Author Topic: I discovered how to travel at light speed...  (Read 8177 times)

Offline VincentMcConnell

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I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« on: June 13, 2012, 10:56:11 PM »
So, you're probably saying, "It's impossible, you nut!".
Well, I have the answer.

Anyone can do it, all you need is a flashlight. Simply point it away from you and turn it on. Since motion is relative, relative to the foremost photons in the beam of light, you're moving away at the speed of light.

I can haz nobel pryze?
"It looks better now, Al. What change did you make?"
"I just hit it on the top with my hammer."

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Offline Glom

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2012, 01:49:36 AM »
Erm no. In the photon's frame of reference, time is dilated to the extreme so that its lifetime is zero as observed by itself. Therefore the photon can't observe you travelling at the speed of light because it can't observe anything.

Offline VincentMcConnell

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2012, 02:13:07 AM »
No, no. Just relative to its movement, not what it can observe.
"It looks better now, Al. What change did you make?"
"I just hit it on the top with my hammer."

-Mission Control and Alan Bean on Apollo 12 after the TV camera failed.

Offline Not Myself

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2012, 03:29:31 AM »
So, you're probably saying, "It's impossible, you nut!".
Well, I have the answer.

Anyone can do it, all you need is a flashlight. Simply point it away from you and turn it on. Since motion is relative, relative to the foremost photons in the beam of light, you're moving away at the speed of light.

I can do better than that, right now, right now I am moving at twice the speed of light away from a point which is moving at twice the speed of light away from me.

I can haz nobel pryze?

I'm not on the committee, so I can't help you with that.
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Offline advancedboy

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2012, 08:39:55 AM »
Vincent, for an object with mass travelling at speed of light, would make Einstein gnash his teeth  or dentures in his grave position that he is currently in now. It would imply mass increasing to infinity. And I ain`t talking here Nissan ersatz luxury division. But I have my mumblings as what could be a suspect of going beyond speed of light.
Namely, black holes. As we know black holes have ravenous appetite curbed by unfathomable gravity. Evn light doesn`t have power to leave its gravitational hug. So we conclude that gravity does affect light. So if a poor light beam can`t get out, what happens to the same poor beam that is approaching the black hole and with full throttle open going beyond event horizon and strutting past accretion disc? Remember the light is already flooring the gas pedal at its legit limit of 300 000km/sec. In order to adhere to the Einstein`s devised speed limit, we have to conclude that the immense gravity of a black hole would have no effect on incoming light. If it did, it would brake the Pandora box open, while somewhat nailing a coffin of one patent bureau employee, who managed to have too much time on his hands to tinker in God`s pantry  and answer questions noone dared to ask.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2012, 08:42:16 AM by advancedboy »

Offline Echnaton

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2012, 09:34:15 AM »
Vincent, for an object with mass travelling at speed of light, would make Einstein gnash his teeth  or dentures in his grave position that he is currently in now. It would imply mass increasing to infinity. And I ain`t talking here Nissan ersatz luxury division. But I have my mumblings as what could be a suspect of going beyond speed of light.
Namely, black holes. As we know black holes have ravenous appetite curbed by unfathomable gravity. Evn light doesn`t have power to leave its gravitational hug. So we conclude that gravity does affect light. So if a poor light beam can`t get out, what happens to the same poor beam that is approaching the black hole and with full throttle open going beyond event horizon and strutting past accretion disc? Remember the light is already flooring the gas pedal at its legit limit of 300 000km/sec. In order to adhere to the Einstein`s devised speed limit, we have to conclude that the immense gravity of a black hole would have no effect on incoming light. If it did, it would brake the Pandora box open, while somewhat nailing a coffin of one patent bureau employee, who managed to have too much time on his hands to tinker in God`s pantry  and answer questions noone dared to ask.

For the skills exhibited in composing this paragraph, I hereby grant you the degree of Master of Mixed Metaphor (MMM), with all the rights and privileges associated with it.   :)
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett

Offline VincentMcConnell

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2012, 12:28:05 PM »
I agree with the poster above me... WAY too much attempted symbolism and metaphor.
"It looks better now, Al. What change did you make?"
"I just hit it on the top with my hammer."

-Mission Control and Alan Bean on Apollo 12 after the TV camera failed.

Offline ka9q

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2012, 05:37:57 PM »
Vincent, you may not know that the speed of light is invariant -- exactly the same in every inertial reference frame, regardless of the velocity of the source. If you stand in front of me and shine a flashlight at me, I'll measure its photons moving at c. If you continue to shine the flashlight at me while you run directly away at velocity v, I will still measure your photons moving at exactly c -- not c-v.

This is the basic postulate underlying special relativity, and it is experimentally confirmed beyond any doubt. Einstein's genius was in deducing what it meant for light to have this "simple" property. It forced absolutely fundamental (and to many people, highly counterintuitive) changes in our understanding of distance, time and velocity.

The prohibition on exceeding the speed of light is often misunderstood. Nothing keeps you from defining some arbitrary geometric point in space that moves faster than c with respect to you. You just can't do anything useful with it. What relativity does prohibit is communicating faster than light, or physically moving an object with nonzero mass at or faster than the speed of light.

Offline ipearse

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Re: I discovered how to travel at light speed...
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2012, 04:33:48 PM »
Faster-than-light travel? easy. "Make it so..."
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