Faster than the speed of light.

[tinman]

Who here can give me one good reason that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light?.
Apparently travelling faster than the speed of light goes against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. If the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s,why can this speed not be exceeded. Why cant we travel at 300 000 000 m/s?.

[s3370389]

Who here can give me one good reason that you cannot travel faster than the speed of light?.
Apparently travelling faster than the speed of light goes against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity. If the speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s,why can this speed not be exceeded. Why cant we travel at 300 000 000 m/s?.

This is what I understand of the topic, Tinman.

Einstein has claimed that an object will gain mass as it accelerates - how this occurs I have no idea. As the object continues to accelerate, it continues to gain mass. The more massive the object, the more force is required to accelerate it.

It gets to the point whereby the mass gained by the object approaches infinity. This implies that the force required to accelerate it further approaches infinity.

[tinman]

This is what I understand of the topic, Tinman.

Einstein has claimed that an object will gain mass as it accelerates - how this occurs I have no idea. As the object continues to accelerate, it continues to gain mass. The more massive the object, the more force is required to accelerate it.

It gets to the point whereby the mass gained by the object approaches infinity. This implies that the force required to accelerate it further approaches infinity.

yes,this is the theory of special relativity,but not yet proven to be correct. In the scientific world,we are normally made to prove our claims. How ever in this case,it seems that the physicist are just willing to accept the theory. So if this is the case-at light speed the mass becomes infinite,then why is light itself not infinite ?.Why dose one small LED light beam not become an infinite light source ?. Light has mass,as gravity act's on any mass,and any mass has gravity. We know gravity can bend light,and in the case of extreem gravity such as black hole's,light cannot escape gravity. This means light has mass. Quote: photons  have mass because a photon has energy E = hf where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency of the photon.  Energy, they say, is equivalent to mass according to Einstein's famous formula E = mc2.

So here we have Einstein saying light has mass,but then go's on to say that anything traveling at light speed that has mass,will have an infinite amount of mass. But why then dose light itself not become an infinite mass-an infinite source of light?. Why dose our little LED not become a larger light source than the sun? Using Einstein's theory of special relativity, we should be able to shine our 2 watt LED at a 200 watt solar pannel,and get the full 200 watts of power from that pannel,as the light from the LED would have infinite mass/light. But we know this isnt the case,as if it were,we would be home free. We would also be cooked by the suns infinite heat aswell-thats a down side to it.

I think that the mass wouldnt change at the speed of light,only the appearance of the mass would look extreemly long-much like taking a time laps photo of the cars in the city at night. Although it looks like the cars tail lights stretch for mile's,we know the car is only at the end of the trail-the mass never changed.

[s3370389]

As I understand it, Tinman, photons are massless particles.

Light has mass,as gravity act's on any mass,and any mass has gravity. We know gravity can bend light,and in the case of extreem gravity such as black hole's,light cannot escape gravity. This means light has mass.

I think that the theory says that massive objects bend and distort spacetime. It is this distorted spacetime that light follows, like a train on a rail, down into a black hole. This implies that gravity can affect the path that light follows, but affects it indirectly.

Going back to your original question however. I posted this in a different thread earlier:

You would require approximately 9 exa Joules of energy to accelerate a 100 {kg} mass to the speed of light. That is 9x10^18 {J}. According to wikipedia the total world energy consumption in 2006 was 8.3 exa Joules.

I think I will defer to Einstein's standpoint and assume that reaching the speed of light is not possible. If it is possible, it will be a long long time before we are able to generate and store that amount of energy to be used in a space craft. Probably never.

I suppose that the extreme economical expenditure required is a pretty good reason.

[Liberty]

As I understand it, Tinman, photons are massless particles.

I think that the theory says that massive objects bend and distort spacetime. It is this distorted spacetime that light follows, like a train on a rail, down into a black hole. This implies that gravity can affect the path that light follows, but affects it indirectly.

Going back to your original question however. I posted this in a different thread earlier:

I suppose that the extreme economical expenditure required is a pretty good reason.

So to speculate a step further, if we could control spacetime over an area (say in front of a space ship), we could theoretically create a "differential " of spacetime (gravity thrust) at the front of the ship that would allow gravity powered travel (continual acceleration) in that area.  But I think this thrust would only be in a limited area similar to a magnetic field on a magnet.  I think that the faster mass travels, it looses mass in respect to speed.  This might explain  why certain particles disappear from existence and then reappear at another time.