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Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

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Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If distances are dilating, why isn't that /less/ ground?

The distance doesn't dilate; time does. The distance contracts . E.g., to a photon moving at 1c, the whole universe has a contracted length of 0 meters, and it crosses the whole universe instantly. To us, observers at and the photon takes to cross the whole universe. By the time the photon's 0-second journey across the entire universe has finished (whatever that means), we're all extremely old. :D This is the time di…

So if I was in a space battle and the enemy 'jumps to light speed'(1) to make a quick escape ... they would actually be easier to target with a laser because they 'slow down' from my perspective?

(1) 'light speed' as in the speed of light, not as in a sci-fi context of hyperspace jump/FTL jump.

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#164

Light isn’t limited in the speed it can travel. Mass is. Light can’t exist without matter. The fundamental limit is mass versus all of the forces which act as drag.

Why are gravitational waves limited by the same speed limit? There is no mass traveling in that case, I suppose.

This is an excellent question, which predates the theory of General Relativity by a few years, and has only been astrophysically verified after 1974 (Hulse-Taylor) or even later. As far as I am aware, a complete theoretical answer in General Relativity itself is still elusive.

I'll largely stick with the theory, which I guess is what you are interested in.[1]

The topic is in Part VIII (Chapter 35) of Misner, Thorne & Wheeler's Gravitation ("MTW"), which is the gold standard reference/textbook for General Relativity.

I will later try to briefly summarize the section.

Instead, first, at the root of my answer is the non-linear nature of the Einstein Field Equations, which imply that gravity self-gravitates. This is usually side-stepped by textbooks, which instead proceed to linearize the Einstein Field Equations, that is, they consider the weak limit of gravitation. This is usually to split a metric with a gravitational wave into some minimally-or-even-non-dynamical background and the wave-part, using the former to define the speed of the latter.

For strong gravitational waves, or a very dynamical background, we cannot do this. I think this regime is best studied in a vacuum solution, i.e., where there is only gravitation that self-interacts, although most of the work in this regime appears to have the aim of resolving questions about the distribution of matter in the very early universe (e.g. Misner's mixmaster). An interesting exact solution of the Einstein Field Equations is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasner_metric which can generate singularities and other features formed by gravitational-wave interactionsn. That is, there is manifestly non-linear gravitational self-interaction in the highly-dynamical Kasner chaos. (This is the worst case for the linearized treatments in textbooks).

The Kasner metric can be applied to a Lorentzian manifold (3 space, 1 time dimension), and so is consistent with our universe's causal structure. An interesting feature of this solution is that it engages only two constants in the Einstein Field Equations: c and G. The only velocity scale that we can construct from any combination of these two constants is c itself.

This is highly suggestive that in a universe like ours gravitational radiation must propagate at c.

Again, this is just an argument that there may be an answer within the theory of General Relativity itself, without treating the speed of gravitational waves as a postulate.

This argument is made without regard to the obvious craziness in a Kasner chaos universe compared to our own. General Relativity admits complete gravitational solutions for all sorts of craziness, including universes with any number of space and time dimensions as long as there are at least two total, stress-energy which is distributed very differently from ours (including negative energy, or energy that pops in or out of existence without a cause), and so forth. It is very General. (Special Relativity is very Special: it's defined on -- and only on -- a gravity-free (flat, no gravitational waves) spacetime of exactly 3 spatial and 1 timelike dimension.)

Returning to MTW, they conclude that the propagation speed instead can be no greater than c.

The authors develop an exact vacuum plane-wave solution in §35.9, where the only thing in the spacetime is single large pulse of gravitational radiation in otherwise totally empty flat spacetime, and a set of "test particles", which are well defined probes in General Relativity defined so as to not perturb the solution. They proceed to compare this solution to that of an electromagnetic plane wave in Special Relativity, and arrive at a more physical viewpoint where the gravitational plane wave, if it has anything like a physical source (e.g. a pair of masses in mutual orbit; they return to this in Ch. 36) should be more like a set of "ripples in the spacetime curvature ... propagating on a very slightly curved background spacetime ... The most striking difference between the background and the ripples is not in the magnitude of their spacetime curvatures, but in their characteristic lengths". There is a characteristic length of this background spacetime, determined by its (much much larger) radius of curvature.

They then grind out effective stress-energy tensors, which would couple with any matter in a non-vacuum environment. The argument is that anything in the stress-energy tensor must in certain causal structures (like the one in our universe) must propagate at no more than c.

Their treatment is the basis for a particular type of graviton (Ex 35.16), the scattering and redshift of gravitational waves (.17, .18), and various ways to express them without resort to an effective stress-energy tensor.

In these approaches, c is the limiting speed of gravitational radiation, but gravitational radiation may move slower than c in non-vacuum. In vacuum, the pure pulse may in some circumstances develop a trailing edge that propagates at less than c, but when this can even happen the effect is weak when the wavelength is short compared to the background length scale, or when the amplitude of the pulse is small. Perhaps gravitational astronomy can hope to find someday a high-enough amplitude wave to put this to the test.

For clarity, though, the linearization-is-good-theory claim is on solid footing. LIGO uses the linearized equations and have found agreement between the speed of gravitational waves they've detected to their theory to something around nineteen decimal places. A good multimessenger signal, which seems inevitable, will almost certainly improve that. There is no good reason to expect the speed of gravity in a full solution to the Einstein Field Equations to differ. One can make the same argument about the march of results from post-Newtonian expansions (as below) too. The only "wiggle" room is that cosmic inflation is probably much more dynamical, and the gravitational waves are of much greater amplitude.

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[1] The non-theory answer is that the behaviour of orbits in known astrophysical systems which are very post-Newtonian (think black holes, or extremely fast-moving galaxies containing predictable spectra from hydrogen or light curves from supernovae) are consistent with a speed limit on any gravitational interaction, and that the speed limit is very close to c. It turns out to be hard to measure the speed limit exactly. See e.g. Will @ https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301145 which discusses light from quasars being gravitationally lensed by Jupiter and how it would look different under theories that admit a propagation speed c_{gravity} different from c_{electromagnetism}. One could also compare bimetric theories of gravitation in which in the early universe gravitational self-interaction propagates differently from electromagnetism, with a view to resolving some questions in the distribution of galaxies in our sky. These generally have to decay the additional metric (meaning gravitational radiation propagates like electromagnetism) in the very early part of the universe or we get something very different from the cosmic web of galaxies that we observe.

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#165
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were watching their lives out the window of your spaceship you’d see them in fast forward vv. they’d see you in slow motion. Everything is relative. Both observers, looking at one another, would see the other moving near c. Neither would know who was ‘actually’ moving. Yet, you assume there would not be a symmetry in their respective views of the other’s passage of time. Explain why. In simpler terms, a twin…

The symmetry is broken in your twin example because the travelling twin had to accelerate to depart, accelerate to turn around, and accelerate to stop again at earth.

It has nothing to do with acceleration. You can play games with acceleration and start to get "wrong" answers with the twin paradox.

What actually matters is who travels the longest World Line a.k.a. the longest path in 4-d spacetime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_line . That is all.

A person on a non-curved geodesic spacetime path ages more quickly than a person on a curved non-geodesic spacetime path

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly though, I not sure why they couldn't just use a simpler correction: postulate that moving charge only creates magnetic field with regard to objects moving relative to it. Which is also basically true? This way, the stationary observer will sure notice that there's F_B, but will also know that the charge moving alongside the (also moving) rod does not experience it.

That's the thing though, in the article the charged object does not move relative to the rod. The rod, object, and person B are stationary relative to each other. I was actually really surprised to read that two charged objects moving with the same velocity relative to each other generates a magnetic field from A's perspective.

Two long charged rods moving with the same velocity relative to each other are two parallel wires carrying current, the second of which is a typical and easy-to-calculate example of electromagnetic attraction. In fact, that situation is so prototypical that it is used to define the Ampere in terms of what current is required to produce a certain force between parallel wires. [0]

[0] http://www.physics.louisville.edu/cldavis/phys299/notes/mag_...

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#167
post #114
post #23

I think a lot of people assume that this means you couldn't go more than a few (~100) light-years in your lifetime... But this is not actually correct. Counter-intuitively you can theorically go any number of light-years (essentially) in your lifetime, as long as you are able to approach the speed of light because when you do so the distance is dilated and hence you're covering far more ground within your reference f…

Also, it doesn’t take too much acceleration to make that trip. Comfortable earthlike 1g (~ 10m/s/s) is enough to build up a decent speed in a very reasonable time. Energy is the issue though.

Yep. At 1g you could literally go to the edge of the visible universe in less than 50 years (assuming you are targeting the edge as defined at time of departure).

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if a photon is emitted from the sun, it's passing earth immediately? Then why does sunlight need 7 or 8 minutes to get to earth? From the photon's perspective, it passes earth immediately. From our perspective, it takes 7 or 8 minutes. > And let's say, i travel one light-year at the speed of light, that should be instantaneous, right? The odometer would show 1 light-year, my watch would should 0 seconds and some…

just curious... does "time" have a "speed" ? Is travelling at the speed of light, actually travelling a a fraction of the speed of time?

> Is travelling at the speed of light, actually travelling a a fraction of the speed of time?

This is probably one of the more counter-intuitive simple calculations you can do in physics.

In special relativity, distance is given by:

  ds^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 - (c^2)dt^2
if X is your total distance in space, you have:

  dX^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2
Which is just the standard Pythagorean theorem of Euclidean geometry.

Further, your velocity is given by dX/dt. If you are traveling at the speed of light, you have:

  dX/dt=c
From which you can derive

  dX^2 = (c^2) dt^2

  dX^2 - (c^2) dt^2 = 0

  ds^2 = 0
In other words, the "distance" light travels in space time is 0.

> just curious... does "time" have a "speed" ?

It is not clear how to parse this question. Traditional "speed" is defined as distance over time. We can give this meaning for time itself by realizing that there is no single notion of time in relativity. As such, you could consider the line parallel to the time axis in the coordinate system of observer A. Since dt=0 in the coordinates of observer A, the speed of this line is not well defined. However, we could consider the coordinates of observer B. Assuming B is moving relative to A, he would see this line as being slanted, with both a time component, and a space component. As such, B could compute the speed of this line as dX'/dt', where X' is the total displacement along B's 3 spatial dimensions, and dt' is the displacement in B's time dimension. As such, B could meaningfully answer "what is the speed of A's time". Assuming I didn't mess up on the math, dX'/dt' turns out to be the velocity of A relative to B. This is a curious result that I have never seen before, but I can't really see any physical significance to it.

B could also compute dt/dt', where t' is the time axis in B's coordinate system. This computation seems more useful as it gives a direct measure of time dilation. Unsurprisingly, it also works out to be the Lorentz factor.

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#169
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like about 57 years. Assuming constant acceleration to the 1/2-way point, flip, deceleration, and using http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight3.ph... : Time elapsed (in starship's frame of reference, "Proper time") T = (c/a) * ArcCosh[a*d/(c^2) + 1] (given acceleration and distance) year = 365.25*24*3600; c = 3E8; a=9.8; d=1.25*1_000_000*(c * year) from math import acosh T = (c/a) * acosh(a…

Bad news CMB shifts into infrared, visible, uv, xray and then hard gamma.

[deleted]

Re: Why can’t I go faster than the speed of light?

#170
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like about 57 years. Assuming constant acceleration to the 1/2-way point, flip, deceleration, and using http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight3.ph... : Time elapsed (in starship's frame of reference, "Proper time") T = (c/a) * ArcCosh[a*d/(c^2) + 1] (given acceleration and distance) year = 365.25*24*3600; c = 3E8; a=9.8; d=1.25*1_000_000*(c * year) from math import acosh T = (c/a) * acosh(a…

Bad news CMB shifts into infrared, visible, uv, xray and then hard gamma.

Oh, what a shame. I was about to install some rockets on my RV and head off to Andromeda. Guess I don't need to put my newspaper subscription on hold now.
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