http://www.scienceblog.com/light.html



Cool!

From what I understand, you still can't transmit information faster than the speed of light. But it's still neat.

There was a newspaper article years ago about how some physicists caused light to stand completely still. I posted it on my wall, in my room If I can find it, I'll type out the actual text for you guys.


And before that, some other scientists slowed it down to the speed of a bicycle.

I still don't see how it would violate relativity if c were sped up even well beyond 3.0 x 10^8 m/s

Yeah I remember reading about that in a science mag. Can't remember how it worked, something about filling a box with a certain gas and then fireing a laser into it or whatnot. I dunno.

There are no certainties

that's a bose-einstein condensate. they take ultra cool cesium atoms and trap them with a laser. the atoms are somewhere around a few thousanths of a degee above absolute zero. in this state they act as one. thier refractive index is so high light travels at 17 meters per second through the super cool gas.
i can ride that fast.

Hey, why the hell do people say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light? I've no doubt that it's possible to travel faster-than-light. It would just be hard to see, that's all. Any comments?

Well, besides light itself, you need a unreal amount of energy to move something that fast.

as you move faster your mass increases so it takes more energy to move faster, at the speed of light your mass is infinite and you turn into a jelly doughnut, it would take infinite energy to reach this speed.

Detty said it better.

Not the response I wanted. How come the speed of light is the defining factor? Light's speed itself is not infinite, it's a definite number. How, then, can it cause your mass to become infinite? Your mass would be a very high number, certainly, but not infinite. What if there's some undetectable particle out there that moves faster than light?

Also, Sol, this is hypothetical. Assume for the moment that we have all the energy we need.

No, Matt, I don't think you get it. As you approach the speed of light mass increases--this is what Detty said. It's a law in the physics world. It's been proven many times. And theoretically, if you ever hit the speed of light, your mass would become infinite. Of course, nobody's been able to prove this since the only thing that travels as fast as light is well...light...

Here, read up.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi] As you approach the speed of light mass increases--this is what Detty said. It's a law in the physics world. It's been proven many times. And theoretically, if you ever hit the speed of light, your mass would become infinite. Of course, nobody's been able to prove this since the only thing that travels as fast as light is well...light...

[/QUOTE]

In theory, exactly. But then again, there could be things that travel faster than light, which for any reason cannot be detected by current technology. However, I don't believe that approaching the speed of light makes one's mass increase. I believe that merely increasing in speed causes one's mass to increase.

Under the first theory, if one were to surpass the speed of light and continue increasing their speed beyond it, their mass would begin to decrease, like a parabola (with the speed of light as the vertex). I see no reason why things cannot travel faster than light, and logic suggests that if I'm correct, this first theory is wrong.

The second theory is simpler: The faster you go, the more mass you... gain. Or something. You know what I mean.

However, I have only one question: Why did Einstein, or whomever, decide to use the speed of light as a limit?

1) There's nothing in the universe that travels faster than the speed of light that we've found. Granted, the universe is vast, but there's only so much that can be made, and we've seen quite a bit of it through telescopes.

2) Where did you come up with this parabola theory? Then eventually it'd make a complete circle. The speed of light is the LIMIT, there's nothing beyond it, that's what you have to assume

3) If something DID travel faster than the speed of light, then the theory would obviously fall to crap.

4) The speed of light in a vaccuum is a constant.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]1) There's nothing in the universe that travels faster than the speed of light that we've found. Granted, the universe is vast, but there's only so much that can be made, and we've seen quite a bit of it through telescopes.

2) Where did you come up with this parabola theory? Then eventually it'd make a complete circle. The speed of light is the LIMIT, there's nothing beyond it, that's what you have to assume

3) If something DID travel faster than the speed of light, then the theory would obviously fall to crap.

4) The speed of light in a vaccuum is a constant.[/QUOTE]


1) You can't say "Quite a bit of it". For all we know, we haven't even seen a fraction of a fraction of a decimal of it. It's true however, that light is the fastest-travelling known substance. (can I call it a substance? Thanks)

2) No, it's what many a physicist must assume in order to keep their jobs, and their sanity. Too much research has been based on that theory for them to just all of a sudden throw it in the trash, whether it's right or wrong. I, however, am free to assume what I believe is true.

3) Which is something every physicist should be living in fear of (maybe) for the above reason.

4) Isn't it also possible for there to be different intensities of vaccuum, just like different intensities of gravity?



Whew. If those didn't convince you, we agree to disagree, okay?

So wait, you believe this why? You have no proof whatsoever, infact all rules of psychics and science go against your claims, yet you just believe this? Why? Ever heard of logical thinking? Sure it's possible, but...cmon man.

Matterialize is confusing me in a way that only Friend14 and Gene Ray have been able to do in the past. Congratulations.

1) There's only so many elements, only so many ways to make elements, and those are substances, substances that could 'potentially' go faster than the speed of light. There's only so many types of energies. Like I said, the universe is a vast place, we may yet be proven wrong.

2) ...no. Physicists would LOVE for themselves to be wrong, as the ones who came up with the theories are long dead. They'd love to find out new things, THAT is their job. This point is...totally wrong.

3) Fear? No. Trust me, plenty postulate the theory of relativity is incorrect because the speed of light isn't a constant.

4) Do you know the meaning of "vacuum"? It's the lack of anything. Nothing. Gravity is a force. They're two VERY very different things.

All in all...take High School physics. You'll learn a lot. Especially about why some of the things you think are silly.

I'm honoured, Kyle.


Raoul, that stuff does not go against the laws of physics, OR logic. You're confused. What I'm saying IS logical, because Logic is one of the few things I truly believe in. And there isn't any proof that light is the fastest thing in existence either, so put a sock in it.


Yoshi:

1) We agree on that.

2) I see what you mean, but I guess it depends on the physicist.

3) Again, the physicist thing.

4) However, I'm forced to argue here:
Gravity is indeed a force. Although vaccuum is technically not a force, it's not lack of anything either. If a human is exposed to "open space" and explodes, it's not "nothing" that's doing that to him.


[EDIT] Holy crap, I get it now! Gravity is the force that keeps us from exploding (among other things), and in space, w/o gravity and "other things", there's nothing to keep us form exploding. Even if that's wrong, I've still changed my mind. [/EDIT]

It's great. There's nothing good old fashioned scince can't solve: When the speed of light seems quite unreachable, the obvious solution is of course to lower the speed of light enough so that it can be attained. No need for warp cores or other funky stuff.

No... No. Just no. The pressure in our bodies that has to counteract the pressure of the air around us on earth is what makes us explode when there's no force counteracting that force.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]No... No. Just no. The pressure in our bodies that has to counteract the pressure of the air around us on earth is what makes us explode when there's no force counteracting that force.[/QUOTE]
That's what I meant by "There's nothing to keep us from exploding". What causes the air to press down towards the earth? Gravity, right?

Impirical proof no, but a well proven theory (to the best of our scientific skill) yes.

Einstein's work has been verified time and time again.

There is a reason the speed of light is THE limit, and it's to do with the fact that light has little/no mass (It's been 4 and half years since I studied this stuff, so forgive my vagueness). It's not just a straight linear 'mass increases as speed increases' because you'd notice as you flew in planes or whatever. The effect is minimal until you hit relativistic speeds at around significant portions of C (~0.4C if memory serves), and then the effect of mass gain becomes not only noticeable, but crippling to further accelleration: F = ma. As mass tends to infinity (because of relativistic gain) the force required to further accellerate also tends to infinity. You CANNOT gain speed past C because you need an infinite force to shift the infinite mass.

QED.

Yes, but the gravity keeping it there has nothing to do with the fact it exerts pressure on you.

I disagree. You wouldn't notice it at all, because the speed of an airliner is nothing compared to the speed of light.


Also, Martyn:

Hypothetical situation. We remove all of earth's gravity. Does the air still exert pressure on you? No. Gravity is the only thing keeping Earth's atmosphere stuck to the planet, right? Without gravity, the air would just "push off" from the planet and exert no pressure on you, being weightless.

Ok, poor analogy, but the rest of it, around the 0.4C level still stands. You are wrong sir.

(Me and old Albo happen to agree on this one)

/Obscure? Happydud?

It's not a poor analogy. The point is that th effect is noticeable at extremely high speeds, such as that of light, but not noticeable at all at what would comparatively be extremely low speeds, such as that of an airliner.

If light has zero mass, in theory that causes it to move at the highest speed possible. If you were to cause an object to have zero mass, then it too may move at the speed of light.

However, if light moves at the speed it does without any force acting upon it, a massless object with a force acting on it may move faster.

Its all theory, anyway, until someone actually manages to move an object at the (current) speed of light, or until they gain some evidence from this speeding up/slowing down of light experiement.

The article doesn't even mention going OVER the current value of C in a vaccuum anyway, so this is mainly a physics lesson for Matt.

EDIT: reads article. discovers lies.

Yeah, by this point in the discussion, the article has been left in the dust.





I'd like to bring up another topic concerning faster-than-light travel: wormholes. Einstein proved their existence with another theorem (it may not have been him, I read this a while ago).

The idea was that someone could travel the distance to Vega (however many light-years) by taking a shortcut through a 1-kilometre wormhole through what he called "hyperspace". Anybody want to delve into it?

That's a way of cheating the speed of light limit: effectively you are not travelling FASTER than C at any point, just sneakily reducing the distance from A to B.

The main problem would be the prevention of good old spaghettification.

I love the fact that's a technical term.

lol

"I have no idea what well-dressed spaghetti is wearing this year."

I'd actually just read past that bit in Better Than Life yesterday.

Aha! Did you pick up the Future Echoes reference then?

No, really! Look at this: Wormholes would not be able to exist for more than a few moments without something to stabilize them, right? (your point about not surpassing C is true). They need a gravitational force inside. Something with "negative energy" or what I like to call "reverse gravity". This something is referred to as Exotic material, and would basically push the walls of the wormhole apart so they don't collapse into eachother. Exotic material can be identified because instead of being drawn towards a source of gravity, it is pushed away. Don't ask me how, I'm no physics professor. Exotic material, either in theory or proven, can be detected spiralling away from a black hole, which as we all know is an immense source of gravity. This same substance could keep a wormhole open long enough for someone to pass through it. They wouldn't just float through, but could actually walk along the wormhole, because the exotic material creates the illusion that the wormhole's walls are a source of gravity.



Damn, Photobucket won't host it. Image is too big.

See, have you just made all that up? Because that would explain a lot.

Oh, and btw, X-rays or gamma rays are emmitted from black holes.

I'm going to watch a film, and drink some beer now.

THANK YOU. Gamma and X-Rays. But no, I'm not making it up! I'm serious! It was one of Einstein's theories, which he proved!

good book. i just bought it for work. there's lots about light in there like what you're talking about.

Imma see if I can get that book out of the library. I'd like to read into this stuff further. In any case, I have to go now. If anyone continues this thread, I'll catch up later.