Faster then light

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You really don't know much about particle physics or gravitational theory, do you?

Gravity, under both Special and General Relativity, appears to be a field effect, a warping of spacetime caused by the presence of a mass. Photons travel through spacetime; thus, where said spacetime is warped by a mass, the path of the photon is similarly warped. This leads to such phenomena as "gravitational lensing", where a mass can bend photonic paths such that an object on the other side can be magnified, or even appear to be on both sides at once.

I'm not even going to go into that famed equation, save to note that it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Photons have zero rest mass; thus, they exist only at c. Increasing or decreasing the energy level of a photon will not alter its velocity, this is not possible; it will change the frequency of the photon, but not the velocity. Its course can be altered by the presence of a mass - the greater the mass, the greater the curvature of the path; given the intensity of the gravitational field surrounding a black hole, the paths of photons inside the event horizon curve back upon themselves. This is not due to the photon being attracted to the mass, as they have no mass to attract - rather, it has to do with the way in which the mass itself warps the "shape" of spacetime.

Doesnt matter what the thing traveling is. What matters is the speed.

Tachyons are theoritical creatures that are mirror images of familiar matter. They like to go at infinite speeds but can be slowed DOWN to the speed of light, but cant go slower than light anymore than we can go faster than light.

For humans and neutrinos according to Einstein as you approach the speed of light- for you- time slows down. Thus if you could do the impossible and go over the speed of light time would start to move backward. Doesnt matter if you're a tachyon, tardyon, fig newton, or a person in a space craft.

The more you excede the speed of light the faster time moves backward.

Thus if neutrinos could excede the speed of light, and if we could detect neutrinos, we would in essence- be able to see into the future.

But now that you mention tachyons-that raises another question.

I remember my astronomy professor saying that the "rest mass" of a tachyon is at infinite speed and that they gain mass as they slow down to the SOL ( in mirror image to the way we gain mass as we approach it).

Since Neutrinos are like human astronauts in that they would gain mass as they approach the SOL - if they exceded the speed of light - they would then....

Gain mass even faster?
Or would they become tachyons and loose mass?

What would happen to your mass if you exceded the speed of light if you extrapolate from Einstein?

The mass would become infinite at the speed of light if the Lorentz transformation holds true. There is mucho evidence that the Lorentz transformation holds particularly with very massive particles. If the OPERA observations survive critical review there is something very, very weird going on.

ruveyn

Historically people were once convinced that humans could never successfully break the sound barrier. And the idea somehow reverberates among some people in other more modern forms..

Humans perhaps, but not bullets. There was never a theoretical objection to a massive body travelling faster than sound.

As for the speed of light, that has been established by numerous measurements and experiments since the time of Ole Roemer in the 17-th century. Light travels at a finite speed.

The question of whether neutrinos can really go faster than light is still wide open. The OPERA findings have to be confirmed by independent experiment.

ruveyn

It is possible for anything to travel faster than the currently popularly accepted 'speed of light' (186000 miles/sec or so), and people will discover this.

There is more involved than just speed. Neutrinos have mass and according to the theory of relativity when an object with mass moves at the speed of light its relativistic mass (as opposed to rest mass) becomes infinite. So if the OPERA findings hold up, the Special Theory of Relativity which is one of the pillars of quantum electrodynamics is open to some very serious questioning. If this thing holds up physics will be turned on its head, much as it was at the end of the 19th century by quantum theory and relativity theory.

ruveyn

isnt it possible for a particle to exists at faster than light?
as i understand it only the acceleration past c is impossible.

There is nothing in the Special Theory of Relativity that logically forbids the existence of tachyons. However no such particles have ever been observed.

ruveyn

wouldnt a massless particle past c still have a relativistic mass?
and if so wouldnt the "theoretical" tachyons have both an infinite and nonexistent mass (relativistic vs. rest)?

i should read up on the theoretical work regarding the equivalancy principle past c

In the article, it is stated that this would "wreck" Einstein's theory of special relativity... but that theory states that nothing going by or below the speed of light can be accelerated beyond it.

This isn't the first time this has been observed, either... it has, before, during a supernova explosion, been observed that neutrinos from the explosion arrived to Earth hours before the light did.

Another thing that points to the likelihood of the speed of light being able to be surpassed is that edges of our universe fit together, alike jigsaws. This shouldn't be possible unless the speed of light can be surpassed, as those separated parts couldn't have connected during the immensely fast, early creation of this universe, unless they somehow were connected past the speed of light.

I'm overall not very excited about this, as I already knew that everything happens at the same time... time doesn't exist; instead, a so-called, possible "time travel", from this, would just move you to an event in another of the infinite dimensions. I have believed this for very long, before scientists even started talking about it, and now there seems to be possible scientific confirmation of it. Maybe I can move to another, better dimension, soon... maybe. :/ Probably not, though... -_- I will surely be dead before that'd be possible; alternatively, a massive solar storm wipes out all electronical achievements of humanity, soon, instead, which would rather postpone any such achievements... from the side of humans, anyway.

I'm not going to dig up sources, though. Just felt like making this one post. Also, I'm sorry if some of it already was mentioned... didn't bother with reading through the whole thread.

The interior of a star is very hot, so all the gas is ionized. Ionized gas is opaque to light, but not to neutrinos. So when the supernova happened, it generated neutrinos immediately, a few hours before the explosion reached the surface of the star. When the explosion got to the surface of the star, there was no longer anything in the way of the light getting out.

The neutrinos traveled at the speed of light, and so did the light. The neutrinos got here first because they had a head start.

So no, this has not been observed before.

Well, let's say that was the case, it's also very much worth pointing out that it is said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light through what we call "space". During the early parts of the creation of this universe, the expansion happened exceptionally past the speed of light. Still, it apparently seems unthinkable to some that the speed of light can be broken. Indeed, the circumstances aren't the same, today, as they were then, but what says that parts of those circumstances cannot be applied to the current conditions of this universe? And what is "space", anyway, and why would a "lack of" space allow to result in an expansion exceptionally past the speed of light?

I guess the reason to why edges of the universe fit together, alike jigsaws, somehow is because of this.

A particle with zero rest-mass has zero-rest mass in ALL inertial frames. Which is why light has the same in vacuum speed in all inertial frames of references which is why the speed of light is measured the same regardless of the motion of the light emitting object or the observer.



Zero rest mass is a relativistic invariant. Photons are born moving at light speed. They cannot be slowed down but they can be diverted and bounced around. That is why photons appear to move slower than light in some non-vacuum media. Think of a pin-ball. It takes its time getting from the high part of the machine to the low part because it spends so much time bouncing around.

ruveyn

ruveyn

im not quite sure i understand what you wrote.

so the rest energy/mass potential of a particle will not change,
but if rest energy is only the "still potential" what would happen to particles that only exists past C,
also would the actual energy state change like light does when extra energy is applied (change of frequency in light)

well jut onna wake up proper then ciome back and see if i can make more sense of this

People think this happened. Nobody was there to observe it. Also, this would have been an expansion of space, not a movement through space.


Not unthinkable. Just much less likely than an experimental error.


This doesn't make sense. What "edges"?