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Speed of light

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Swampy
Posts: 547 - Karma: 90
OK this have been on my mind lately, let's just say you were driving your car through space at the 3 times speed of light, and you had your headlights on. Would your headlights fall behind your car, because you're going faster than the speed of light? Or would the initial velocity of your car be added to the light, making it 4x the speed of light, can light have an initial velocity? It's confusing me, because can light go faster than the speed of light? can it have an initial velocity?
May 1 2007 1:17AM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
its not the least bit absurd to discuss it. there are so many things that cannot actually happen, but are discussed over and over, in depth, not to mention studied, written about, etc.
May 1 2007 5:42PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
yeah.
its physically impossible.

it would be like saying What if i had the power to turn my cat into a pile of martinis? its just physically impossible.
May 1 2007 5:43PM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
such as...
May 1 2007 5:44PM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
what happens to particles travelling at the speed of light, for instance. what happens to matter inside a black hole, for another.
May 1 2007 5:45PM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
anyway, i really dont feel like discussing it any further. i gave the correct answer to what would happen to the original question, impossible or not. good enough for me.
May 1 2007 5:47PM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
although i will say that if you guys arent in the ns thinkers cult yet, you should join. you're able to think things like this through, and put it into words worth reading. more than alot of people that post on here.
May 1 2007 5:49PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
matter inside a black hole doesnt travel the speed of light.

however, light is particles. but its not your ordinary matter. its not really a wave or matter. its kind of its own thing.
May 1 2007 5:50PM
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zepscratch
Posts: 3517 - Karma: 36
the light will fall behind the car resulting in something similar to a sonic boom... i would think
May 1 2007 5:50PM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
those aren't physical impossibilities at all. They may be merely theories and suppositions, but nothing inherent to their nature as supposed makes any of these musing invalid from the get go.

We know that many particles travel at the speed of light (electromagnetic waves do just this in a vacuum, light being one of these)... We have observed the effects of black holes and thus logically are able to deduce and infer what would happen within them, all possible because as far as we know there is absolutely no inherent impossibility to the problem.

You question is speculative about that which is simply impossible given all human knowledge to date, not about something that seems plausible yet unseen like those two things you mentionned...
May 1 2007 5:51PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
OMFG U POSTED THE EXACT SAME TIME AS ME!

but yeah, probably something like that.
May 1 2007 5:51PM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
i coined it the "wavicle".

Ahh photelectric effect, always screwing with diffraction of light...
May 1 2007 5:54PM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
haha there was nothing i could come back with until you added that at the end. throughout history, there have been so many things that "given all human knowledge to date" it would have seemed impossible. cell phones, airplanes, going to moon, etc. its the people that would think about it, postulate about it, talk about it, that came up with the ideas that eventually led to the understanding and ability to do what was seemingly impossible before. exactly why i dont think its "absurd" to talk about something that, as far as we know right now, is impossible.
May 1 2007 5:54PM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
in this case... you'd have to debunk einstein, who is pretty much the nec plus ultra of all things relating to light, seeing as he was the one who figured light must also behave as a particle, hf = hfo + KEmax etc...

then, you'd have to show how going faster than light fits into the real world. Human knowledge has shown, and pretty well so, that it's impossible. Speculate as you will, but infinitely slight of chance of being wrong doesn't mean false.
May 1 2007 6:00PM
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A_Crew
Posts: 137 - Karma: 374
so that settles it, if you were in the car, nothing would change, outside, you would see no light coming from the headlights
May 1 2007 6:04PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
well... if you were going that fast your car would explode into millions of peices from the friction.

el oh el
May 1 2007 6:06PM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
believe it or not, einstein was human, and wasn't 100% correct about everything he said. in fact, there are parts of his theory of relativity that dont fit with quantum theory. doesn't necessarily mean hes wrong, but until someone finds a way to connect the two theories, the much more well-tested quantum theory will stand.
May 1 2007 6:09PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
quantum theory only works for atoms and shit, and doesnt apply to bigger objects. the theory of reletivity is used for bigger objects only.

however, Hawking was able to marry the two theories, and thats what he is best known for. Its called the hawking paradox, and involves black holes sucking up all matter around it, and how black holes emit "hawking radiation". I dont know all the finer points of it. But id reccomend reading up on it, because its pretty interesting.
May 1 2007 6:24PM
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Swampy
Posts: 547 - Karma: 90
Wow, fucking insane, so due to the theory of relativity it would appear the same to the driver, but an observer would see the light lagging behind. Right?
May 1 2007 7:14PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
according to the theory of reletivity this is physically impossible.

nobody would know what it would look like, because its physically impossible.
May 1 2007 7:16PM
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keystoner1
Posts: 2143 - Karma: 11
same here just tiny particles
May 1 2007 9:22PM
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squeakywaffle
Posts: 1800 - Karma: 13
no no no no jesus fucking christ I can't take this shit anymore

Ask any physicist and I am 99% sure he will tell you that Einstein's theories of relativity (both general and special) and quantum mechanics (both have been modified since their original incarnations, also) are equally well tested and accepted. What you clearly don't understand is that they simply have not been reconciled with each other yet. The mathematics of relativity and quantum mechanics are separate, and the big problem in theoretical physics now is blending the two into a unified theory.

Both relativity and quantum mechanics have been subjected to rigorous experimental verification and so far neither has failed.

I have some things to tell everyone:

A) I hate to toot my own horn, but I have been studying physics in college for 3 years and I probably know more about it than you. That's why you should listen to me.

B) The speed of light is not like the speed of sound. It's not some speed that just presents technical problems to vehicles trying to go faster. It's a fundamental law of the universe that no matter can be accelerated to a speed faster than light, which travels at 3.0 x 10^8 m/s. This was NEVER thought to be the case with the speed of sound, at least in the past few centuries.

C) The question "what would happen if you went 3 times the speed of light" is fundamentally flawed because the theory of relativity does not allow for such a thing to happen, and yet relativity is what all you guys are trying to use to explain this. Does that make sense? I don't think so. If you want to accurately answer this question, you are going to need to invent a new branch of physics that stands up to every test relativity has withstood over the past hundred years, and use that theory to answer the question. You CANNOT use relativity because it FUNDAMENTALLY DISALLOWS THIS SITUATION.

Relativity, like quantum mechanics, has a mathematical core. It is not intuitive. It cannot be easily grasped by the human mind except in a mathematical context. And I don't think many of you guys fully understand even the basic ideas of relativity, let alone the math that actually describes what's happening.

Lots of experimental trickery with tiny particles and other things has been done to make stuff travel "faster than light". These are allowed by theory, and if they were not then we would have heard about it, and scientists would not still be trying to verify relativity (and quantum mechanics) with ever-increasing degrees of accuracy. Not even a single atom has been made to exceed the speed of light, however. And I somehow doubt one ever will. Search the internet if you don't believe me.

As a final note, special relativity does not disallow the existence of particles (called "tachyons") that always travel faster than light. These have not been proven or disproven to exist, and you can find out about them with google.
May 2 2007 1:46AM
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pommes_vertes.
Posts: 1260 - Karma: 10
and i also hate to toot mine, but i have a degree in physics and am now studying it in grad school, which means i probably know more about it than you do. thats why you should listen to me.
May 2 2007 3:02AM
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squeakywaffle
Posts: 1800 - Karma: 13
Then how can you be so wrong about this? All your posts are sorta garbage... especially the one I quoted earlier. I don't doubt you but at the same time I find it amazing that you made it that far.

Address my post, then, if I'm so wrong. :D
May 2 2007 3:09AM
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pmills
Posts: 7162 - Karma: 59
what if you invented time travel, then you'd be moving faster than the speed of light!
May 2 2007 3:11AM
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RudyGarmisch
Posts: 25443 - Karma: 13,844
Can we please not bring time travel and wormholes into an already ridiculous thread...
May 2 2007 3:17AM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
you may want to reconsider then...
May 2 2007 4:29AM
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smuggsVT
Posts: 2145 - Karma: 19
albert einstein said that if you go faster than the spees of light you can look back and see yourself because your vision is all a reflection of light on your retena and if your moving faster than that your actual body mass is moving faster than the light your seeing.
May 2 2007 9:42AM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
i don't think he said any such thing.
May 2 2007 11:26AM
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supersteez420
Posts: 496 - Karma: 10
that concept makes my head hurt but at the same time it makes total sense i really want to know the answer to that i think that it would kind work like that
May 2 2007 11:30AM
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gregor
Posts: 1069 - Karma: 83
If you're going 3x faster than the speed of light you would see nothing. All light produced and reflected would travel behind you at relative twice the speed of light.
May 2 2007 12:39PM
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parkchilla
Posts: 445 - Karma: 12
are you serious?
May 2 2007 1:31PM
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RudyGarmisch
Posts: 25443 - Karma: 13,844
Well, not you per say. Or any other matter, since it kinda would violate basic relativity. However, you can get chemical reactions to travel faster than the speed of light, and I think I read an article way back about this being achieved with shifting states of matter.... I cant remember, sorry.
May 2 2007 2:48PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12

like i said before, hawking has combined the two in whats known as the hawking paradox. thats why he's famous.

but he still needs to prove it mathmatically, which is what hes currently working on

May 2 2007 3:08PM
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almostaskier
Posts: 13809 - Karma: 92
really? i thought it was the whole... you know... mac voice thing.
May 2 2007 4:16PM
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squeakywaffle
Posts: 1800 - Karma: 13
Hawking's recent work on black holes does incorporate elements from quantum mechanics and relativity, but it has more to do with the thermodynamics of a black hole than anything else (it concerns the entropy of a black hole and the problem of information loss, as I understand it).

Even if his equation is shown to be correct, it would be a far cry from a unified theory. Not that it wouldn't be a huge step- but we will probably need a much more comprehensive unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics to make significant process towards understanding black holes completely.

The main problem with general relativity and quantum dynamics comes at the singularity, which is the "core" of the black hole, where all its mass is compressed. Considering a non-rotating black hole, general relativity predicts that this point should have zero volume (just a point, nothing more...) but quantum mechanics doesn't allow that because it holds that space is quantized (made up of discrete "chunks" that cannot be divided any further). For this reason, it's hard to apply either general relativity or quantum mechanics to any problem concerning exactly what happens inside a black hole.
May 2 2007 6:36PM
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Tom.
Posts: 1954 - Karma: 12
yeah yeah yeah.

i kind of touched on the mechanics of it in a previous post (although you explained it much better).

but I was just saying that Hawking is best known for haveing both thoeries work together. even if its only in that one situation for a black hole; like you said, it would be a huge step.
May 2 2007 6:50PM
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jimmychung
Posts: 6857 - Karma: 25
i think the light would maybe be in front initially, but then fall behind. i'm picturing in my mind if you were driving your car faster than a speeding bullet, then shot a gun in the direction you were driving. i think the bullet wouldn't just stay in the barrel, but leave the gun and then shortly thereafter the car would pass the bullet.
May 2 2007 11:57PM
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squeakywaffle
Posts: 1800 - Karma: 13
no
May 3 2007 2:51AM
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freestyler540
Posts: 13126 - Karma: 19,225
Remember that every explaination of physics are theories. Only conformations by visual experiements can support proof of theory.

Anyway, when a mass atteins the speed of light, all mass is converted into energy. We have mannage to "energise" small objects, but coulnd deaccelerate for materialisation. So you dont have to worry about that question

May 3 2007 3:02AM
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freezed
Posts: 12973 - Karma: 500
i hope you are lying.
May 3 2007 3:03AM
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