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Gaijin
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Why can nothing(in theory) go faster that light.
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
Gaijin said:Why can nothing(in theory) go faster that light.
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
James R said:It is not true that nothing can go faster than light. For example, if you point a flashlight at the moon, then you can sweep the beam across the moon's surface in a fraction of a second. Work out the speed of the spot from the flashlight as it crosses the moon's surface, and you'll get an answer greater than the speed of light.
Gaijin said:Why can nothing(in theory) go faster that light.
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
Dr.Brain said:Logically , for cause and effect to be seen in perfect order , the speed of light needs to be less than c.
I would like to ask you 'What would be the the effect if the speed limit was 2c?"
James R said:I know that the same photon doesn't travel from you to me, but that's not what I'm talking about. I have demonstrated that something can move faster than the speed of light.
Tom Mattson said:That I can't agree with. It isn't simply a matter of logic, because the Galileo vs Einstein question cannot be decided by logic alone. The matter must be (and has been) decided by experiment.
Dr. Brain said:I would like to ask you 'What would be the the effect if the speed limit was 2c?"
The universe has a nasty habit of doing things, then failing to tell us why. We can only observe and make predictions based on those observations.Gaijin said:Why can nothing(in theory) go faster that light.
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
Well, no massive "thing" at least. And James never claimed that a "massive thing" was made to move faster than c; in fact he specifically disclaimed this.Pengwuino said:This argument has been brought up before and no THING has moved faster then the speed of light. A perception has moved... but no THING has moved. No THING has been displaced at >c.
Tom Mattson said:That I can't agree with. It isn't simply a matter of logic, because the Galileo vs Einstein question cannot be decided by logic alone. The matter must be (and has been) decided by experiment.
In that case the laws of electrodynamics could not be the same for all inertial observers.
James R said:The reason you can't accelerate an object to the speed of light is that you'd need to provide an infinite amount of energy to do that, and an infinite energy source isn't available.
cliowa said:@Pengwuino: Could you explain, what exactly you mean, by saying "logical"? If you feed a child the necessary information (that is: you keep on telling that c is constant), it will surely find it the most natural thing, just like religious people, that are grown up with their religion, find it to be obvious. But there's no logic in it, as far as I get your idea.
Gokul43201 said:Well, no massive "thing" at least. And James never claimed that a "massive thing" was made to move faster than c; in fact he specifically disclaimed this.
Pengwuino said:No no i mean like... ok, bring yourself into before you were taught SR. You thought what was logical in your mind is that you can go as fast as you want and that time isn't a "dimension". That was your logic because all you were taught before learning SR is that you just add speeds and such and that time can't really be screwed around with.
...but apparently, not in a spelling mood. "symantec" is a computer software company.Pengwuino said:... this is probably symantecs but i sure am in a typing mood today.
krab said:...but apparently, not in a spelling mood. "symantec" is a computer software company.
Saying the speed of light is frame-independent is not equivalent to saying that c is an upper limit (without the framework of SR). In other words, the "upperlimitness of c" is not a postulate of SR, it is a result.cliowa said:I think there you're turning things upside down. As far as I know, Einstein started from the idea, that the speed of light is the same everywhere (in every inertial system)
All explanations of physical phenomena must follow from some theory. Please explain anything to me without using the results of some theory.Your "explanation", that there would be needed an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light, is no reason, it simply follows from the theory Einstein developed (and that was found to be correct by experiments).
It sounds like you are arguing for the sake of argument. Please quote to me where he said that the light beam (or the photons) move faster than c. In both posts, he says that it is the "spot on the moon" that moves faster than c - the "spot" is not a physical body.Pengwuino said:No, he said a light beam can move faster then c. But what is a light beam? A lot of photons.
Could you explain what you mean by this last bit? I'm not sure I follow.cliowa said:It is absolutely counter-intuitive that the Doppler effect at some point just won't "happen" anymore!
Do not think of the speed of light as a “speed limit”. Time and space are one and the same, and light is an integral part of this. It is non-sensical to think of them separately.Gaijin said:Why can nothing(in theory) go faster that light.
what is stoping it and what governs the speed of light itself?
?
Pengwuino said:Actually it is logical... but its the NEW logic... or "improved" logic.
Gokul43201 said:It sounds like you are arguing for the sake of argument. Please quote to me where he said that the light beam (or the photons) move faster than c. In both posts, he says that it is the "spot on the moon" that moves faster than c - the "spot" is not a physical body.
No, the spot is a set of co-ordinates.Pengwuino said:No, the "spot" is a collection of photons.
This argument has been brought up before and no THING has moved faster then the speed of light. A perception has moved... but no THING has moved. No THING has been displaced at >c.
Your "explanation", that there would be needed an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light, is no reason, it simply follows from the theory Einstein developed (and that was found to be correct by experiments)
My concern as well. I tried to address the OP's question via analogy in post #23.Pengwuino said:I hope we're not confusing anyone with our argument over symantics/symantecs (whatever the word is that isn't a virus protection company).
Expansion: most people think SR is illogical at first glance, but the reason is that most people don't see that the logic is only as good as the starting premise. If the starting premise is flawed (as it is with Newtonian physics), then good logic will lead to wrong conclusions. So the converse is that SR is illogical only if you try to figure it out using the wrong starting premise.Tom Mattson said:When I say "logic" I mean exactly that: no more, no less. Logic is content-free, with regards to the physical world.
russ_watters said:Expansion: most people think SR is illogical at first glance, but the reason is that most people don't see that the logic is only as good as the starting premise. If the starting premise is flawed (as it is with Newtonian physics), then good logic will lead to wrong conclusions. So the converse is that SR is illogical only if you try to figure it out using the wrong starting premise.
James R said:A spot of light is a thing, if you ask me. If you want to argue about whether it is really the "same" spot as it moves across the moon's surface (since it is made up of different photons at different times), then we can have that philosophical discussion. We can also argue about whether you are the same person today as you were when you were 3 years old, because all the cells in your body have probably been replaced since then.
But it's all beside the point. My initial post was unambiguous.