/sci/ - Science & Math

I don't quite get what your saying, but I think the answer you're looking for is that light is the fastest particle that we know of.

There are theoretical particles such as Tachyons which travel faster than light but we have no idea if they exist.

>>2560111
It's the permittivity of vacuum. Why it is what it is would take more math than I will ever know.

>>2560111
We could go faster by manipulating surrounding space with some huge magnets, because we wouldn't really move at all.

The speed of light is connected to physical constants of the universe. It is one over the square root of the permittivity of a vacuum times the permeability of a vacuum.

>>2560140
>implying light is the only thing subject to relativity

Get the fuck out.

>>2560111
READ THIS ENTIRELY IN A SONTARAN'S VOICE!

Time to troll

>>2560190
I'm actually interested in how this would be refuted. I want to say the kinetic motion would dissipate or that it would travel as a waveform down the stick, but I'm not sure.

>>2560207

A stick is not a single particle, and the movement through it is caused by vibrations of the particles. That takes time. derp.

It's a fundamental property of spacetime. It can be measured using electromagnetism in terms of the electric permittivity and the magnetic permeability of free space.

problem?

>>2560207
No macroscopic objects move as a single whole. They just appear to because most the objects we have contact with are so small that the motion waves seem to travel through them virtually instantaneously.

>>2560223
Well, among more fundamental reasons, this wouldn't work because your assistant would have to be able to run faster than 3000 m/s

>>2560203

lol, escape velocity? no coolface, not sure if srs

>>2560238
mad?

You know that twin paradox where a guy in a ship going close to C experiences less passage of time than a guy back on Earth? If the guy in the ship were at C a hundred billion years on Earth would go by instantaniously for him; time would be effectively stopped on the ship. (you can only get to 0.999.. C)

The engines on the ship can't be providing any thrust to go even faster if they are frozen in time.

>>2560111
Too dense for me to condense into a 4chan post, but it would help if you were to understand relativity.

It's important to note that the speed of light is somewhat mislabeled, it's a much more fundamental constant that light happens to reach because it is so ridiculously fast by nature.

>>2560223
I'm going to answer this right now, because nobody seems to be able to answer these for some reason. The classical formula for calculating velocity isn't completely accurate. Like many classical formulae, it is very close to being correct when dealing with speeds much less than the speed of light. However, as you get to examples where an object is moving at 0.9999c, the classical formula is invalid and can give you a value greater than c.

>>2560257
if your so smart explain this

>>2560252
Trollface: 1
Physics: 0

>>2560247
Wow, I hadn't even considered this possibility. I can't refute this, as far as I know, it makes sense, since the force of gravity should remain proportional to the changing mass of the object, thus causing the object to maintain its acceleration. Can anyone refute this?

>>2560247

amused.

that one would hit the surface before he could reach c, at least as long as the dummy is close enough that a=surface g

>>2560256
light does not respond to pressure

>>2560252
That's not the twin paradox, see:

>>2560274
The twin in the rocketship would be the younger one. The earth is the valid reference frame, because it's the non-accelerating reference frame (ignoring the negligible accelerating toward the sun)

>>2560265
this is stupid, it would take the same amount of time always, disregarding how long it takes to transfer the letter

>>2560257
>>2560252
>You can reach 0.9999... C
>0.9999... = 1

MY GOD

>>2560312

You can't reach .9999... before running out of energy in the universe

We don't know why c has the value it does. But our current best models of how the universe works clearly require it to have a finite speed, and for this to be the universal speed limit. It has many other implications, and influence on other fundamental constants.

But why is c approximately 3*10^8 m/s? We don't know - that is simply the observed value.

It's may be possible for a more advanced theory to reduce the number of constants which must be simply measured, rather than predicted and confirmed, but we're not sure.

Problem /sci/?

>>2560247
nice planet you have there, where is it, and WHAT is it?
oh, and you would crash into it before achieving speed...

>>2560111
> I understand that it would require infinite energy and about time dilation and all that,
Unless you have infinite energy, you answered your own question.
> but why is the speed of light a universal speed limit? Why is it not just another speed like 100 km/h or 50km/h?
It is just another speed. In this case it's a very large one, but whatever the constant was set to it would be the fastest speed anything could go, and you'd have to be massless to get there.