Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Is Light speed really the limit?

Under commonly accepted theory matter cannot accelerate faster than light particles ahead of it due to compression of the particles in front of it. If particle teleportation were to be used to alter the properties of the particles in front so that they were no longer moving in the same direction of the accelerated object this would decrease friction so that less force would be needed to move these objects faster. In an ideal situation these light particles moving in the same direction could be shunted to one side OR better yet could one day be completely moved to the back of the object thus removing the limit to velocity. Does anyone have any views on this? or research to the contrary?

Commonly accepted theory says no such thing.

Where are you getting the basis for what you are writing?

To start with there is no such thing as a faster than light particles.

My view is that you need to learn how to post links to source material so we can attempt to decipher what you are writing.

The speed limit imposed upon particles has nothing to do with friction or other particles being in the way, compressed or not. I'm sorry, everforward, but you need to get a proper understanding of relativity before you start this kind of theorizing. What you are saying doesn't make any sense.

Yes.Speed limit is the property of space...
It not something which can be overcome or get rid of...as it has its own committments to different refernce frames ... Amazing is HIS integrity...And that is the reason I pray to the Light and the ultimate source of the light...

You think photons are giving you friction, what about all those tachyons out there, going backwards in time smacking you in the face as you try to move forward! I'm amazed we can move at all!

hehe. so as you can see this is just a theory. could anyone please discredit it with links to reference material as i thought the reason light couldn't travel any faster is because there was no more force being applied to the photon. Thus leading me to believe that, no matter what the mass of the object being moved, the only reason it couldn't become faster than light was because for it to do so it would need immense amounts of energy just to pass through normal space at that speed. (no mention of travelling through absolute void though) Perhaps i should have had my pseudonym as shotinthedark.

ef:"hehe. so as you can see this is just a theory. could anyone please discredit it with links to reference material..."

Finchbeak is right, what you wrote does not make any sense. And BTW, puttig together two ideas does not always a theory make. Especially when one of the ideas is flawed in its understanding.
You want some refs attesting your reasoning is faulty. Try any college level physics book that deals with special relativity.

ef:"... as i thought the reason light couldn't travel any faster is because there was no more force being applied to the photo."

In special relativity, the main postulate is that nothing can travel faster than light in vacuum (in vacuum light travels at the fastest speed).
Why this is indeed the case, let's say that no observation of faster than light particles (tachyons) has ever been made. It should suffice for now.

ef:"...thus leading me to believe that, no matter what the mass of the object being moved, the only reason it couldn't become faster than light was because for it to do so it would need immense amounts of energy just to pass through normal space at that speed. (no mention of travelling through absolute void though)."

Actually, if you read the postulates of SR (special relativity) attentive, the vacuum is implicitly understood, besides being explicitly stated for light, exactly for the reason that in vacuum all other dissipation mechanisms are absent.

The rest of your explanation is correct. One of the reasons why no massive (i.e. having rest mass) particle can exceed the speed of light is because in order to attain the speed of light it would need infinite energy. Photons are a special case of what is called massless particles (i.e. no rest mass) and the explanation does not apply to them since they already travel at the speed of light (which if you think about, makes sense).

Hey git - don't you like a causal universe?

Lorentz Invariance demands a finite lightspeed. Given any achievable velocities V1 and V2 and any finite lightspeed, the bound on the relative velocities of V1 and V2 as viewed by any inertial observer cannot exceed

(V1 + V2)/[1 +(V1)(V2)/c^2]

This is transformation of velocities parallel to the direction of motion. For velocities at an arbitrary angle theta, Jackson gives

u_parallel = (u'_parallel + v)/(1+(v dot u')/c^2)
u_perp = u'_perp/(gamma_v(1+(v dot u')/c^2))

http://www.physics.umanitoba.ca/~souther/waves02/feb0402/sld011.htm

Observed permittivity and permeability of the vacuum set a value for the finite lightspeed.

If you have a physics that does not include Lorentz Invariance and still contains useful stuff like Maxwell's Equations, post it. BTW,

thermodynamics + Bekenstein bound = General Relativity

so you need also rewrite all of chemistry or information theory, too.

Provided you assume causality. Tachyons that alway travel faster than lightspeed are not inconsistent with SR. But suppose you fire a tachyonic bullet and kill someone with that. The bullet would have to be made inside the gun at the instant it is fired, because it could never have been at rest. Let's assume that this is possible. Then there exists a frame in which the person was hit by the bullet before the gun was fired.

A tachyon is almost indistinguishable from a slower-than-light particle. It would take just as much energy to "slow" it down towards light speed as it would take to speed up a normal particle towards light speed.

The only notable difference is that the tachyon's relative movement through time would appear to us to be going backwards in time. (And a photon traveling at the speed of light experiences no time; its entire existence happens at the same time, so far as the photon is concerned.)

So who's to say your tachyonic bullet did not in fact jump from the victim's body into your gun?

Well, causation is the big problem there. The chemical reaction in the gun caused the bullet to shoot out.

So look for something that appears to have been caused by what happened at the end, and ta da, there's your tachyon.

(I guess that explains all those "the end justifies the means" people out there.)

I'm glad there was some useful information there. From you guys
Could anyone recommend some books to buy (available in England)

So I can learn more.

Hm...well i think light does have its limits since it's comprised of waves, much like sound. The possibilities of even greater moving paricles must not be thrown out the door. Maybe blackholes could explain this. If light can't escape the gravitation force of such a supermassive body,so then what could be the velocity of particles moving towards this body?

everforward
Here's a site that looks like it might be pretty good - can't say I've really checked it out, though.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/relativity.html

And another one, on general relativity:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/gr/gr.html

Justin:
You need to get yourself a basic book on physics. The speed of light sent from a spaceship traveling at 90% of the speed of light ... toward a black hole ... is precisely the speed of light. That is the state of physics ... both theory and laboratory.

Finchbeak:
Baez is one of the best in the field. You can definitely trust the site.

Yes, Einsteins special theory of relativety...i know. What i was proposing was the idea that maybe there are other particles moving faster than light.

Assuming a vehicle could reach the speed of light by means of some force nuetralizing field or something, what wouldn't prevent one from manipulating space/time to the crafts advantage? If possible it would not travel faster than light per se, but it would go from point A to B faster than light, it would merely have a "shorter" path in a straight line than light would when infact the actual distances are the same.

I wonder if in other 'parallel' universes there are things such as 'faster than light'. In ours I think light is taken as the fastest.

Makes me wonder if our universe could be expanding at the speed of light, maybe even just a tad faster. That could be why that speed can't be exceeded. It's pretty tuff to go faster than the vehicle you are traveling in. Especially if that vehicle is using all available energy to maintain it's speed. If this were true then all parallel universes would have their own speed of light. It would be their rate of expansion plus a tad.
Good gosh . . . if this were the case, what symbol would stand for "a tad".

j6p ... nothing you wrote makes sense.

Let see light goes 186,000 miles per second.

Your argument is that I can't turn on a flashlight in an automobile that is only going 60mpg.

Interesting ... inconsistent ... nonsensical.

Think harder.

DA Morgan, is that what you understood my post to indicate? Interesting. :rolleyes:

Try it this way and see if it works for you: Make that vehicle the universe. Now expand that universe at the speed of light or maybe a "tad" faster. Now put yourself anywhere in that universe and turn on the old flash light.
If that beam of light can go fast enough to leave the universe . . . then ya got me.