G'day from the land of ozzzzzzz

 

Is faster-than-light propagation allowed by the laws of physics?

 http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/LR.asp

 

brooksquest:

WannaB,

Suppose you wanted to accelerate a solid mass, say, a golf ball, to extreme velocity. Aside from having Tiger Woods smack it with his driver, how could you accelerate it to the fastest possible velocity?

That is the question in this thread.

Is there a formula that states the limit a golf ball can endure? or for any other solid substance? The HST orbits the Earth at 5 miles per second. A fraction of the speed of light but still pretty fast for a huge device made of multiple substances. Would a super-hard substance like a diamond or perhaps one of the new super-hard carbons be able to hold together at extreme velocity? 

BQ 

:

Hi again BQ

The problem is not velocity..Its acceleration.  THere is no preferred state of velocity.  Every object is at rest relative to itself .  Its properties are perfectly normal from the point of view of anything sharing its state of motion.  There is no particular velocity that causes internal stress in a solid.

What are the limits of acceleration?  That seems to be important in your line of thinking although I'm not sure why.  A ship accelerating at a comfortable 1 G will be at relativistic speed relative to its starting point in a matter of weeks..no unusual stresses.  Faster acceleration rates do not change the physics of relativity or any of its limits.  It just compresses the timeline from the unaccelerated frame of reference and stresses the accelerating matter closser to or beyond its limits.

It is interesting to think about the golf ball being impacted by a club near light speed.  There would be a tremendous explosion and not only would the golf ball not hold together but the constituent matter of both the club and the ball would be converted to all kinds of interesting exotic particles including copious photons, pions, kaons ..and their anti-matter counterparts.  Maybe  the elusive higgs boson would finally be detected.  In the end when the dust settled much of the kenetic energy in the club would be converted to matter and all the shards and bits would add up to more mass than the original rest masses of the club and ball.

 The golf ball is mostly space...since its constituent atoms are mostly space.  The forces holding the ball together are the electromagnetic force, the electroweak force, and the strong nuclear force (gravity is the weak cousin force that would become significant only for a much larger object).  Of these all of our everyday experience is with the electromagnetic force although in this collision after the constituent atoms disintegrate all of these forces come into play. 

 Every push and pull in every machine is transmited by the electromagnetic force ..specifically the like charges of electons keeping the atoms from getting too close and opposite charges of electrons and protons keeping the atoms from stretching apart.  When something gets pushed photons are emitted and absorbed to pass the force from atom to atom.  On earth there is no such thing as a rigid body.  In the impact of the club, the far side of the ball will still be at rest until the photons have a chance to pass the impact forces along. Photons of course do not go faster than c so picture half the ball exploding in a shower of exotic particles  traveling near or at c (massive or massless particles respectively). ...until the radius of this explosion reaches the far side of the ball, the dimples, Tigers signature, etc are still intact and motionless...

PH

Hi 

BQ 

There really is such a thing as the reaction speed of light, what we would see if your experiment was possible is the chain-reaction of the laser beam in the aether which would also be the sauce of the light entering your eyes also as a result of a chain-reaction in the aether, otherwise you would not see it.

 

DM

 

Brookequest you need to realize something. You waste time.

 While reading George Churchs work on developing inexpensive DNA sequencing one of his thoughts refering sharing incredible scientific information was paramount to me.

I'll modify what he said to fit your original post: Your biggest problem in life is not going to be keeping this idea of yours a secret, it's going to be getting anyone to ever use it. Keep hiding this idea and that decreases the probability to zero.

 

Ray o light...

Thanks for your reply. I do not think, based on what you wrote, that your device will go very fast. I take it that you are more interested in learning about science through others efforts and not really interested in coming up with anything new or unique yourself. That's kool, but this post is for people with ideas.

Thanks,

BQ 

(?)  I did not mention a device. You're inattentive.

My point was well lost on you.

I'll try one last time.

 When you share an idea with (other smart?) people - most often the end result will come to fruition MUCH sooner.

Kapeesch?

You only have a few moments of life to prove your "truth."  

If i were to propel some solid matter (lets call it a train) from the surface of the earth (or any point in space time) instantly to the speed of light, part of the object would apear not to have moved at all while the rest of the object moves away at an exponential rate,right? Meaning after a fraction of a second, the caboose doesnt appear to have moved at all, while the dining cars are moving away slowly, the sleeping cars are moving away faster than the dining cars, and the engine is far away and moving faster than the rest.

If this is true, whats the point of buying a ticket?  The object will never fully reach its (intended?) destination. 

Your machine wouldnt happen to be based on the work of Nikola Tesla would it?

 RAY,

Good Morning!

The fact that you did not mention a device is my point. I have said repeatedly that I am asking for other devices to be brought into this thread. We have yet to achieve extreme velocities using thrust. I have a mechanical device in mind. I have a friend who owns a helicopter company who has a magnetic device in mind. 

My machine can be built anywhere and is pretty small.

 I will offer a different device not so easy to build that mathematically should achieve extreme acceleration.

Mount a hollow steel tube on a rotating machine on the Moon. Manufacture a "unbreakable" thread and connect it to the machine. Attach a 5 carat diamond to the end of the thread. Set the machine for 186,000 rpm. Slowly feed the thread out so that the diamond maintains steady revolutions. When enough thread is extended, the diamond should eventually reach close to the speed of light. Simple math tells us this should happen. But physics may tell us it is impossible. What would happen if we did this experiment?

Okay, I gave an example of a device that mathematically allows extreme acceleration. I am looking ofor other ideas that do the same thing.

Don't worry be happy!!!

Cheers,

BQ
 

 

brooksquest:

 . Attach a 5 carat diamond to the end of the thread. Set the machine for 186,000 rpm. Slowly feed the thread out so that the diamond maintains steady revolutions. When enough thread is extended, the diamond should eventually reach close to the speed of light. Simple math tells us this should happen.  

Yes, using simple math and Newton's physics from the 1700s it seems that eventually it will even surpass the speed of light.

 Using the equations of special relativity however (also simple math) some curious things happen to the thread and the diamond. The diamond becomes very heavy.  so does the far end of the thread.  Paying out more thread means more trail but no increase in radius.  the thread is soon past the breaking stress even of neutron star stuff let alond kevlar just to keep the increadibly heavy diamond in a circular path even without adding more linear acceleration....You get the picture.

Introducing exotic un-breakable non-stretching thread is also non physical.  accelerating force must transmitted up the thread by force carrying bosons (only 4 types exist in nature).  Photons(in the case of kevlar) or gluons (neutron star matter)?  both propogate at C in all frames.  the force carrying particles cannot even get to the diamond to accelerate it more if it passes c.

The "common sense" example you give could not possibly produce the accelerations you claim for your machine.  One gets suspicious that the "machine is likely to have similar flaws.

But no worries, be happy

PH

 

This kind of hypothectical ponderence makes me wonder if LSD is legal in England.

Exactly my sentiments also:

Be happy - no worries.

R 'o' L

 I am sorry I wasted time on this thread. The OP is full of nonsense. My guess will be it's some idiotic idea about an object traveling at the speed of light while towing another object and some how causing the object being towed to be pulled in or accelerated  beyond the object orgininally pulling the object.

 

Essentially in theory the object being pulled close is already traveling at the speed of light. Any amount of extra force like pulling two objects closer together with one trailling the other would mean the one tailing is traveling faster to catch up with the towing object. 

 

Crackpot science imo.

They have magnetic devices right now that accelerate some of the lightest of particles, but still they cannot achieve FTL. Anything attached to an orbiting body and extended out from it, would change the balance of mass, causing the body to slow down. (Like a spinning ice skater extending her arms.) It's not really the drag of air that slows her down, but the conversion of spin energy into centrepital force.) Anything extended out beyond a main rotating body would create all kinds of new forces to counteract accelerating an object to FTL. If the forces did not rip the imaginary unbreakable thread, or pull it out of the surface of the main body, then the change in mass would cause the main orbiting body to slow down and hence a FTL speed would never be realized for the object at the end of the thread.

brooksquest:

Ray o light...

Thanks for your reply. I do not think, based on what you wrote, that your device will go very fast. I take it that you are more interested in learning about science through others efforts and not really interested in coming up with anything new or unique yourself. That's kool, but this post is for people with ideas.

Thanks,

BQ 

 

 

If this thread is for people with ideas, where is your's? All we get from you is garble, static, and obfuscation. Also, if your idea was so revolutionary, why waste time here instead of publishing it in an accredited scientific journal and remove all doubt to it's validity.

In other words - put up or shut up. 

This is the most successful troll I have ever seen on the internet.  I'm even posting it as such on DIGG. 

While at the beach, I called out to my girlfriend Julie and experienced acceleration past the speed of light. Everything seemed to recede at an incredible velocity until my eyes could perceive photons no longer and i was in an inky black void.

I think this is because my girlfriend's name is actually Mary.

G'day from the land of ozzzzzzzz

What is amazing is Jets from compact matter accelerate matter at close to the speed of light.

 

 

 

 Imagine a giant being as tall as one light year. What would happen if he snapped his fingers? Would he hear a pop like we do? Would he see his finger instantly move from the tip of his thumb to its base? Would we as outside observers see the same thing he sees? Is the speed of a snap based on perception, size, time, ??? We have to admit that a 4 foot tall child has a much better chance to swat or catch a fly than a 7 foot tall man. Would the speed of any sized finger snap be about the same?? Would the perception of the giant be that it happened fast and that for us as outside observers, it happened much slower??

How fast does the finger travel the 2 inches from the tip of the thumb to its base? Can we increase or decrease our own speed of perception and does that alter time or space in any way?

Thoughts....?