Exceeding speed of light idea.

apeZ said:
Yes, that is why you accelerate the objects individually, at speeds that can be reached.
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Greenlizard0 said:
:confused:
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You said

Greenlizard0 said:
Isn't it a case it's impossible to travel at the speed of light, or it'd require an unfeasible amount of energy, but faster is probably er, an ok idea.
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If you tried to accerate one object, yes it would require an unfeasible amount of energy because you would need an equal and opposite force in the opposite direction.

However, if you accelerate objects individually (as in my diagram below, they are each at 1/3 speed of light), the amount of energy required becomes a bit more realised (1/3, no, but 1/10000 or so ;) ).

Hope that clears it up.
 
Take it from someone who has actually studied relativity. It won't work. The top object may well be moving at 2/3c relative to the bottom item, which is itself travelling at 1/3c relative to a "stationary" observer. But that gamma function is a pain in the bum sometimes. It doesn't add linearly, so you wouldn't get 1c from the top object.
 
apeZ said:
Would now be a good time to mention that I'm doing A-level physics? :p
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Do you think as soon as two objects travelling at the same speeds come together their velocities are instantly added together? You can even do the model with your hands right now. Move them at the same speeds then bring them together, they move at exactly the same speed - just together.
 
Greenlizard0 said:
But by your diagram, the objects are attached to each other? :confused:
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They are on top of eachother. Think of it as like running along a moving platform. Relative to the IMMOBILE ground, you are travelling faster than you are running, if that makes sense.

You run at 5 mph, platform moves at 5 mph, you are moving at 10 mph relative to the ground.
 
I understand what you are saying but it just doesnt work. Your sort of saying what happens when you run the same way along a train, your speed of your running would be on top of the speed of the train but its not quite that simple.
 
Read this. I also recommend reading all of Michio Kaku's books....they really make it easier to understand crazy concepts.


Michio Kaku said:
Imagine a police officer chasing after a speeding motorist. If he drives fast enough, the officer knows that he can catch the motorist. Anyone who has ever gotten a ticket for speeding knows that. But if we now replace the speeding motorist with a light beam, and an observer witnesses the whole thing, then the observer concludes that the officer is speeding just behind the light beam, traveling almost as fast as light. We are confident that the officer knows he is traveling neck and neck with the light beam.

But later, when we interview him, we hear a strange tale. He claims that instead of riding alongside the light beam as we just witnessed, it sped away from him, leaving him in the dust. He says that no matter how much he gunned his engines, the light beam sped away at precisely the same velocity. In fact, he swears that he could not even make a dent in catching up to the light beam. No matter how fast he traveled, the light beam traveled away from him at the speed of light, as if he were stationary instead of speeding in a police car.

But when you insist that you saw the police officer speeding neck and neck with the light beam, within a hairsbreadth of catching up to it, he says you are crazy; he never even got close. To Einstein, this was the central, nagging mystery: How was it possible for two people to see the same event in such totally different ways? If the speed of light was really a constant of nature, then how could a witness claim that the officer was neck and neck with the light beam, yet the officer swears that he never even got close?

Einstein had realized earlier that the Newtonian picture (where velocities can be added and subtracted) and the Maxwellian picture (where the speed of light was constant) were in total contradiction. Newtonian theory was a self-contained system, resting on a few assumptions. If only one of these assumptions were changed, it would unravel the entire theory in the same way that a loose thread can unravel a sweater. That thread would be Einstein's daydream of racing a light beam.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/kaku.html
 
Unfortunately this thread is full of people that have a) missed your point, b) hit your point and put up a ridiculous rebuttal or c) solved your point and been overshadowed by a and c.

You would have been better using rockets in space, rocket 1 has a smaller rocket 2 on it and rocket 2 has a small rocket 3 on it..

Rocket 1 fires, reaching 1/3 the speed of light.
Rocket 2 fires off of rocket 1, by your logic reaching 2/3 the speed of light.
Rocket 3 fires off rocket 2, already doing 2/3 the speed of light, it propels itself to c.

Of course, we are ignoring some key force principles and the idea falls down when rocket 2 fires because it will still push against rocket 1. Ultimately you would get a compound speed, but it wouldnt be near that of light.
 
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