You can’t go faster than light for the simple reason that it would defeat the very many performance optimisations necessary to keep the universe running.
Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
91–100 of 234 posts
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#92Of course you can go faster than light, way faster. When it comes to physics there are no limits how fast, far or deep you can go. People constraint themselves with articifial limits and it's not necessary a bad thing. But real limits doesn't exist.
I'v heard someone saying space is a big ball and outside of it is nothing. I imagine nothing as a black space but that actually is something. So there is something after all. And however weird or normal these other places are, it goes like this infinitely.
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#93What would happen if you had a very large rotor of let's say 50.000km in diameter. And let it rotate at 1r/s. The inner part would only move at very low speed and the outer part at near lightspeed. What kind of time dilation effects would be seen?
If you would sit on the tips for a few days and then stop the rotor, travel back to the center, you would see a very old one right?
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#94I have a probably very dumb question. If speed is relative, when we say something travels at... I don't know... 50% the speed of light, that speed is relative to what? how do you know it is 50% and not 53%?
How do we know we're not already moving at 99% the speed of light (like our observable universe as a whole having that speed )?
I love this stuff, but it is so counter intuitive for the average human.
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't get this. I simply can not accept that the speed of light is that same for all observers, irrespective of their respective speeds vs the light source . It is obviously a cornerstone of Einsteins theory (I forget which; either the special or general relativity), but to me this is simply not logical. To state that the speed of light is the same only because the relative time is variable for respective obs…
It's a consequence of the time dilation. You are not stationary towards the photon to an outside observer, so to them it looks like the photon moves away from them faster than it moves away from you. And from the obserer's perspective, your clock is ticking slower. That's the key. The amount that your clock is ticking slower is such that you, the one moving, would calculate the speed of the photon the same as the sta…
Thanks, that sounds like the explanations I've seen too, and that I hope to understand some day. Atm I'm at the point where I gladly accept that time may seem to dilate, but not that it actually does. Maybe I just need to dive deeper into it than I've been willing to do so far.
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#96Of course you can go faster than light, way faster. When it comes to physics there are no limits how fast, far or deep you can go. People constraint themselves with articifial limits and it's not necessary a bad thing. But real limits doesn't exist. I'v heard someone saying space is a big ball and outside of it is nothing. I imagine nothing as a black space but that actually is something. So there is something after…
> Of course you can go faster than light, way faster.
OK. How?
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#97My favorite general relativity paradox: A runner is running with a 20m pole at a sufficient velocity so that a stationary observer sees the pole having length 10m. The runner runs through a barn which is 10m long. And two people outside shut the doors simultaneously so that the runner is completely enclosed in the barn for a moment.
But from the runner's perspective, the barn has length 5m long. What does she see happen when the doors are closed on her?
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#98wouldn't it go backward in time if it goes faster than light? Light travels in null-time from point a to point b (light-perspective of course) - anything slower, needs time to go from a to b. if i travel faster than light, i can - but i travel to b before i start at a. Maybe because this is not possible.
How much you will travel back in time by using a teleport (instant travel, infinite speed)?
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#99You can go faster than the speed of light. Its slowing thats the hard part!
Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?
#100I have a probably very dumb question. If speed is relative, when we say something travels at... I don't know... 50% the speed of light, that speed is relative to what? how do you know it is 50% and not 53%? How do we know we're not already moving at 99% the speed of light (like our observable universe as a whole having that speed )? I love this stuff, but it is so counter intuitive for the average human.
Higgs field is present everywhere and mediated by Higgs boson, so just measure speed relative to Higgs field. Or you can measure speed relative to CMB.