Can something move faster then the speed of light?
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answers:
Donut Tim say: That is unknown.
Einstein's work shows that nothing with mass can be accelerated to faster than light speed. (The speed of light is often denoted as "c") He also showed that if something is moving faster than c, it can never slow to c or below.
A tachyon is a theoretical particle that travels faster than c. Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.
Despite theoretical arguments against the existence of faster-than-light particles, experiments have been conducted to search for them. No compelling evidence for their existence has been found.
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sepia say: No
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goring say: The speed of light is a speed that describes how fast a particle of massive light can move.Since light as a massive particle is definitively affected by gravity it will experience a change in speed.When electron moving inside an hydrogen atom within field of zero degree kelvin it can approach the speed of light.
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oubaas say: your fantasy ^_-
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Jeffrey K say: No. It has been proven that nothing can go faster than light. Relativity explains this and experiments prove it.
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JosephV say: Take a ray of light at the level of concepts when compared to a bubble of air in water.
A force in water causes a rip in the homogeneous medium with air trapped in it. The larger the force, the greater is the rip until it comes at the surface as a ripple or wave that we see.
A force in Aether of space at 'c' creates a rip (vacuum) in Aether that forms corpuscles called photons with confined forces called energy and transfer of force at 'c' called a ray of light. Note that vacuum has no mass, so a rip or ray of light has no mass, but it does carry energy as force and momentum.
If the force is greater, the rip is wider but the speed remains the same.
ADDENDUM: If you do grasp the above concept, then you will realize that the greater the energy force at the source is, the wider is the rip so the smaller is the lambda. If the energy is very high as in proton displacement about its absolute position, then you will find a very small lambda that in fact is circular and may be termed as the electromagnetic corpuscle or Graviton with the EMR of Gravity radiated in accordance with the laws of EMR and its consequences.
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Tom S say: Nothing with mass can go as fast (or faster) than the speed of light in a vacuum.
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hfshaw say: If, by "speed of light", you mean "c", the "speed of light in a vacuum" (299,792,458 m/s), then as far as we know, nothing can travel faster than this.
However, it is important to recognize that electromagnetic radiation (including visible light) has different propagation speeds in different media. For optical frequencies, the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light in a medium is given by the refractive index of that medium. The speed at which light propagates in a material can be significantly less than c. For instance, water at room temperature has a refractive index of 1.33, meaning that light travels about 1/1.33 = 1.25 or 25% slower in water than in a vacuum. In a given non-vacuum medium, therefore, it *is* possible for something to have a speed greater than the speed of light in that medium. For example, the phenomenon known as Cherenkov radiation is caused by charged particles traveling at a speed greater than the propagation speed of light in a dielectric medium.
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say: darpa has perfected the warp engine , spaceX is building the crafts . it's still classified .. mostly .
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ANDRE L say: Tachyons, though at this time, they remain theoretical.
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Donut Tim say: That is unknown.
Einstein's work shows that nothing with mass can be accelerated to faster than light speed. (The speed of light is often denoted as "c") He also showed that if something is moving faster than c, it can never slow to c or below.
A tachyon is a theoretical particle that travels faster than c. Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.
Despite theoretical arguments against the existence of faster-than-light particles, experiments have been conducted to search for them. No compelling evidence for their existence has been found.
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Jon say: faster THAN... not then....
how can you mix those up?
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someg say: The only thing that can move faster than light is greased light going downhill with the wind at its back.
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Luis say: Tachyons and Sanic
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Luke say: No
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Jake No Chat say: Theoretically - yes.
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Free At Last say: lean light can
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Funnelweb say: It depends on what you define as being a "thing". Matter and subatomic particles can't go faster than light. Nor does there seem to be anyway for information to go faster than light.
However a light spot or a shadow can go faster than light. So for instance if you shine a laser at the surface of the Moon to create a light spot, you can sweep the beam across the lunar surface faster than light.
Also a quantum state can go faster than light. So if you have two entangled particles, they are each in an indeterminate state. But the moment the quantum state of one particle is measured the other one takes the opposite value. And this can happen even if they are widely separated.
So for example you have a spaceship which has traveled 2½ light years to Proxima Centauri, and it uses a beam splitter on a pair of photons to send one to Proxima Centauri (where there is already another spaceship to receive it) and one back to Earth. 1½ years later one photon reaches Proxima Centauri and its polarisation is measured. A year later the other photon is measured at Earth and found to have the opposite polarisation. The observers at Earth know the polarisation of the photon which went to Proxima Centauri even though the measurement took place only a year ago while Proxima Centauri is actually 4 light years away.
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Andrew Smith say: We have not discovered anything in practice that does this.
CERN claimed that they had but they were forced into an embarrassing retraction when it was demonstrated that they had failed to properly consider the error in their measurement.
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Bill-M say: No. Not possible.
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Chris Ancor say: Nope.
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Donut Tim say: That is unknown.
Einstein's work shows that nothing with mass can be accelerated to faster than light speed. (The speed of light is often denoted as "c") He also showed that if something is moving faster than c, it can never slow to c or below.
A tachyon is a theoretical particle that travels faster than c. Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.
Despite theoretical arguments against the existence of faster-than-light particles, experiments have been conducted to search for them. No compelling evidence for their existence has been found.
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Luca say: Funnelweb is right. Anything with mass HAS to be slower then light. Massless objects (photons and such) MUST go at speed of light.
But if you're looking at "geometrical points" such as a light dot/shadow, phase velocity on a wave and other things like this, then you can get "points" that travel faster then light (at least in certain reference frame I guess), but these points don't have any associated mass.
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