fastest speed reached by man?

[BigglesPiP]

The fastest man made object reached 241,350 km/h.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0109c.shtml

How fast do particles in particle accelerators go?

What about man made particles with wave particle duality, namely torchlight?

 

[Meridian]

Also, if to go at the speed of light requires infinite energy, why does light not have infinite energy?

Objects with a rest mass greater than zero need infinite energy to reach the speed of light, but light (in theory) has a rest mass of zero, which means (from the same rules) it effectively has to travel at c. To confuse the issue, light I believe does have a rest mass, but it's incredibly tiny, so barely affects the result. And light can't "rest" anyway due to its nature. But then, except in absolute vacuum (which the universe is not) light doesn't really travel at c anyway, but slightly below it.

To add to the confusion yet more, objects with a rest mass of less than zero can only travel faster than light, and as you add more energy they actually get slower. Such particles (the famed "tachyons") would get faster as you take energy away from them. If they exist. At which point I refer you to Gell-Mann's Law.


M

 

[Jonny69]

didnt they manage a small time travel thing with the sr71 using 2 atomic clocks both set to the same time on earth 1 on the blackbird the other back at base the pilot i believe went to top speed and got the clock 3 seconds ahead of the one below on the ground when the put them next to each other, i saw the documentary on discovery channel

Yes, that was a long time ago iirc.

 

[brilliant]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YYT4-oUMm4I

 

[Spend_day]

How feasible is a rail gun to launch payloads into space?
Or does it require to much electricity atm to make it plausible.

no but isnt nasa looking into using a mass driver

 

[The $6m Dan]

well as long as you accelerate slowly enough over a long time then, any speed up to light speed (assuming light speed is attainable/non lethal). Speed isn;t a problem it;s g forces/acceleration.

Hitting a speck of dust at close to the speed of light is going to do a serious amount of damage.

you get the point, no such thing as zero mavity when theres mass all over the show

The are plenty of places where mavity is zero, they're called Lagrangian points.
There is one between the Earth and the Moon where the gravitational force of attraction balances out.

 

[Visage]

The are plenty of places where mavity is zero, they're called Lagrangian points.
There is one between the Earth and the Moon where the gravitational force of attraction balances out.

The force of mavity from the earth and moon balances out, yes, but what about the forces from the other countless massive objects in the uinverse?

 

[D.P.]

The force of mavity from the earth and moon balances out, yes, but what about the forces from the other countless massive objects in the uinverse?

You could possibly find a place where all forces cancel out. Don't know if one does exist, and to find such a place requires instantaneous knowledge of the entire universe.

 

[radikal_dj]

Han Solo in the Millennium falcon.

 

[Visage]

You could possibly find a place where all forces cancel out. Don't know if one does exist, and to find such a place requires instantaneous knowledge of the entire universe.

And the ability to solve trillions upon trillions of simulatenous equations.....