The discussion revolves around the hypothetical scenarios and implications of objects exceeding the speed of light, specifically considering effects in both atmospheric and space environments. Participants explore theoretical frameworks, implications of general relativity, and the concept of faster-than-light travel.
Participants generally disagree on the feasibility and implications of faster-than-light travel, with multiple competing views presented. Some maintain that it is impossible, while others explore theoretical possibilities without consensus on their validity.
The discussion includes speculative ideas that rely on unproven concepts such as negative energy and the Alcubierre drive, which are not established in current physics. There are also unresolved questions regarding the definitions of speed and velocity in this context.
Pupil said:No objects travel faster than light. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_transformations or Google 'speed of light'.
nasu said:No, if the speed of light in a medium is c' (where c' is less than the speed of light in vacuum) an object cam move faster than c'.
The phenomenon is not uncommon for elementary particle and is used to build detectors.
When the particle moves faster than c' there is a "flash" of light that can be observed - Cerenkov effect.
tomfr62 said:Thank you, I am aware that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, I am just curious as to what would be the result if an object could exceed that speed.
Byllie said:It is physically possible to travel faster than the speed of light by invoking general relativity, that is by either warping or ripping space-time. Think about it if we rip or warp space time so that an object is closer to us, it's going to take us a shorter amount of time to reach it, and therefore we're going to travel faster than light (if we want to). Similarly the shortest distance between two points is a worm hole rather than a straight line, so it is possible to travel faster than light this way aswell. However both these methods require elusive negative energy of which I know very little about, and is way beyond anything we can achieve in the foreseeable future. With regards to traveling through space faster than light, its handy to look at the highly theological Alcubierre drive (he dreamt it up via star trek) which uses negative energy rather than positive energy to power the body, as opposed to the positive energy used today to travel at lower than speed of light speeds. What you would effectively see, traveling faster than the speed of light according to Alcubierre is this "In front of the ship, stars would become long lines, streaks. At the back, nothing would be seen as light from previous stars wouldn't be traveling fast enough to keep up". Basically like the millenium falcon out of star wars.
How true that is I don't know, just out of this Kaku book I've been reading
Pupil said:None of these sound like faster-than-light travel: they sound like finding-shortcut travel.
Byllie said:But even so, if you can get from A to B faster than light, is that not faster than light travel?
Pupil said:Are you talking about velocity or speed?