Why you cannot go faster than the speed of light

Alright, this has been irritating me for a while. People that I know occasionally ask me "when do you think that humanity will be able to travel faster than light?" It's very frustrating...

Here's the thing: The faster you go, the more mass you have. At the speed of light, you have infinite mass.

Obviously, infinite mass requires infinite energy to accelerate it, which is why matter cannot travel at light speed, as there is no supply of infinite energy. (Even if we agree that the universe is infinite in size, therefore having infinite energy and mass inside it, the means of gathering energy are finite, or limited, so the infinite energy could not be used to accelerate the infinite mass.)

So, traveling at light-speed is impossible. What about faster-than-light-speed? If we agree that you need less than infinite energy at sub-light speeds, then we can also agree that you would need more than infinite energy to propel mass at super-light speeds. It is possible to have more than infinite energy? Obviously not.

I hope that stops people from asking these questions in future.

 

And for the record, the speed of light isn't a constant, it changes depending on it's environment.

 

Well, yes. However, when speaking of the speed of light, most people will just use its speed in a vacuum.

 

was hoping someone would say that =D



ah.


I spent HOURS upon HOURS looking into this, just to come up with a reasonable explanation, a way to DEFINATELY prove this isn't possible. I just couldn't find the right words.

Thanks shredder =D

 

i agree, confusing but still makes sense. but if light isn't a constant than maybe the universe isn't a constant and can change with the right variables and thus make it go faster than light..

 

Aaah. Of Course,

Thankyou for injecting more intelligence into us,

Shredderbeam.

No Thankyou to any more infractions.

 

There are quantum effects whose influences seem to travel faster than the speed of light. But according to the standard model of physics, I think lightspeed is the maximum in the Universe.

 

Well shredder, excuse me if this isn't true....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml

 

Yeah, it's definitely not impossible.

 

Look, if Captain Kirk can go Warp 10, then so can I.

 

That seems entirely plausable.

 

thanks now i can mess with my science teacher

 

Going faster then the speed of light is not limited to the point of critical mass. (AKA the point where you reach the same speed as light.) The reason this is so is because scientists have discovered that black holes (gravitational vortex's [or supercenters]) can capture light itself, and in order for light to be effected by gravity, it requires that it MUST have MASS. Also, this idea of mass was proven by several expirements that researchers have made in slowing light itself down all the way to 38 mph. They speculate that with the proper equipment, it is possible to stop light altogether. For example: Diamonds slow light particles to half their speed as they pass through- It's famed to be the "magic that draws us to diamonds."

The original 9 dimensions that scientists speculated the universe had has been expelled due to the light decrepitation phenomenon; They now conclude with iron-clad assurance that there may well be over 27 dimensions.

In any case, my theory of the universe explains that gravity not only has pull, but it has tensile strength towards other objects of mass. The faster one partial goes the more strength it takes to go faster in order to break the nearly instantaneous increases and decreases of the "string's" that bond the two pieces of matter together... As such the closer you get to light, the more your atomic particles will try to tear into smaller ones. In other words you can go faster than the speed of light, if you can condense your particles in order to strengthen them, or tear them apart in order to make the strain upon them weaker. We have already discovered for fact that there are particles that move faster than the speed of light; we call them Neutrinos. They do not necessarily move in one direction straight, and because of this, in a race it may tie with light, however it makes several revolutionary spirals around that straight line, technically adding more to its speed while it's velocity remains the same as lights.


Citations:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/23/researchers-slow-light-to-a-crawl-photonic-computers-imminent/
http://geology.about.com/od/geophysics/a/aa_wimps.htm

 

True, when two entangled particles are involved, the "communication" between them, so to speak, can travel up to 10,000 times faster than light.

However, I'm talking about conventional physics, involving rockets, large amounts of mass, etc.

Actually, the reason that light is affected by gravity is that gravity distorts space and time. Think of the "bowling ball on a water bed" analogy. A marble rolling along can have its path changed by the depression the bowling ball creates.

It is possible to stop light altogether, indeed, it's already been done by Lene Hau, albeit momentarily. If you take a refractive substance, and beam light through it, the index of refraction will be n = c/v, where n is the index of refraction, c is the speed of light, and v is the apparent speed of light. The index of refraction is, in theory, limitless, so it can be increased until the apparent speed of light drops to zero.

I hadn't heard of the 27 dimension theory, however, I would be very interested to see it.

Your theory is interesting, but I haven't seen any evidence to substantiate that gravity also pushes.

I did a brief bit of refresher research, and I found nothing that indicated that neutrinos travel faster than light. If you could provide me with a link, I would appreciate it.

I also saw that article, and I found it a little ironic that the URL with the U.K. ending used "3ft" as the measurement, and the U.S. one used "1 meter"...

To put it in layman's terms, quantum mechanics is a bitch. It's irritating, and I don't like it. It's like a God is watching us and, seeing that we were close to solving all the mysteries of the universe, decided to make things harder for us.

I don't know if the photons traveled in an alternate dimension, warped time, etc., but I had heard that the researchers interpreted their findings incorrectly.

 

The experiment you are talking about is misleading. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, excepet photons of light. The scientists found a material with an index of refraction that was less than one. The material therefore caused light to move more quickly than it's usual state. As Shawn_ stated earlier, the speed of light is not constant. It slows and in the case speeds up depending on its enviroment.

 

You can only go faster than the speed of light if you go backwards, bump in to dorito, and bounce off his giant stomach. It has infinite mass, too, you see.

 

Wow, I didn't realize that.. Lol you know, I get asked that same question all the time too.

 

Omg... i understood the first few theories and explanations... but at about the middle i got confused.

lets just say its impossible for Human beeings to travel faster than the speed of light, which makes the whole question irrelevant as i cant pop down to the kitchen for cookies whilst im pking in wildy.

 

Ok, my head hurts alot! But say if I was to create a time machine like the one from Back To The Future (except using a Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 instead of a De Lorean DMC-12) and travelled back in time then I could therefore travel faster than light because I arrived before I left!

 

Thats true so it might depend on the situation. I personaly think going faster than the speed of light is possible. Say you went 50 miles an hour.

Then you changed the particles of light to be concentrated enough to push something. Then arent you going 50 miles over the speed of light??


Anyway it probably will never happen but hope is allive