Is speed of light a teleportation?

mantas29

Yes, thank you all, I learned a lot from what you all said. :) I just compared speed of light with teleportation because they seemed similar for me, I understand that teleportation is nothing about speed but it's some kind of form of instant reach of destination for the traveller. Sorry if the title wasn't clear enough. :) But the final answer is still a mystery for me. I'd like to concentrate on the second part of my question and be more specific about what I want to know. Well lets say I reach the speed of light. Would that mean that time stops for me in respect of the stationary surrounding? In that case I would still move at the speed of light but I would be frozen in time forever, so I would be everywhere in a straight line at the same time from my perspective (everyone else would see me moving away or towrds them but inside my ship i would be frozen and everything i do would take infinite time). Is this true?

Simon Bridge

You won't... and the math does not say anything sensible for that sort of speed. What you can do is talk bout what happens as your speed approaches the speed of light.

In special relativity - the observer is always stationary. Your surroundings do the moving. Time always continues at the usual rate for the observer - it is everyone else who has the slow clocks.
Thus: as you approach the speed of light, you do not notice anything special about the way time passes, and you'd notice that everyone else is moving, and you'd notice that the distances between objects is smaller, and everyone elses clocks are running slower.

From the POV of everyone else, you'd be going real close to the speed of light - but your clock would crawl by... maybe taking centuries to tick off one second. You'd appear to be frozen with respect to your spaceship. But to you, while you are not accelerating, everyone else appears to be frozen... this is because they are all moving with respect to you just like you are moving with respect to them.

The link I gave you covers this situation... also shows you what happens when you are accelerating.

mantas29

Now I understand! I didn't realise that everything around me would be moving at the same speed. That explains everything :) Thank you so much for explaining this. Now I can continue thinking more impractical questions that no one really care about! :D

Simon Bridge

Just to be clear - when you change speed, in relativity we say you changed reference frames.
As far as you are concerned, as the observer in your new reference frame, you are stationary.
An observer in your old reference frame will say you are moving with velocity v, then you will see them moving with velocity -v. All the other objects that are stationary in your old reference frame will also be passing you with velocity -v.

SJBauer

Per your understanding, "Now I understand! I didn't realise that everything around me would be moving at the same speed. That explains everything :) Thank you so much for explaining this. Now I can continue thinking more impractical questions that no one really care about! :D"

True, due to our understanding of special relativity, SpaceTime is relative to the observer. As Simon Bridge explained, "Time always continues at the usual rate for the observer." Ergo, the speed of light is same within your speed of light (SOL) reference frame as it would be for someone who was traveling much slower. But then, what of Space?

Getting back to a portion of your previous question, "In that case I would still move at the speed of light but I would be frozen in time forever, so I would be everywhere in a straight line at the same time from my perspective." There are multiple perspectives to consider. A) If as actual rate of Time changes with respect to his acceleration, his reality became part of this slower rate of time, then it would appear to him that his Earth-bound counterparts were milling about at incredible speed in relation to his own. OR B) Consider the SOL traveler is moving at the same rate as he would on Earth, but only the rate of Time changes with respect to his acceleration. In this respect the rate of Time is slowing down consistent with his acceleration, but his movements are still relative to his Earth-bound rate of Time; ergo, he is moving more in less time, or moving faster. Consistent with this notion, he is also able to process more information in less time, or he is thinking faster. Somewhat like a housefly that is able to react and move much faster relative to his frame of reference, the SOL traveler would perceive his Earth-bound counterparts to be moving more slowly or not at all.

The Theory of Relativity favors selection ‘A’ as the SOL traveler’s reality, allowing him to be younger when he returns to Earth. The logic behind this is that as the SOL is measured the same, relative to one’s frame of reference in the rate of time, so must the relative relationship among all of its participants. Subsequently the perspective relationship of man’s speed relative to the actual SOL should remain the same within any reference frame. Consequently if the rate of time slows with acceleration, then so must everything else in that frame of reference do likewise.

But one cannot consider Time without Space, so this brings up another aspect of relativity; i.e. mass increases with acceleration. This would suggest that the mass of the photon becomes greater upon acceleration, as well as everything else in this reference frame. Therefore to suggest that the SOL travelers would age less during the time of their acceleration and would be younger than their Earth-bound counterparts, one must also agree that the SOL travelers should have also retained their increased mass upon return to Earth. Since the most likely form of increased mass would be due to increased density, rather than increased volume, the SOL traveler would be a veritable superman upon his return.