Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I understand that the speed of light is the theoretical maximum but what is the force resisting the object in motion? Like say the space shuttle. Why couldn't it keep accelerating past the speed of light? What is the force acting against it? I must have skipped this day in Physics class. I guess some guys in New Jersey broke the speed of light with light but there really isn't much hard data from the experiment. Something about cadmium crystals.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

This reminds me of my high school science/engineering class, our professor taught us how to fit a 10 foot long car in a 9 foot long garage O0

I haven't dealt with relativity much in college at all really.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

pics or it didn't happen.
did you guys put it in at an angle or did you take the bumpers off?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

LOL, neither. But I can say that the car was approaching the speed of light.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Yeah, I remember doing that in physics also.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

rofl
i get it

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

because the object your speeding up has mass.
so through newtons laws of inertia the object wants to keep moving at the same speed that it's already moving and resist speed changes....your are thinking though because in a vacuum their is no drag so if your space shuttle is moving at 299 792 458 mlies a second it's going to keep going that fast. with no drag acting on something it will keep right on going it doesn't take energy to keep moving it takes energy to resist drag.

back to the speed of light. the problem is with speed your mass/inertia increases and as something with mass aproaches light speed the energy needed to accelerate it increases to an infinite amount. so it's impossible.. the only things that can move at the speed of light is light. neutrino's have no mass but they still are just a touch slower.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I never took physics class, but it is all about relativity.

if your traveling at 100,000 miles and hour and turn on a light beam.....How fast is the light beam traveling at?

Relative to you, still 186,000 miles a sec.

But a person your about to fly by, the light was traveling at your speed + the speed of light.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

12 foot car will fit in a 9 foot long garage.....this was simple 10th grade trig classs extra credit question.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I didn't mean figuring out if it would fit in there crooked, I meant that when the car approaches the speed of light is actually shrinks in size relative to the stationary garage, hence for a fraction of a nanosecond while the car is going through the garage it is technically completely contained in the garage. But you'd need garage doors on both ends, and blah blah blah it isn't physically doable.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

wanna place a bet on that?????

9 foot long garage, 9 foot ceiling, park a 12 foot car in there, all 4 tires must be firmly resting on solid object under the cars weight.

A^2 + B^2 = C^2

Better yet, 9x9x9 garage, what is the longest 2"x2" single piece of lumber you can fit in there?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

---- i was thinking of taking the 12 foot car going about 100mph into the wall of the garage would shorten it a few feet and then it would fit.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

actually im pretty sure that is wrong, light can only go a certian speed no matter what, shining a light while moving doesn't add your speed+lightspeed
at least thats the way i understand it

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Light moves at a constant rate unless matter interferes with it, but relatively it would be slower, i.e. Bone knows what he's talking about.

Einstein stated that faster than light travel couldn't work so long as causality was maintained, i.e. you can send faster than light signals because consequently they could be sent back in time, like the tachyonic antitelephone, and there is no such thing as a free lunch in time travel.

The main reason would be that by the Lorentz factor the speed of light is a denominating factor in the equation, wherein you'd have the integrated equation = infinity as it approaches the speed of light and you can't have an infinite force, it's not a real number.

^^^
What he said.

But the neat thing is that things without mass can accelerate faster than the speed of light, they've made electromagnetic ray guns that shoot signals faster than the speed of visible light in a vacuum.

Pretty neat.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Speed is relative, how fast are you moving now?

RELATIVE to what?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

E= MC²

A golf ball could destroy the earth at light speed. By the way, Mista bone, you're wrong. Speed of light is the same for everyone, even if he go at 200 000 m/s. It's the first postulate of relativity! ;D

I find a good website about relativity:

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/th...elativity.html

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

m = gamma * mo where mo is rest mass... and gamma is 1 / sqrt(1 - v2/c2)

So your gamma is a modification factor of sorts... the faster you go the larger gamma is. Gamma is pretty much 1 until about .9c... 90% of the speed of light. Basically the theoretical practical max v is right before gamma exponentially increases.

My suggestion... take a modern physics class for fun. Things can move faster than c though... like oscilliscope traces for instance. The particles hitting the screen themselves don't move faster than c, but the beam moving across the screen can. Think of a lighthouse spinning around and around. The light it puts out moves slightly slower than c because of the non-vacuum. However (R * theta) / sec (radians per sec) can be many times faster than c, so the leading edge of the beam of light can be circulating faster than a beam of light projected and then bent in a circle would. That's just something neat to think about.

Btw if you delve deeply into physics and actually think about what you're studying you'll begin to doubt reality and existence... and I'm not even joking.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Again, I'm not talking about using the Pythagorean theorem to see if the car will fit crooked. Anybody in middle school can figure that out. I said my method isn't really doable.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I'm not a physics person, but like other people said even in a vacume according to einstein matter and energy are related. As you increase the speed of something close to the speed of light it begins to gain an exponential amount of mass, due to the energy that it takes to get it moving that fast. As the mass increases the energy it takes to acclerate it further also increases. To the point where if anything with mass was acclerated to the speed of light it would obtain an infinite mass, hence requiring an infinite amount of energy to put it at that speed, and infinite energy is not possible, so the speed of light is not possible for anything with mass.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

The Jews. There's your answer.



*edit for relevance: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293937,00.html

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

listen to 2pac

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

A black man will never be president?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Jago Can I drive that 10 foot car right into the wall ?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

You sure can!

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

You can and you will!

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Frame of reference, there isn't absolute rest.

You're right, but I think it's the second postulate. I could have sworn that frame of reference affected light speed measurement in space.

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

about 15 and a half feet...---- decimals (plus it might be off since a 2x2 cant fit right into the corner and im not spending more time thinking about it)

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

winnar!

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Middle school?

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I put my blender on the light, speed setting...
Dose that mean my milk shakes go back in time? ???

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Light, Will It Blend?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WJpprtKagLs

It Blends!

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NdD54rG9oQA&feature=related

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

+1. Kikes FTW!

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

You cant go back, but you can go in the future ;) If you could go at light speed, the time is slower, so the rest of the world is going very fast to your eyes, but you don't get old. Anyway...I like that ;D

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

in all my years ive never heard a more igorant, simple question in all my life...

https://www.cedmagic.com/featured/ba...citor-real.jpg

Re: Why cant we break the speed of light in a vacuum?
 

I get the same effect from the greenery around my way....