earth,

Theres not much else I can say other than you're wrong. To an observer, the journey would take 20 years. To the traveller, it would take, well, not much time at all really. The traveller would return and find everybody had aged 20 years, while he'd only aged a few weeks (because to him, thats how long the journey took).

 

[Parrot of doom]

Think about this for a minute...if a star is 10 light years away you are "seeing" the star about 10 years in the past...the question is...if you had a space ship coming from that star coming to earth at the speed of light how long will it seem to take you..very mind bending question...especially if you try and use the theory of relativity to explain it. :x

It would take 10 years if you were watching from Earth. If you were on the ship, probably a few days/weeks.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

If you were on the ship, probably a few days/weeks.

actually it would take exactly no time at all for the traveler if you somehow managed to violate physical law and travel at c (as the question asks).

 

[C4-Explosive]

I've just been thinking, we all know that the universe is huge and even at the speed of light it would take thousand of years just to fly across our galaxy. So we would need some FTL travel (Wormholes etc.) to explore the universe right? But going almost C, for the travellers in the spaceship the time for a trip over a really long distance would actually be quite reasonable, although they would basically be travelling into the future so they can forget coming home to see their friends.

 

[Phisionary]

I've just been thinking, we all know that the universe is huge and even at the speed of light it would take thousand of years just to fly across our galaxy. So we would need some FTL travel (Wormholes etc.) to explore the universe right? But going almost C, for the travellers in the spaceship the time for a trip over a really long distance would actually be quite reasonable, although they would basically be travelling into the future so they can forget coming home to see their friends.

the technology to get us to 'almost C' is not trivial.

I can't remember the exact figures.. but I think there was a hypothetical: If we were to use current chemical rocket propulsion to take us to the nearest galaxy, we would need an amount of rocket fuel greater than the mass of the universe...

I'm paraphrasing... but it was something like that. Anyway, technology is a long, long way from being able to do that kind of thing (get us to near-C). Not discounting it, just not our lifetimes plus a few (generations) probably.

I'm just hoping we'll have permanant bases on other planets by my lifetime, really.

And I want to see a space elevator. definitely :E

Edit: Oh, and it would take us billions of years, not thousands. Subjectively? Well, it takes a long time to accelerate to near-C at a rate that wouldn't kill everybody on board, too.
Edit2: Oh, yes, I see you said 'galaxy' refering to the thousands number. Oops.

 

[blahblahblah]

I've just been thinking, we all know that the universe is huge and even at the speed of light it would take thousand of years just to fly across our galaxy. So we would need some FTL travel (Wormholes etc.) to explore the universe right? But going almost C, for the travellers in the spaceship the time for a trip over a really long distance would actually be quite reasonable, although they would basically be travelling into the future so they can forget coming home to see their friends.

Some facts on a current form and future hypothetical forms of space travel. The trip would be to Alpha Centauri, a trip of 4.4 light years. Grabbed from August 2003 issue of Discover Magazine.

Space Shuttle - Maximum speed: six miles per second. Time: 120,000 years

Nuclear Fission rocket (using 2 stages for forward movement and another 2 to slow down - a total of four fission engines) - Speed: .12c. Time: 46 years. Radiation problems.

Nuclear Fusion (again a 2 stage design for a total of four engines) - Speed: .12c. Time: 46 years. Less radiation than nuclear fission.

Antimatter (2 stage rocket) - Speed: .66c. Time: 41 years. On longer voyages antimatter would show its speed advantges much better, however antimatter is notoriously difficult to produce and store.

Fusion Ramjet - Speed: .04c. Time: 25 years. This option is the fastest because it does not requires to spend half of its trip slowing down (remember momentum) due to the nature of the design. A leap in sciences are required before this option becomes possible.

 

[Jakeic]

i would think space travel will be very difficult for us unless we find some way to make it so we can take a lot more gees

 

[clarky003]

hang on one second here, modern Science is saying that essentially time travel is possible at the speed of light...?, and somehow the ageing process is different, at the speed of light, and infact you dont age atall when others at stand still do .... or would that just be a trick of the speed limit of light.

but its all only a visual thing,, you may very well find out, that even though it may of seemed like no time atall at C, when you gradually dropped back close to a stand still you visually see that youve aged the same amount that anyone staying at a stand still has....

again people are failing to factor in the illusionary factor of light as a limited medium, and theory is a far cry from being practical, but there shouldnt be any reason that the ageing essence of matter could be slowed when you reach C ( light at a stand still must tell us the truth of what we see because there is no immediately percievable delay, but does it when it slows down...?), you may percieve a moment going by, but as you come to a stand still, you then see yourself rapidly age 20 years!, when your viewing C 'normally'. and infact its only your perception that changed, not time itself, you then find everyone would of aged the same amount where ever in the cosmos, the experiance would just differ.

think of it this way,,

a distant planet orbiting a star 40 light years away harbours a being, percieving light,

a being on earth percieve's this planet through a telescope, 40 years in the past,

the alien observer also see's the earth, 40 years ago.

however at there percieveable points, they are both in the same time, at present, just a different point of view, discerning that light isnt actually making time different, just the percieved image of time.

just because you see something 40 years in the past doesnt mean it doesnt exist from another point of view in the present time, infact if we could see everything out there as it is today (no thanks to light) then it would paint a very different picture.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

Ok so you can't go faster than the speed of light, but can you go slower than being completely stationary??

 

[C4-Explosive]

There is no such thing as completely stationary, only stationary relative to another object. The way I understand it is that there is no space-time grid/co-ordinate system that you can be stationary or moving relative to, just other objects.

 

[clarky003]

but other than that, you can see my point? . I mean its not like light is the only medium that dictates time either.

I mean if i turned all the lights off in the universe right now, would we cease to exist?,

we would still feel , and hear. infact touch is the one sense that isnt dictated by a mediums speed. I would very much still be alive, and ageing at a normal rate (although i may go mad, or die from vitamin D deficiencies ), without light, or with it, at whatever speed it goes at, or relative speed im going at to it.,

again the only thing that changes is perception through the eye and sound through the ear.

 

[KiNG]

actually it would take exactly no time at all for the traveler if you somehow managed to violate physical law and travel at c (as the question asks).

which leads to another question, how would u stop from going c? but i guess since modern science says u cant is really just a dumb question.

you guys are so smart, now i want to take physics classes. i would love to be at a party with you let u down a few and pick at your brain...

 

[Reaktor4]

why doesnt time stop for light?

 

[Parrot of doom]

but its all only a visual thing,, you may very well find out, that even though it may of seemed like no time atall at C, when you gradually dropped back close to a stand still you visually see that youve aged the same amount that anyone staying at a stand still has....

Look, if Einstein and a dozen other people say that travelling close to or at the speed of light would slow down time (not just for you, but for whatever else is moving at that speed, including your ship and its contents), then thats good enough for me.

Your 40 years separated telescope example is flawed. If I look through my telescope at the planet 40 light years away, I'm seeing the planet as it was 40 years ago. If somebody flew in a rocket from that planet at close to light speed the moment I saw them in the telescope, then from my point of view, 40 years later they would arrive. They would still be the same age as they were when I first saw them. If they brought a load of seedling plants, the plants would not have aged 40 years. However, I would be 40 years older.

Its got nothing to do with light, electromagnetic waves just happen to be the fastest things in the universe. Light is just a small part of the spectrum that our eyes have evolved to take advantage of.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

why doesnt time stop for light?

what do you mean? explain your question.

 

[Reaktor4]

Well if time slows down or stops when something reaches the speed of light, surely that should happen to light itself? Or does it require mass to happen or something? Sorry i dont really understand this stuff.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

but other than that, you can see my point? . I mean its not like light is the only medium that dictates time either.

I mean if i turned all the lights off in the universe right now, would we cease to exist?,

we would still feel , and hear. infact touch is the one sense that isnt dictated by a mediums speed. I would very much still be alive, and ageing at a normal rate (although i may go mad, or die from vitamin D deficiencies ), without light, or with it, at whatever speed it goes at, or relative speed im going at to it.,

again the only thing that changes is perception through the eye and sound through the ear.

seriously, no offense, but you're betraying little understanding of post-newtonian physics. you seem to have a naive fixation on perception. the visual light that you see is only abstractly related to the concept of "light" that we're discussing. specifically, we are talking about the constant c, which is the absolute speed of light* (light speed in a vacuum) and how it relates to the nature of spacetime.

light does not "dictate" time, energy/matter does (according to relativity anyway). matter and energy are interchangeable according to the expression e=mc^2 (special relativity). so, to rephrase your question, would we cease to exist if all matter-energy ceased to exist? would the universe cease to exist?

the answer to both of those questions is a qualified yes. obviously we would cease existence since there's no matter for us, but spacetime is indelibly linked to matter-energy, according to relativity, so what would a universe w/o matter and energy mean anyway? certainly, if such a reality could exist, it'd be fundamentally different from ours.

*light = EM radiation

Well if time slows down or stops when something reaches the speed of light, surely that should happen to light itself? Or does it require mass to happen or something? Sorry i dont really understand this stuff.

ok, i see what you are asking. it's a good question too, probably a little over my head, but i'll make a stab at it.

light certainly reacts with (i.e. behaves in) time, e.g. the concept of light speed requires time flow. however light is certainly very different from matter, so it's hard to say if it experiences time. when discussing the characteristics of light, QM may be a better place to start than relativity, and i'm much less familiar with the former.

it is possible that massless objects do not experience time dilation, which would give us a neat loop-hole out of this one. but, again, i'd need to do some reading up to answer your question better.

 

[clarky003]

your twisting my question with scientific values, im saying science cant figure out the unknown because all it attempts to study, or comprehend is the surface.

but thats the thing, C only relates to 'us', as perceptual, physical beings, in spacetime, to figure out how the universe works , you have to try to look beyond it, because the physical universe is manifested/operated through sub space,

sub space being like the universal Hammer editor, of the physical universe, it has a default mode, but we just dont know how to use or change that at present, because (no offence) of your, and other 'scientist's' flatlander analysis.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

*waffling prattle*

are you just taking a piss or do you actually believe that nonsense?

 

[clarky003]

Your 40 years separated telescope example is flawed. If I look through my telescope at the planet 40 light years away, I'm seeing the planet as it was 40 years ago. If somebody flew in a rocket from that planet at close to light speed the moment I saw them in the telescope, then from my point of view, 40 years later they would arrive. They would still be the same age as they were when I first saw them. If they brought a load of seedling plants, the plants would not have aged 40 years. However, I would be 40 years older.

its not flawed, if you were 40 light years away, on that planet, and i was on earth, we would see each of our planets at 40 years in the past... but wait.. that cant be because 40 years ago i wasnt born, and neither were you (probably) , simply because at that moment of conciousness in recognising that, we are percieving it in the same moment of time, even though we cant see each other because light is telling us a different story.

and if i was able to instantly move to your world, magically for sake of argument, i wouldnt of travelled into the past. id be there at present date seeing the alien world as it is at present time , because there is no light delay.

i dont believe it, I know it, I also know that physic's is royally making a cock up of what the universe is actually operating on, making it complicated , when it really isnt Lil Timmy, all these equations dont explain anything , they just state what we can see, that is all.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

i dont believe it, I know it, I also know that physic's is royally making a cock up of what the universe is actually operating on, making it complicated , when it really isnt Lil Timmy, all these equations dont explain anything , they just state what we can see, that is all.

ok, i just wanted to know the context with which i should read your posts.
i don't care if you reject physics or not, but i'm talking about empirical science.
so i'll just ignore your fanciful ideas from now on.
:cheers:

 

[clarky003]

lol, I thought you were anyway. and how can you call the unknown fanciful, last time I checked you had to do the practical before you could prove any scientific theory, and unless youve actually travelled at C then Id say everyone and anyone could be talking babbling gibberish.

some theories in my opinion are farces just to keep modern scientist in a job, and living the way of life they know. its only natural people (especially scientific) reject anything other than what you see, It sounds weird, but i actually feel a little psyhic in a weird way (dont know howto put it into words), like just from the fact that my brain is a part of this universe, it holds the answers to everything anyway... its only my human quality that keeps me from realising it. But recently I honestly think our equations arnt really answering any whys, and hows. so there you go... theres no need to be entirely neglegent, simply because science isnt everything and neither are humans, and we most certainly didnt create the physical universe, and neither did science.

trust me theory gets in the way of the truth about the universe (because only us human beings utter theory's that we consider completely valid if 'someone' decides they are because it makes sense to their 'formulative' mind), especially when sometimes its there to protect their job's and the knowledge that gets them paid, besides the truth is more wonderful than anyone could possibly humanly comprehend

its my knowledge of the zero point domain, that influenced my thought mostly if you want to know., so now you know, maybe we can let this thread die.

 

[Jakeic]

i'd like to know more about zero point energy.

 

[hasan]

clarky, I agree with you that many theories out there are just like .. meaningles or stupid or whatever. who heard about the multiverse theory? or the paralel universe? I don't believe those, they simply are fantasies (IMO), I havn't seen a proof for any of them.

but dude, Einstien's theory of relativity is NOT one of those.
How do we know that time stops at C if we can't travel at that speed? because (I guess) the relitavistic equations suggest that, and even though we havn't traveled at C yet, but we traveled at other speeds, and the relativistic equations work there.

In order to attempt to prove this theory of time dilation, two very accurate atomic clocks were synchronized and one was taken on a high-speed trip on an airplane. When the plane returned, the clock that took the plane ride was slower by exactly the amount Einstein's equations predicted.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/relativity2.htm

so, is that a proof or not? I think it is.

when your physics teacher asks you on an exam to calculat the speed an objctbased on certain conditions (such as its mass the forces acting on it), and you give an answer, how do you know the answer is correct if you didn't re-create the scenario in real life? well simply because the equations tells you that it's true.

look I know what you're talking about .. perception and everything, but this has nothing to do with it.

 

[Razor]

I wasnt disputing weither light travels slower the faster you go. I was saying that just because light then slows down, doesnt mean time is slowing down... only your perception of time through the medium of light makes it seem like its slowing down.

Sorry, i ment traveling faster makes time slow down, and the atomic clocks proved that theory didn't they, which are outside the realms of just human perception?

 

[Gray Fox]

Clarkey you’re taking this discussion to a whole another level.
You’re getting in to science philosophy here. As far as I can see most people here follow standard science but you are more inclined at the feyerabend and lakatos philosophy, the only way you people can make reasonable arguments against each others theories is if you involve science philosophy in it.
The best thing would be if one of you folks made another thread about this, if you feel like talking about this ,it would certainly be a interesting discussion. In any case here are some interesting internet sites to help this underway.

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Empirical_methods ( the standard and most popular and least complex view that most people here follow)

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Logical_positivism (critic about this view)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/ ( one of the main criticizers)

http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/kuhnsyn.html ( another scientific philosophy, the paradigm theory)

http://huizen.daxis.nl/~henkt/popper-kuhn-controverse.html ( debate amongst Kuhn and Popper)

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Paul_Feyerabend ( about Feyerabend)

I know I’m going off topic, but I saw the arguments between you people and thought they were useless unless you involve these theories, once again it would be better if there was a separate thread about this.

 

[Parrot of doom]

Scientist: observe something. experiment. create theory. disprove theory

Clarky: drink meths. take LSD. create theory out of thin air. argue uselessly

 

[clarky003]

your such a constructive person Parrot, this thread was sinking nicely until you got bored. :/
I like to combine philosophy mysticisim and science. because 1 isnt good enough as far as im concerned, because 1 doesnt answer the how's and why's on its own.

its not like me, but that crack comment wasnt needed,.. so in response,

get bent .

 

[Parrot of doom]

heh it was only a joke, not a flame

Personally, I don't see how science and mysticism and philosophy can in any way be combined.

 

[hasan]

true that dude ..
philosphy and mysticism can very well be combined, they are pretty much the same anyway, IMHO.
but science .. er, I think it has nothing to do with them.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

true that dude ..
philosphy and mysticism can very well be combined, they are pretty much the same anyway, IMHO.
but science .. er, I think it has nothing to do with them.

which would be exactly why one would combine them. he didn't say synthesize or hybridize, he said combine. almost everybody combines logical reasoning in everyday problem solving with irrational core beliefs (e.g. many scientists are religious).

hardcore logicians are a few of the only people who actually try to rationally reduce their belief systems.