Quote:
Originally Posted by HazelGod  You haven't actually studied physics, have you? 
The whole crux of Einstein's theory of special relativity is that the speed of any object in motion will never exceed the speed of light relative to any observer, regardless of the velocity of the observer. Many people have a difficult time wrapping their minds around this because they're so accustomed to thinking in the terms you mentioned above...such that two travelers headed toward one another, each moving 100mph relative to a stationary third observer, will each "see" the other moving with a relative speed of 200mph.
In reality, this apparent ability to add relative speeds is only true for velocities that are a small fraction of c.
If the two travelers were approaching one another, each moving at the speed of light relative to a stationary observer, then each traveler would see the other moving toward him at the speed of light, AND the stationary third observer would see each traveler moving at light speed with respect to himself.
Also, due to the law of conservation of momentum, as any object with rest mass > 0 approaches the speed of light, it's apparent mass approaches infinity. As such, the energy required to accelerate the object further also approaches infinity as its velocity approaches light speed.
The germane effect of such speed is the effect known as time dilation...as relative velocity approaches light speed, the Lorentz factor of two colocal events approaches infinity. For all intents and purposes, for an object moving at light speed, time stands still...so if you were able to accelerate to light speed for five years (as measured by people standing still) and then stop, the trip would have been instantaneous for you...you'd have essentially jumped ahead in time by five years.
You'd also be five light-years from home, but that's another worry altogether. |
Oh Hell no. I'm just going by what I understand which, it seems, is wrong. Thank you for correcting me
.
What about the rest of what I said? Does that seem sensible to you?
I'm also curious about the teleportation of matter. As I understand it, in a lab, photons can be made to appear in a location before the photons have actually left their starting point. To me that says that there's something going on; if not actually exceeding the speed of light, then somehow cheating time by using interdimensional travel. I'm also curious about the 11 dimensions thing. If there really are 11 dimensions in the universe, could matter leave this dimension, drop into another, then reappear back in this one in non-linear time? Wouldn't the matter be subject to the relative time of the other dimension while it was in that dimension?
One other thing. Ages ago in
Astronomy, I read an article about what I think are 'tychons' or 'tachyons.' These were light emissions that were traveling at several times the speed of light and were simultaneously approaching and receding from Earth. I've never heard about then since but the name stuck in my head and when
Star Trek started talking about them I knew then that I wasn't imagining them.
I agree we can't cheat the speed of light, but maybe we can cheat mass, gravity, and the weak force to do make time do what we want.
This question may do better at Thunder's. I've run into some quantum physicists there who are into water pumping.
