Violation of Universal Speed Limit

In summary, the curved spacetime assumption is like a ghost that can not be testified. It is used to derive animated ghost stories about time travel, wormhole, reversal time travel, and dead into living, but these stories are not based on real data.
  • #1
Hybird
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We all accept that the universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating. So what exactly are the speeds of those far off galaxies with respect to an Earth observer. And if the universe is destined to continue this expansion forever, then won't the speeds of far off galaxies eventually violate Einsteins postulate that 'c' is the universal speed limit.. Hubble's law is linear and thus I would assume in a finite amount of time, mass will exceed the speed of light. How is this being handled with, or am I missing something?
 
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  • #2
Hybird said:
We all accept that the universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating. So what exactly are the speeds of those far off galaxies with respect to an Earth observer. And if the universe is destined to continue this expansion forever, then won't the speeds of far off galaxies eventually violate Einsteins postulate that 'c' is the universal speed limit.. Hubble's law is linear and thus I would assume in a finite amount of time, mass will exceed the speed of light. How is this being handled with, or am I missing something?

lots of stuff we observe is receeding at speeds like 3c and 4c

this is not forbidden by Special Relativity

IIRC there was an article in Scientific American about this, maybe March 2005, by Charles Lineweaver and Tamara Davis. It dealt with common misconceptions people have. They also have a separate article called "Expanding Confusion" which tries to dispell popular misconceptions like this.
Would you like a link? The SciAm article is written very understandably with lots of good diagrams and little or no math!

If we could get everybody together who thinks recession speeds are limited by c, we could have a tutorial and deal with the problem all at once.
I am talking mainstream cosmology---there are minority schools of thought where people disagree with the mainstream view, but my advice would be to at least learn the majority consensus picture of cosmology and then if you want explore fringe elements.
 
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  • #3
Recession speed tutorial started

Hybird, I started a thread that can serve as a recession speed discussion/questions/tutorial thread.

If you have questions about superluminal recession speed, how light can reach us from objects receding at greater than c, and other related matters

then you are invited here
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=163996

there is a neat recession speed calculator, which I urge you to check out and play around with
 
  • #4
Ghost story

Do you know animated ghost story?
The curved spacetime assumption (i.e. GR) is like a ghost. In fact, people do derived its animated story: time travel, wormhole, reversal time travel, dead into living, etc.

The nature of ghost is that it can not testified. Curved spacetime can not be testified because there is no global reference frame. When you live in a curved spacetime, no coordinate system is direct distance, angle, or time. If we want to find these quantity, we need to use metric form to be integrated along the geodesic line concerned. However, when confronting curved spacetime assumption to real data (e.g., GPB data), relativists never bother to calculate such integration. Instead, they denote some coordinate by the symbol, other by \phi, other by t and naively say those are spatial distance, angle and time respectively. Do you believe that there is a Cartesian coordinate system on curved space which has direct meaning of spatial distance?
 

1. What is the Universal Speed Limit?

The Universal Speed Limit, also known as the speed of light, is a fundamental physical constant that represents the maximum speed at which any object or information can travel in the universe. It is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second in a vacuum.

2. What does it mean to violate the Universal Speed Limit?

To violate the Universal Speed Limit means to exceed the speed of light. This is currently considered impossible according to the laws of physics as we know them.

3. Are there any known examples of the Universal Speed Limit being violated?

No, there are no known examples of the Universal Speed Limit being violated. All experiments and observations have shown that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

4. Why is it believed that the Universal Speed Limit cannot be violated?

The Universal Speed Limit is a fundamental principle of special relativity, which is a well-tested and widely accepted theory in physics. It is also supported by numerous experiments and observations, including the constancy of the speed of light in different reference frames.

5. What would happen if the Universal Speed Limit were violated?

If the Universal Speed Limit were to be violated, it would have serious consequences for our understanding of the universe and the laws of physics. It could potentially lead to causality violations and the breakdown of many fundamental principles of physics.

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