If I could travel at the speed of light

[Brian W (Brian)]

Thanks Steve and Peter, I corrected a misunderstanding on only the second day of my 60th year... could be a great year
brian

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Paduan

BY the understanding we have using todays Physics, velocities at "c" and above are impossible. We have come so far in the last hundred years imagine what we will "KNOW" in a hundred years from now

No they're not. You haven't been listening (or reading as the case may be). Velocities above "c" are not impossible. As a matter of fact they're quite acceptable in the terms of SR. In fact, astronomers measure relative velocities much greater than "c" nearly everyday with distant galaxies (anything with z>1). What cannot be attained in any way, shape or form for ordinary matter moving through space, is "c". There's nothing stopping matter moving with space, or outside (i.e. higher dimensions, wormholes etc) of it, traveling at whatever velocity it likes. It's the traveling through space at "c" which is the hard part. It has to do with mass and inertia (Higgs Field etc). The reason why photons travel at "c" is they have no mass, therefore no inertia. A photon can stop instantaneously to a halt, an electron (for instance) can't. All bosons (force carrying particles) can travel at "c", except W and Z bosons (which have mass). All massless particles can also instantaneously accelerate to "c", as well.

Tachyons must always travel faster than the speed of light, just as particles of ordinary matter must always travel slower. As I mentioned previously, to make a tachyon go faster, you make it lose energy...they have imaginary mass and negative proper time as properties. Losing energy for these particles is akin to gaining energy for ordinary matter. At E=0, v=infinity for tachyons....when E=infinity, v=c for ordinary matter (E=infinity, v=0 for tachyons).

[Brian W (Brian)]

[QUOTE=renormalised;769717]No they're not. You haven't been listening (or reading as the case may be). Velocities above "c" are not impossible. As a matter of fact they're quite acceptable in the terms of SR. In fact, astronomers measure relative velocities much greater than "c" nearly everyday with distant galaxies (anything with z>1). What cannot be attained in any way, shape or form for ordinary matter moving through space, is "c". There's nothing stopping matter moving with space, or outside (i.e. higher dimensions, wormholes etc) of it, traveling at whatever velocity it likes. It's the traveling through space at "c" which is the hard part.

Ok Carl, if i understand the point... scientists have clocked distant galaxies at faster than the speed of light. Therefore if one of these speed demons headed our way and passed close to us or even through us and we orbited our starship around one of the galaxies planets or suns or whatever, we would be traveling faster than the speed of light in relation to other galaxies but not faster than the speed of light in relation to the speed demon galaxy?

Brian

[renormalised (Carl)]

[QUOTE=Brian W;769719]

Originally Posted by renormalised

No they're not. You haven't been listening (or reading as the case may be). Velocities above "c" are not impossible. As a matter of fact they're quite acceptable in the terms of SR. In fact, astronomers measure relative velocities much greater than "c" nearly everyday with distant galaxies (anything with z>1). What cannot be attained in any way, shape or form for ordinary matter moving through space, is "c". There's nothing stopping matter moving with space, or outside (i.e. higher dimensions, wormholes etc) of it, traveling at whatever velocity it likes. It's the traveling through space at "c" which is the hard part.

Ok Carl, if i understand the point... scientists have clocked distant galaxies at faster than the speed of light. Therefore if one of these speed demons headed our way and passed close to us or even through us and we orbited our starship around one of the galaxies planets or suns or whatever, we would be traveling faster than the speed of light in relation to other galaxies but not faster than the speed of light in relation to the speed demon galaxy?

Brian

No.....it is the expansion of space which is driving it at that speed, relative to our own position with that galaxy. If you were to orbit a planet in that galaxy and/or observing home from the surface, looking back towards us, we would be moving faster than "c" with respect to them. If that galaxy was in our local neighbourhood, it wouldn't be moving at the speed it does. It's not moving through space faster than "c", it is being carried along by space faster than "c" from our point of view. The galaxies themselves actually move through space at speeds of several 100kms relative to one another locally, sometimes upto several 1000kms in dense clusters.

[glenc (Glen)]

Please start a new thread under astronomy and amateur science to discuss the speed of light etc.

[glenc (Glen)]

http://theconversation.edu.au/long-w...-universe-2154
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by glenc

http://theconversation.edu.au/long-w...-universe-2154
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

It's actually |-----| this big

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Would be cool but as' Einstien 'says at the point of reaching the speed of light , and if you had mass to start with , your mass would be infinate , eg you would weigh MORE ! than the entire universe !!!!,,Woaw! So in theory you would be the universe so to travel any where in that universe would take you ZERO Time . Instant travel to any piont you wanted ! . so yea light speed is the cosmic speed limit .Bummer but hey? ....
COOL ! lets do IT!
Brian.

Originally Posted by glenc

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

0.13 seconds to travel once around the Equator
1.3 seconds to reach the Moon
8.3 minutes to reach the nearest star, the Sun
4 hours to reach Neptune, the Sun’s outermost planet
4.3 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, apart from the Sun
370 years to reach the bright open star cluster Pleiades (M45)
710 years to reach the Helix planetary nebula, a dying star (NGC7293)
1,350 years to reach the Orion Nebula (M42)
15,800 years to reach the globular star cluster Omega Centauri (NGC5139)
25,900 years to reach the black hole in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy (Sgr A*)
100,000 years to cross our Milky Way galaxy
157,000 years to reach the small local galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
2,540,000 years to reach the large local galaxy in Andromeda (M31)
2,400 million years to reach the bright magnitude 12.9 quasar 3C 273

All of these are visible in binoculars or a small telescope except the black hole, but don't look at the Sun.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

No body dreams at the speed of thought ?
Beats light hands down .
See you there.
Food for .....?
Brian.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Dean Martin ,,, "Come fly with Me?" ...

[leonie-macaroni (Leonie)]

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.

Relevant? I think so.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

so long as you dont miss the ground?
What ground ..... Ohh , that one , the one I hit when I rolled off the bed .
Brian.