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Author Topic: Faster than the speed of light.  (Read 17723 times)

tinman

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Faster than the speed of light.
« on: September 07, 2014, 01:25:53 PM »
Who here can give me one good reason that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light?.
Apparently travelling faster than the speed of light goes against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. If the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s,why can this speed not be exceeded. Why cant we travel at 300 000 000 m/s?.


s3370389

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2014, 02:51:40 PM »
Quote
Who here can give me one good reason that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light?.
Apparently travelling faster than the speed of light goes against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. If the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s,why can this speed not be exceeded. Why cant we travel at 300 000 000 m/s?.

This is what I understand of the topic, Tinman.

Einstein has claimed that an object will gain mass as it accelerates - how this occurs I have no idea. As the object continues to accelerate, it continues to gain mass. The more massive the object, the more force is required to accelerate it.

It gets to the point whereby the mass gained by the object approaches infinity. This implies that the force required to accelerate it further approaches infinity.

tinman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2014, 03:35:38 PM »
This is what I understand of the topic, Tinman.

Einstein has claimed that an object will gain mass as it accelerates - how this occurs I have no idea. As the object continues to accelerate, it continues to gain mass. The more massive the object, the more force is required to accelerate it.

It gets to the point whereby the mass gained by the object approaches infinity. This implies that the force required to accelerate it further approaches infinity.

yes,this is the theory of special relativity,but not yet proven to be correct. In the scientific world,we are normally made to prove our claims. How ever in this case,it seems that the physicist are just willing to accept the theory. So if this is the case-at light speed the mass becomes infinite,then why is light itself not infinite ?.Why dose one small LED light beam not become an infinite light source ?. Light has mass,as gravity act's on any mass,and any mass has gravity. We know gravity can bend light,and in the case of extreem gravity such as black hole's,light cannot escape gravity. This means light has mass. Quote: photons  have mass because a photon has energy E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon.  Energy, they say, is equivalent to mass according to Einstein's famous formula E = mc2.

So here we have Einstein saying light has mass,but then go's on to say that anything traveling at light speed that has mass,will have an infinite amount of mass. But why then dose light itself not become an infinite mass-an infinite source of light?. Why dose our little LED not become a larger light source than the sun? Using Einstein's theory of special relativity, we should be able to shine our 2 watt LED at a 200 watt solar pannel,and get the full 200 watts of power from that pannel,as the light from the LED would have infinite mass/light. But we know this isnt the case,as if it were,we would be home free. We would also be cooked by the suns infinite heat aswell-thats a down side to it.

I think that the mass wouldnt change at the speed of light,only the appearance of the mass would look extreemly long-much like taking a time laps photo of the cars in the city at night. Although it looks like the cars tail lights stretch for mile's,we know the car is only at the end of the trail-the mass never changed.

s3370389

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2014, 03:47:33 PM »
As I understand it, Tinman, photons are massless particles.

Quote
Light has mass,as gravity act's on any mass,and any mass has gravity. We know gravity can bend light,and in the case of extreem gravity such as black hole's,light cannot escape gravity. This means light has mass.

I think that the theory says that massive objects bend and distort spacetime. It is this distorted spacetime that light follows, like a train on a rail, down into a black hole. This implies that gravity can affect the path that light follows, but affects it indirectly.

Going back to your original question however. I posted this in a different thread earlier:

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You would require approximately 9 exa Joules of energy to accelerate a 100 {kg} mass to the speed of light. That is 9x10^18 {J}. According to wikipedia the total world energy consumption in 2006 was 8.3 exa Joules.

I think I will defer to Einstein's standpoint and assume that reaching the speed of light is not possible. If it is possible, it will be a long long time before we are able to generate and store that amount of energy to be used in a space craft. Probably never.

I suppose that the extreme economical expenditure required is a pretty good reason.

Liberty

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2014, 04:11:24 PM »
As I understand it, Tinman, photons are massless particles.

I think that the theory says that massive objects bend and distort spacetime. It is this distorted spacetime that light follows, like a train on a rail, down into a black hole. This implies that gravity can affect the path that light follows, but affects it indirectly.

Going back to your original question however. I posted this in a different thread earlier:

I suppose that the extreme economical expenditure required is a pretty good reason.

So to speculate a step further, if we could control spacetime over an area (say in front of a space ship), we could theoretically create a "differential " of spacetime (gravity thrust) at the front of the ship that would allow gravity powered travel (continual acceleration) in that area.  But I think this thrust would only be in a limited area similar to a magnetic field on a magnet.  I think that the faster mass travels, it looses mass in respect to speed.  This might explain  why certain particles disappear from existence and then reappear at another time. 

broli

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2014, 08:04:53 PM »

tinman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2014, 02:01:12 AM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnMIhxWRGNw
Nice video broli,but it telling me that the mass decreases as it aproaches the speed of light,where as Einstein say's the mass will increase??? Thats the problem with theories,we just dont know until we get there.

A theory only becomes reality once proof is presented.

Staffman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2014, 04:19:36 AM »
You can think of the speed of light barrier in the same way as the speed of sound barrier. The way airplanes get around the speed of sound is by 'parting' the air, essentially pushing it out of the way. There may be a way to do that with the vacuum, that is if the vacuum can be manipulated... if so it could provide a way around the speed of light problem, as you are not travelling through normal space. The warp drive stuff going around lately is one theoretical way of approaching the issue; and it doesn't break any physical laws.

lumen

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2014, 05:54:43 AM »
Nice video broli,but it telling me that the mass decreases as it aproaches the speed of light,where as Einstein say's the mass will increase??? Thats the problem with theories,we just dont know until we get there.

A theory only becomes reality once proof is presented.

The problem is that the formula is the result of a particle accelerator curve. If you supply energy that's moving at the speed of light to a particle with mass, it becomes impossible to move the mass faster than the speed of light. The triangular equation matches the result perfectly.

This however does not indicate that it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, only that it's impossible to push something faster than the object pushing it.

If a spaceship contained enough fuel or energy to travel faster than light speed, then the spaceship surely would otherwise it would violate another law of physics in that for every action there is an opposite reaction.

As the spaceship moves through space at any speed, applying additional thrust will increase the speed regardless of the spaceships speed or the speed of the thrust.

tinman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2014, 09:06:52 AM »
The problem is that the formula is the result of a particle accelerator curve. If you supply energy that's moving at the speed of light to a particle with mass, it becomes impossible to move the mass faster than the speed of light. The triangular equation matches the result perfectly.

This however does not indicate that it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, only that it's impossible to push something faster than the object pushing it.

If a spaceship contained enough fuel or energy to travel faster than light speed, then the spaceship surely would otherwise it would violate another law of physics in that for every action there is an opposite reaction.

As the spaceship moves through space at any speed, applying additional thrust will increase the speed regardless of the spaceships speed or the speed of the thrust.

This is where a reactionless drive would come into it. A reactionless drive provides thrust no matter what speed it's housing or ship it is in is traveling at.

e2matrix

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2014, 06:48:52 PM »

tinman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #11 on: September 10, 2014, 02:02:40 AM »
This is what I understand of the topic, Tinman.

Einstein has claimed that an object will gain mass as it accelerates - how this occurs I have no idea. As the object continues to accelerate, it continues to gain mass. The more massive the object, the more force is required to accelerate it.

It gets to the point whereby the mass gained by the object approaches infinity. This implies that the force required to accelerate it further approaches infinity.
Then the same must apply for all mass,in that the fuel propelling the space craft must also gain in mass relative to that of the space craft. This would also mean the particles being ejected to provide thrust must also gain in mass,thus creating more thrust. If the space craft were to gain infinite mass,then so would the fuel and thrust particles.

From this,we can eliminate the requirement for large amounts of fuel,as the fuel would gain in mass the closer we get to the speed of light. But dose this mean that with infinite mass,all of space is filled up with a space ship???.

It is said that energy can be neither created or destroyed,but Einestein's theory says mass increases as we approach the speed of light. This means the energy created from the engine pushing the space craft would increase. This increase in energy was then created out of nothing. :D

lumen

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #12 on: September 10, 2014, 02:55:32 AM »
Then the same must apply for all mass,in that the fuel propelling the space craft must also gain in mass relative to that of the space craft. This would also mean the particles being ejected to provide thrust must also gain in mass,thus creating more thrust. If the space craft were to gain infinite mass,then so would the fuel and thrust particles.

From this,we can eliminate the requirement for large amounts of fuel,as the fuel would gain in mass the closer we get to the speed of light. But dose this mean that with infinite mass,all of space is filled up with a space ship???.

It is said that energy can be neither created or destroyed,but Einestein's theory says mass increases as we approach the speed of light. This means the energy created from the engine pushing the space craft would increase. This increase in energy was then created out of nothing. :D

That's why I suspect the formula is only correct from an observer viewpoint and would not apply from the perspective of the spaceship.
 

tinman

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #13 on: September 12, 2014, 10:23:36 AM »

That's why I suspect the formula is only correct from an observer viewpoint and would not apply from the perspective of the spaceship.
This is what i asume to be correct as well lumen.Watching a space craft from earth traveling at the speed of light as it passed earth,would look like a long blury streak,and that streak would be on the plane of travel direction only. If we could see light itself,then that would also look like a continuous streem-as would the space craft. But from a view point within the space craft,it would look no different to that if it were stationary.

synchro1

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Re: Faster than the speed of light.
« Reply #14 on: September 12, 2014, 03:37:54 PM »
Here's the best argument for travel >C: Imagine the sun vanishing in an instant. You wouldn't see it disappear for 8 minutes, but the Earth would instantly veer off on a tangent. Hence; Gravity must be traveling faster then light! Maxwell's speed of the magnet wave. Check out the first minute and a half of this Eric Dollard video:   


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lqMiZPO9TM