Can an Object Falling in Infinite Gravity Break the Speed of Light?

In summary: No. Nothing travels faster than c. Period.why? please explain.I'm not sure what you're asking. Can you provide more information?
  • #1
henrywang
14
0
If a a object is falling in a gravity field with infinitly long radius. can it eventually travel faster than the speed of light?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
henrywang said:
If a a object is falling in a gravity field with infinitly long radius. can it eventually travel faster than the speed of light?

No. Nothing travels faster than c. Period.
 
  • #3
why? please explain.
also, what about a wrap drive?
 
  • #4
henrywang said:
why? please explain.
also, what about a wrap drive?

"Why" is not a question that physics answers. "What does it do" and "how does it work" are the kind of questions physics answers. "Why questions" just lead to more "why questions" at which point religious folks say "god" and physicists say "damned if I know".

Warp drives do not exist.
 
  • #5
phinds said:
"Why" is not a question that physics answers. "What does it do" and "how does it work" are the kind of questions physics answers. "Why questions" just lead to more "why questions" at which point religious folks say "god" and physicists say "damned if I know".

Warp drives do not exist.

OK... how does the object do not go beyond the speed of light given that there is infinite lengths for acceleration?
 
  • #6
If the acceleration is caused by a constant force then one reason is that the resulting acceleration becomes less and less as the accelerating object gets nearer and nearer to light speed.

In the realm where special relativity applies, F = ma and p = mv are no longer accurate.

Instead, F = dp/dt and p = m gamma v.

Where gamma is given by 1/sqrt(1-v2/c2)

If you want to contrive a constant acceleration by something like a uniform gravity field then you get different complexities that I am not competent to explain. Things like a Rindler horizon.
 
  • #7
phinds said:
"Why" is not a question that physics answers. "What does it do" and "how does it work" are the kind of questions physics answers. "Why questions" just lead to more "why questions" at which point religious folks say "god" and physicists say "damned if I know".

Warp drives do not exist.

See this video with feynman : He clearly explains the problem with why? :
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Likes 1 person
  • #8
ag048744 said:
See this video with feynman : He clearly explains the problem with why? :


Yes, that's one of my favorites and has been referenced on this site many times. There is an abbreviated version (cropped from this one) that is only a minute or so long, where he is JUST discussing the "why".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #9
I was brought up in Scotland, where "how" is often used instead of "why". I only noticed it when I moved to England. So, for me, "how" and "why" don't have the same linguistic difference that they may for others.

In Scotland you could say something like "how are you not going?". Which means "why are you not going?"!

Or, of course, "how can you not travel faster than light?"!
 
  • #10
PeroK said:
In Scotland you could say something like "how are you not going?". Which means "why are you not going?"!

Yeah, this kind of translation issue, or difference in dialects, is something I've noticed in many situations. For example, my wife is from Pennsylvania and says (Pennsylvania Dutch style) "let it outside" when she means what the rest of us would mean if we said "leave it outside" (talking about something that is already outside). So I would say, "let the dog outside and then leave it outside" and she would say "let the dog outside and then let it outside". Very confusing.

I once had a German teacher who, when I told him I was going on a trip, said "what are you going with?" when he meant "what are you taking with you?".

This kind of stuff just goes on and on.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #11
PeroK said:
I was brought up in Scotland, where "how" is often used instead of "why". I only noticed it when I moved to England. So, for me, "how" and "why" don't have the same linguistic difference that they may for others.

In Scotland you could say something like "how are you not going?". Which means "why are you not going?"!

Or, of course, "how can you not travel faster than light?"!

Did you meet a lot of people in Scotland with the monniker 'henrywang' who were also interested in 'wrap drives'?
 
  • #12
In my personal experience, "why does it happen?", and "how does it happen" are physics questions. "Why does it happen?", is usually a metaphysics question. Perhaps you should read some Aristotle for that. Actually, an object can go faster than c. If you're talking about an object in a gravitational field with an infinitely long radius, I would think that you would be talking about an alternative universe. Surely, the same laws of physics might not apply.
 
  • #13
henrywang said:
If a a object is falling in a gravity field with infinitly long radius. can it eventually travel faster than the speed of light?

If you are launched from the surface of a planet at escape velocity, your speed would reach 0 at infinity. If you freely fall toward a mass from an infinite distance--with an initial v=0--you would impact the surface at escape velocity.
 
  • #14
henrywang said:
OK... how does the object do not go beyond the speed of light given that there is infinite lengths for acceleration?

There's a number of reasons.

1. An infinite length of acceleration is easy to think about. Just look at escape velocity. It is the velocity an object needs in order to escape the Earth's gravitational pull. In other words, it is how fast an object needs to go to get from the Earth's surface to an infinite distance. But how is this possible if gravity is pulling on it the whole way? The answer lies in the fact that the force of gravity falls off with distance. So if you launch an object away from the Earth fast enough, gravity won't be able to slow it down fast enough to keep up with how quickly the force falls off. Its speed will continue to decrease as it gets further and further away, but it will never hit zero.

So any realistic situation in which you would have an infinite distance to accelerate would be subject to the same laws. An object attracted to another object through gravity will never reach an infinite velocity because of how weak the attraction is at great distances.

Note that there is no realistic scenario in which you could apply a steady force for an infinite distance or time.

2. Even in a situation where you could apply a steady force for an infinite amount of time, the rules of special relativity show us that this still wouldn't result in a velocity equal to c. That's simply not the way the universe works.
 
  • #15
If you constantly push on an object you are always putting in a finite amount of energy given the amount of time that you've pushed it is finite. Special relativity gives:

Kinetic Energy = T = mc2(γ-1) = [itex]\frac{mc^2}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}} - mc^2[/itex]
If we get close to the speed of light, then that's the limit as v approaches c. If you take that limit v→c, then K→∞. So to get to lightspeed we need infinite energy. There's no way to give an object infinite energy with a finite amount of force. So you would need to run your experiment for an infinite amount of time to reach light speed.

Alternatively, you can look at the addition formula for velocities. If v is our original velocity, u the velocity we add to v, and u' the final velocity, we have:

[itex] u' = \frac {u-v} {1-\frac {uv}{c^2}} [/itex]

If I apply a force for some finite interval of time and start below the speed of light, then u' will never be equal to or greater than c. You can repeat this addition as many times as you want and you'll never get to c. So, say I take the amount of velocity that the gravitational field adds every second and keep adding it to the velocity using this formula, the sequence will look like .99, .999, .9999, .99999, but it'll never get to or above 1 for any finite number of additions.

Both of these break down if you have an infinite time in which to perform the experiment, but this isn't a realistic scenario, so don't expect physics to answer such a question.
 
  • #16
I am in agreement with the first answer; Nothing (energy or matter) can travel faster than the speed of light, period.

But then you asked "Why?" Well, there's a much better answer to that follow-up question, ever since July 4, 2012.

Nothing made of atoms can travel faster than the speed of light because the Higgs mechanism provides mass to electrons, positrons, quarks, anti-quarks, W and Z bosons, without which, atomic structure is not possible. The Higgs mechanism does this without violating conservation of energy by slowing these particles down (from the speed of light). The Higgs boson also imparts mass to itself, but decays into photons in about 10^-21 seconds in the LHC. Energy itself cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

Give it up. Nothing material or energy in this universe is ever going to exceed c. Heck, the LHC couldn't even have been designed without E=mc^2, and that particular derivation by Einstein has only one assumption. It is that the speed of light is invariant and cannot be exceeded by matter or energy.
 
  • #17
Then by that same analogy we can say that the higgs boson is able to travel at the speed of light right?

BTW: Not about the subject in question but I wonder if two higgs boson can actually collide and wonder what would happen? Super fast telecommunications maybe, anyone?
 
  • #18
repollo said:
Then by that same analogy we can say that the higgs boson is able to travel at the speed of light right?

No, the higgs boson has mass and is not able to reach c.

BTW: Not about the subject in question but I wonder if two higgs boson can actually collide and wonder what would happen? Super fast telecommunications maybe, anyone?

Given the extremely short lifetime of a higgs boson before it decays, two of them colliding is very unlikely. However, if it happened we'd just get a shower of new particles like all particle collisions.
 
  • #19
thanks guys!
 
  • #20
Awesome, btw i missunderstood the concept of the higgs boson then, since i understood it did not had a mass since is all around the universe dispersed. Probably completely wrong... lol anyhow thanks
 
  • #21
danshawen said:
I am in agreement with the first answer; Nothing (energy or matter) can travel faster than the speed of light, period.

But then you asked "Why?" Well, there's a much better answer to that follow-up question, ever since July 4, 2012.
The Higgs boson has nothing to do with this "why?" question.

E=mc^2, and that particular derivation by Einstein has only one assumption. It is that the speed of light is invariant and cannot be exceeded by matter or energy.
There are two assumptions, and neither has anything to do with exceeding light speed. You don't have to take my word for it - Einstein's 1905 Special Relativity paper is online and you'll find it pretty quickly if you google for "on the electrodynamics of moving bodies".
 
  • #22
danshawen said:
But then you asked "Why?" Well, there's a much better answer to that follow-up question, ever since July 4, 2012.
No. The Higgs mechanism is not a reason for special relativity. It is a reason why particles have mass, but even without mass they could not exceed the speed of light, and this has nothing to do with the Higgs mechanism.

The Higgs mechanism does this without violating conservation of energy by slowing these particles down (from the speed of light).
The particles do not "slow down" as they never travel at the speed of light.
The Higgs boson also imparts mass to itself, but decays into photons in about 10^-21 seconds in the LHC.
The decay to two photons is possible and interesting for the observation, but it is quite rare (~.3%).

Heck, the LHC couldn't even have been designed without E=mc^2, and that particular derivation by Einstein has only one assumption. It is that the speed of light is invariant and cannot be exceeded by matter or energy.
I hope the LHC is not based on a wrong (or at least misleading, if quoted like this) equation! See Nugatory's reply for details.

repollo said:
BTW: Not about the subject in question but I wonder if two higgs boson can actually collide and wonder what would happen? Super fast telecommunications maybe, anyone?
They could interact and produce other particles, but that process is really unlikely.
I have absolutely no idea how you could think this would have any relation to telecommunications.

repollo said:
Awesome, btw i missunderstood the concept of the higgs boson then, since i understood it did not had a mass since is all around the universe dispersed. Probably completely wrong... lol anyhow thanks
What you mean is the Higgs field - this is everywhere. Higgs bosons are rare.
 
  • #23
Thanks for the info, I got to the idea of telecommunications with the misleaded(?) idea that higgs bosons can travel faster than light and that the higgs field has different potential depending on the higgs boson quantitative energies imparting on the higgs field. And by now I am not sure if I am talking about bosons or whales... Anyhow thanks for the clarification, is difficult to keep up with stuff I can't practice, since right now I don't have the money to make a LHC on my moms basement. ;)

And yes i was confusing the higgs field with the bosons.
 
  • #24
phinds said:
No. Nothing travels faster than c. Period.

I have a question about neutrinos in this respect.

Understanding from relativity is that if something has mass, not only can it not travel faster than c, but it must travel at less than c (i.e. cannot even travel at c). Neutrinos qualify as having mass.

However, all recent experiments (since the FTL neutrino imbroglio) seem to report that speed of neutrinos are 'consistent with c', not less than c. They are not able to establish that the speed is less than c.

What is the current interpretation of this result? There may be an underlying assumption that perhaps neutrinos travel very, very close to c but not at c (as GR would require). However, given the level of accuracy of current experiments, and given that so many have been conducted independently, why is the statement still being made 'consistent with c within the margin of error' rather than 'very close to but just short of c within the margin of error'?
 
  • #25
The expected difference between neutrino speeds and the speed of light is extremely tiny - several orders of magnitude below the experimental uncertainties of all current and even all planned experiments. "Consistent with c" and "consistent with the predicted speed slightly below c" are the same.
 
  • #26
On the other hand, galaxies move away from each other faster than c due to expansion of the universe.

While the Dark Energy increases this expansion rate, billions of years from now, if not now there would even be matter moving away from us not only above c but with an acceleration rate over c..

But this is quite a different situation. As in, an object can not move next to another object with a speed faster than c. The inflation is taking affect only when the two objects is away from each other. Around 4,200 megaparsecs away. And that is quite away from each other. Enough that they can't share any information in any form anyway.
 
  • #27
ExecNight said:
On the other hand, galaxies move away from each other faster than c due to expansion of the Around 4,200 megaparsecs away. And that is quite away from each other. Enough that they can't share any information in any form anyway.

That is wrong in two regards. First, expansion takes place on a much smaller scale. 4,200 parsecs is more than enough, to say nothing of 4,200 MEGAparsecs. Second, even objects which are 4,200 megaparsecs away from us are sharing light (information) with us right now. In fact, objects at the edge of our observable universe are something like 14,000 megaparsecs away and we can still see them.
 
Last edited:
  • #28
It's true we do receive light from such galaxies. Yet, the information is still of its past self that haven't crossed the c threshold for us yet.

The updating of the light will cease and the galaxies we now see will freeze in space time and then red shift into darkness.

In the end it will be a lonely place in this universe as the expansion rate increases, as every object will redshift to darkness except close objects.

Anyway, i don't know what OP was trying to get at, but there are objects in this universe when you take reference point as Earth they accelerate away from that point faster than c. How that information is useful is beyond me though.
 
  • #29
ExecNight said:
The updating of the light will cease and the galaxies we now see will freeze in space time and then red shift into darkness.
I agree that they will red shift into darkness but I have no idea why you think they will "freeze in space time" since they won't.

How that information is useful is beyond me though.
Agreed, but the point I was addressing had nothing to do with whether or not the information was useful just whether or not it gets here.
 
  • #30
phinds said:
That is wrong in two regards. First, expansion takes place on a much smaller scale. 4,200 parsecs is more than enough, to say nothing of 4,200 MEGAparsecs. Second, even objects which are 4,200 megaparsecs away from us are sharing light (information) with us right now. In fact, pbjects at the edge of our observable universe are something like 14,000 megaparsecs away and we can still see them.
4200 parsecs away is still within our galaxy, where expansion does not happen.
We can see objects 4,200 Mpc away, but only in a state how they looked like several billion years ago. The border where we will never be able to see their current state is somewhere at this distance. They don't freeze in spacetime, but our view on them will freeze.
 
  • #31
mfb said:
4200 parsecs away is still within our galaxy, where expansion does not happen.

OOPS. My bad. Thanks for that correction. I can add, but I can't multiply :smile:


We can see objects 4,200 Mpc away, but only in a state how they looked like several billion years ago. The border where we will never be able to see their current state is somewhere at this distance. They don't freeze in spacetime, but our view on them will freeze.

Hm ... I don't follow. How does our view of them freeze? Wouldn't they just fade into darkness with greater and greater redshift?
 
  • #32
I would expect them to freeze and redshift into darkness because;

Well for conservation of information i would expect them to act like an object falling into the black holes event horizon. Otherwise, that would raise many questions. Like Stephen Hawking did back then
 
  • #33
phinds said:
Hm ... I don't follow. How does our view of them freeze? Wouldn't they just fade into darkness with greater and greater redshift?
Into darkness, but also into slower evolution (as seen by us) due to the redshift. The effect is very similar to objects falling into black holes (as seen by outside observers), just on a completely different timescale.
 
  • #34
mfb said:
Into darkness, but also into slower evolution (as seen by us) due to the redshift. The effect is very similar to objects falling into black holes (as seen by outside observers), just on a completely different timescale.

OK, that I understand. I think the fading to darkness would occur before the "freezing" got too severe, but I guess you could say that depends on the sensitivity of the instruments "seeing" the objects.
 
  • #35
henrywang said:
If a a object is falling in a gravity field with infinitly long radius. can it eventually travel faster than the speed of light?

No, the coordinate speed of a test probe falling from infinity is:

[tex]v=c(1-\frac{r_s}{r}) \sqrt{\frac{r_s}{r}}[/tex] for [itex]r>r_s[/itex]

where [itex]r_s[/itex] is the Schwarzschild radius of the "attracting" gravitational mass and [itex]r[/itex] is the radial Schwarzschild coordinate. So, [itex]v<c[/itex] for all [itex]r>r_s[/itex].

If the test probe is dropped from [itex]r_0[/itex] the formula becomes:

[tex]v=c(1-\frac{r_s}{r}) \sqrt{\frac{r_s}{r}-\frac{r_s}{r_0}}[/tex] for [itex]r_0>r>r_s[/itex]

For light, the coordinate speed is:

[tex]v=c(1-\frac{r_s}{r})[/tex]
 
Last edited:

1. Can an object falling in infinite gravity break the speed of light?

According to the theory of general relativity, an object falling in infinite gravity will approach the speed of light but will never exceed it. This is because the speed of light is considered to be the maximum speed in the universe.

2. What is infinite gravity?

Infinite gravity is a hypothetical concept in which the gravitational force is so strong that it becomes infinite. This is often used in thought experiments to explore the limits of physics and the behavior of objects in extreme conditions.

3. How does gravity affect the speed of light?

Gravity does not directly affect the speed of light. However, it can affect the path that light takes as it travels through space, causing it to appear to bend or curve.

4. Can anything travel faster than the speed of light?

According to the theory of relativity, it is impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. This is because as an object approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it further.

5. What would happen if an object did break the speed of light in infinite gravity?

The concept of an object breaking the speed of light in infinite gravity is purely hypothetical and not supported by current scientific theories. However, if such a scenario were possible, it would likely result in the object being torn apart by the extreme gravitational forces.

Similar threads

  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
22
Views
1K
  • Special and General Relativity
2
Replies
45
Views
3K
Replies
130
Views
7K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
5
Views
1K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
1
Views
601
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • Special and General Relativity
2
Replies
45
Views
3K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
9
Views
1K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
25
Views
2K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
3
Views
888
Back
Top