If you had 2 ships following each other that can travel at the speed of light would the people in the front ship be able to see the ship behind them? Since our vision is based on light reflection.
But wouldn't that imply that the space between the ships is inert and the light bouncing back has no obstacle to overcome? A part of me says there is truth to what you're saying but I'm still skeptical. Because if you have a grounded light source emmiting light and you take off a second earlier, you're not going to see the light because it won't catch up. But if you take off at the same time your eyes would see that light as if it were standing still in time. Right? So if you could see the ship behind you, wouldn't it seem like it stuck in time as well? Theoretically any faster that you travel and your eyes interpret the information as if it were going back in time. Obviously its literally not but you perceive it as so. Fuck why did i even think of this shit. I'm too dumb to be asking these questions
I don't really know what you're getting at with this. You have to think about the objects' velocities relative to each other. If both spaceships are moving at 299,792,458 m/s, then it would be exactly the same as if they weren't moving at all. If a beam of light is shot from one spaceship to the other, it would be moving at 299,792,458 m/s relative to them, so they would see it completely normally, as if they weren't moving at all. It starts to get weird for outside observers though. If I'm standing on the ground, watching all this happen, I don't see it the same way they do. If the spaceships are moving at c and they fire off a beam of light, you would assume the light will be moving at 2c. Unfortunately, nothing can ever go faster than c. So instead of the beam of light moving at twice the speed of light (relative to me), time slows down to accommodate it. From my perspective, time would slow down; but from the perspective of someone on the ship, everything would look normal.
Time itself wouldn't slow down, it would only be perceived as so because of the way our brains interpret the light waves. But fine, agree to disagree. I would draw a diagram of what i mean but I'm too lazy. The reason I don't agree is because when you explain yourself I imagine that scenario working with a ball being thrown from a vehicle. Technically the ball is traveling at vehicle speed plus the speed at which it is thrown, but to the thrower it's only traveling as fast as it was thrown. But the big difference is a ball has propulsion, were light is emitted and how can the waves reach an object which is traveling at the speed at which they are being emitted? Just a side note, I haven't read up on it too much, but there is these things called Tachyons which are subatomic particles that are believed by some to travel faster then the speed of light. This hasn't been proven it's all hypothetical but I'm assuming who ever came up with it was way smarter then I was and had a solid basis for this hypothesis.
Scientists in 2009 have transported matter 10 miles. It will be possible one day, never say it's not possible. With the advent of the singularity, we'll most likely find out exactly how it's possible.
Relativity is based on the principle that the laws of physics are the same for all observers. In electromagnetism, light propagates outward from it's source at speed c. Physics also tells us that it's impossible to differentiate between being at rest and moving at constant velocity, so someone at rest would measure c to be the same as someone moving at a constant velocity, no matter how fast that person is moving. Let's assume that it's possible to actually travel at c. If a ship is traveling at c, and it turned on it's headlights, an observer at rest would see the light traveling with the ship at the same speed. The pilot of the ship would see the light propagating outwards from the ship at c. This is a logical contradiction, as the beam of light can't be traveling with the ship and away from the ship at the same time, so the assumption that traveling at c is possible must be false. In the mathematics of relativity, kinetic energy goes to infinity as ones velocity approaches c.
+rep, this was a really good way to put it. Isn't the point moot anyway? Once we reach the speed of light, we are energy rather than mass correct? So even if we made it there, we likely would not be perceiving anything.
Au contraire. As you approach the speed of light, your mass actually approaches infinity. You don't just turn into energy, I have no idea what gave you that idea.
Is it even possible to answer this hypothetically? Only objects with no mass can travel at the speed of light, so the theoretical situation itself is already on somewhat unstable footing. From my admittedly limited understanding of this stuff.... From the perspective of a photon, I'm pretty sure that there actually is no "time"--everything from its perspective happens instantaneously, more or less. A photon travelling from even the most distant galaxy isn't aging at all. So if you were actually going the speed of light, everything would be so wacky that the theoretical situation wouldn't even make sense. Anyway, while I wait for someone to tell me I'm wrong, I'll go research this stuff a little.
i dont understand why only objects with no mass can travel at the speed of light.. and if as you approach the speed of light, your mass approaches infinity, does this mean that the physical mass of the object increases? if i get into a jet ant travel at mock 10, will the mass of the jet start to increase? I am thoroughly confused......