Blazing Speed: The Fastest Stuff In The Universe 572
Unfallversicherung writes "'If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second. But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.' Astronomers are now measuring matter that moves at 99.9 percent of light-speed. Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars."
But is it fast enough... (Score:5, Funny)
Not so fast (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not so fast (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not so fast (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not so fast (Score:4, Insightful)
IAAA.
Space.com article (Score:5, Informative)
Blazing Speed: The Fastest Stuff in the Universe [space.com].
Thanks for the link. Now what about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thanks for the link. Now what about... (Score:3, Interesting)
Such precision? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Such precision? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Such precision? (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you know the spectral lines you're looking at are Hydrogen? Do the always appear in the same relative place compared to other elements, like helium? Or is it a matter that you expect to see a particular contour for *any* star, and the X-shift of that contour is the doppler shift?
Thx,
s
Re:Such precision? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Such precision? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Such precision? (Score:2)
Or Faster? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Or Faster? (Score:2)
Talk about faster than light travel attached to some pop-sci articles. Atleast if you'd linked to a few respectable [wiley-vch.de] journals [aps.org] or archives [lanl.gov], it would make sense.
Re:Or Faster? (Score:2)
Re:Or Faster? (Score:2)
LANL and a few others host arXiv mirrors to reduce the load.
Hawking & Heisenberg v. Einstein (Score:5, Informative)
As I recall from a late 1990s lecture by Hawking [hawking.org.uk], some matter can exceed "the speed of light" and in doing so, escape a black hole. At an event horizon exactly, that border at which matter including light either escapes a black hole or not, the position of particles is known with complete precision. As such, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle [wikipedia.org] dictates that the speed of the particles cannot be known as precisely. Photons at the event horizon of a black hole are allowed, by a tiny quantity, some Scotty Factor in their speed because their position is certain. In plain words, these are the mathematics of the matter :) Some leptonic matter, in only such a particular position, can be slightly faster than "the speed of light."
As theorized, Hawking's predictions that black holes might leak have, I understand, been observed as radiation from what are as-yet assumed to be black holes. Anyone knowing more than I do about this particular phenomenon is (un?)certainly welcome to add more. The explanation Hawking made was directed at interested and able nonprofessionals; he put forward some mathematics around but not specifically deriving the surprising conclusions. Made sense to me, anyhow. I believe the matter discussed here, blasers measured at .999999... of light's speed, is the fastest measured "directly." But I do not believe this is the fastest known matter, if you allow that "knowing" the speed of the matter Hawking discussed (observed as radiation) was theoretical and later indirectly measured.
BG
Re:Hawking & Heisenberg v. Einstein (Score:3, Informative)
I actually did my dissertation in Hawking Radiation, but it's been ten years since I studied this, so I'm going to be a bit fuzzy...
I don't recall anything about the position at the event horizon being certain. I remember it more in these terms:
Re:Or Faster? (Score:2)
Futurama Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Of Course Not! Thats why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.
Re:Futurama Quote (Score:3, Informative)
So, the speed of light need not necessarily be a constant for all time (and need not have been a constant for all time).
Re:Futurama Quote (Score:2)
Re:Futurama Quote (Score:3, Funny)
universal constants change at the speed of light.
Or at the whim of Q.
Re:Futurama Quote (Score:2, Informative)
Become your own grandpa (Score:5, Funny)
Someone's been watching too much Futurama.
Re:Become your own grandpa (Score:2)
Of course, if you increase the speed of light there's no problem.
Re:Become your own grandpa (Score:3, Interesting)
An excellent question.
Dirac's theory of the electron shows that an electron travelling backwards through time is mathematically indistinguishable from a positively-charged "hole" into which an electron can fall (releasing energy, since the "hole" is a lower-energy state). Alternatively, it's also indistinguishable from an opposite-charged particle, with the same mass, which is destroyed on meeting an elect
Re:Become your own grandpa (Score:2)
Too bad there werent' ENOUGH people watching too much Futurama.
*sigh*
Gamma is not linear (Score:5, Insightful)
Gamma, the factor that in general relates quantities (time, mass, energy, momentum) in two reference frames in Special Relativity, is non-linear. Being within 0.1% of the speed of light does not place you any 'closer' to breaking it than being within 50% of it.
This is why instead of speaking of the speed of particles and objects travelling close to that of light, we refer to the kinetic energy they have, which gives a much more practical way of understanding these speeds.
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, in the relativistic frame, the Newtonian kinetic energy (0.5*mass*velocity^2) is no longer valid. To make "relativistic" correction, it needs to be scaled by the quantity called "gamma", which has the form:
gamma = 1.0/sqrt(1.0-(v/c)^2)
where c = speed of light and v is the motion of an object (here 0.999c). Now the relativistic kinetic energy is scaled by this gamma factor as:
Kinetic Energy = mass * c^2 * (gamma - 1.0).
In this case, v=0.999c, the gamma factor has the value of 22.4. Then for the mass of a Jupiter size planet, the relativistic kinetic energy is about 2e52 erg, which is about 10 supernovae explosion worth of the energy.
Now if you imagine that v=0.9999 (another "9"), then the gamma factor jumps up to 70.7, instead of 22.4. That's what the parent poster meant to say by the "non-linear" term.
The more you know, the better off you are.
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:4, Insightful)
For anybody out there wondering why you can't go faster than the speed of light, this equation is the reason.
An equation cannot be a reason, only an explanation or description. In this case, it is just a description. But since you couldn't go faster than light before Einstein created this equation, the equation can't be the reason for this "rule".
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gamma is not linear (Score:3, Interesting)
Who's to say they're moving at all .... (Score:2)
What's amazing about this is how fast they are moving away from their source ... not the absolute speed which as the parent sais doesn't mean a lot
hrrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm did'nt he say nothing(matter) can accelerate to the speed of light?
Re:hrrmmm (Score:2)
Erm did'nt he say nothing(matter) can accelerate to the speed of light?
True, and also nothing that has mass can decelerate to the speed of light.
You can have tachyons (faster) and 'tardyons' (slower).
Re:hrrmmm (Score:3, Informative)
There is no evidence of tachyons, I agree. But, Special Relativity says that you can have them! This says nothing about whether or not the actually exist.
Re:hrrmmm (Score:2)
Introduces i? (Score:4, Funny)
Introduces i? You must be imagining things.
Blazar detection (Score:4, Funny)
Whereas one of those blazar things could take out the whole solar system. Imagine the fireworks there, as a mass the size of Jupiter smacks into the sun.
Gentlemen... we cannot allow... a blazar detection gap!
MS worms (Score:2, Funny)
Blazars are not the fastest thing in the universe (Score:5, Funny)
AH HA get it? chevye blazar kekekekekeke kthxbye
Stuff can go faster than light (Score:3, Insightful)
I ain't a physics geek, but I did learn that much in college.
Re:Stuff can go faster than light (Score:2)
Re:Stuff can go faster than light (Score:5, Informative)
Mindbender question about lightspeed. (Score:2)
What is special about 186,000 mph ?
Could it be that there is correlation between HiggBosons and lightwaves and fabric of space and strings ?
Re:Mindbender question about lightspeed. (Score:2)
the speed of light = 670 616 629 miles per hour
the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s
the speed of light = 1.07925285 × 10^9 kilometers per hour
So, someone lost some zeros... (we'd be pretty screwed if light was 1000 times slower. Imagine some 10MHZ CPU max...
Re:Mindbender question about lightspeed. (Score:3, Informative)
Now, the question does have a less profound answer that is not what you have in mind. A meter is DEFINED as the amount of time that light moves in 1/299792458 seconds, so light moves exactly at 299792458 meters per second. The miles per hour speed is just a conversion factor away.
Re:Mindbender question about lightspeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the contrary, I think that answers the question perfectly. The speed of light is directly derivable from other fundamental constants which are inherent properties of our Universe.
And, of course, the way to answer the question "Why are those constants inherent properties of our universe?" is to inv
Re:Mindbender question about lightspeed. (Score:4, Funny)
Accelerators (Score:3, Interesting)
We can't beat em! (Score:2)
Oblig. Red Dwarf [mis]quote: (Score:2)
Uhm.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uhm.. (Score:3, Funny)
That would be about the same sensation.
"If you're light" (Score:5, Funny)
Did anyone else read this and think, "Well, I'm not overweight... so I can go really fast?"
Significance of near light speeds (Score:5, Informative)
As an example, the LEP accelerator at CERN which was used in the period 1989-2000, acceleratod electrons to about 99.9999999977% c.
But even outside the laboratories we have previously observed even larger speeds. The UHECR (ultra high energy cosmic rays) whose origin is still a mystery seems to consist of protons moving at speeds of 1-1^(-22) = 0.9999999999999999999999 c.
Furthermore, it might seem like we need absurd accuracies in our measurements to discern the numbers from each other. But we don't really - the speed of the particle is practically the same when 0.99c and 0.99999c are compared, but things like the momentum of the particle will still differ wildly. For the curious, the formula is: momentum = m*v/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2).
fair enough, but aren't you forgetting one detail? (Score:3, Insightful)
right, sure, but, an electron is one thing, a ball of gas the size of jupiter is another... on earth we accellerate tiny little masses to high speed... what they're measuring is something more massive than our own planet
Unilectron (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Unilectron (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Unilectron (Score:3, Funny)
heavy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:heavy (Score:4, Informative)
Doug
Metric system rules (Score:2, Funny)
Light is faster with the metric system...
Doh!
Read about the Oh My God proton (Score:5, Interesting)
In just what reference frame...? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose it must mean these gases travel at (nearly) the speed of light with reference to stationary objects. But of course, light itself still moves as fast compared to this stuff as it does compared to us.
Actually faster than light... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Actually faster than light... (Score:3, Informative)
It's frequently observed as a ghostly blue light in the deep water holding tanks for freshly-spent fissile material from nuclear reactors. Some of the active particles travel faster than the speed of light in the water, leading to the Cerenkov effect.
... sounds like someone I used to work for (Score:3, Funny)
"Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected ..."
Regards,
John
Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
1- Any object that travels through space-time has an effect on space time. Think, for a second, of space-time as a gas. When you accelerate an object through this gas, much of the surrounding gas is pulled along with the craft due to drag. Any object/material traveling through space-time will pull along with it "Frames" of space-time. This, in theory, is the cause of Time Dilation, as predicted by General Relativity.
2- As you approach c, you are dragging more "Frames" with you. Hence the reason Time Dilation is more evident and further exagerated the closer you get to c.
3- To achieve speeds faster than that of c, the material must be "invisible" to space-time itself. Any drag on space-time, produced by a craft or any sort of matter will render any attempt to break the limit c impossible. Current linear motion produces an almost cavitational effect, where frames are, in essence, skipped while older frames are continually dragged by the mass causing clock skew and a need for even more energy to achieve acceleration. This is not dissimilar to the effect of breaking the sound barrier, only we are describing a completely different medium, space-time, not gas.
4- By skipping over current frames and dragging older ones with you, the time lapse occuring on or within that particular body will appear slower to the observer than said observer's time lapse. It is because of this that it is theoretically impossible to travel backwards in time and only possible to travel forward at different rates.
If anyone has any objections to this, let me know. IANAP (I am not a physicist) so I could be dead wrong. It is just that, this makes the most sense to me and seems to fit the facts best.
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:5, Informative)
2) As you accelerate to 99.9% the speed of light, time slows down very significantly. Theoretically, at the speed of light, the passage of time stops, but since you cannot accelerate to the speed of light, that's a moot point.
Tachyons (Score:2, Interesting)
Wikipedia has something about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon [wikipedia.org]
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:4, Interesting)
First off, IAAAP (and I don't even play one on TV).
I understand this is true if the energy or gravity providing the acceleration is in a different frame of reference than the mass being accelerated (think particle accelerator or plasma blob).
But my layman's question is .. what about a rocket?
In a rocket, the energy to accelerate the rocket is in the same frame of reference as the rocket itself. The rocket converts mass into energy which accelerates mass and sends it out the nozzle to provide thrust. As the rocket approaches the speed of light (from Earth's reference, for instance) it becomes heavier and harder to accelerate, but so does the mass upon which it relies to convert into energy to provide thrust. The propellent is also heavier. My guess is that this would all cancel out in such a way that an astronaut travelling inside the rocket would have no way of knowing how close to c he is travelling at without looking out the window.
Now my understanding is that from Earth's perspective the rocket could only reach c at the end of time, but my question is this: given a sufficiently efficient rocket engine, is this the case for the rocket and the astronaut? If the rocket were capable of constant acceleration (for the comfort of the astronaut, lets say an acceleration of G) how long, from the astronauts perspective, would it take for him to reach c?
And once he got there (and he could only know if he looked out the window or kept track of time) what's to stop him from going further? It may be the end of time on earth, but how old is the astronaut?
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:3, Informative)
dV = Ve * Me / Mr, where dV is the change in velocity of the rocket, Ve is the velocity of the exhaust, and Mr is the mass of the rocket.
Now, basic relativity:
S = sqrt(1 - V^2/C^2) -> A scaling factor
M' = M / S -> Mass increases as V increases.
T' = T / S -> Time slows down as V increases.
L' = L * S -> Lengths decrease as V increases.
Now, if you just consider M, you're right. Me' / Mr' = (Me / S) / (Mr / S) = Me / Mr. Thus, dV remains constant, because the increase
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:3, Informative)
In math, something is said to approach infinity when its value increases endlessly, without bound. It may always have a finite value, but that value will increase past any arbitrary limit you care to name, not matter how high.
Re:Not quite. (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless the particle was created with an initial speed of greater than the speed of light. The relativity equations are mirrored, in that a particle travelling slower than light cannot accelerate past C, and a particle travelling faster than light cannot decelerate past C.
These faster-than-light particles are called tachyons, and though they are theoretically possible, no-one has ever detected them. Apparently, they'd be
Re:Yes but... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's basically all I'm saying. If we start to see examples of bodies (be that particles or planets) that seem to be traveling faster than c, then we really need to reexamine whether it is a fundamental limitation.
Some recent experiments already might indicate that it isn't.
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:2)
Light speed travel is no closer than it was before. Relativity allows for travel at speeds arbitrarily close to that of light, but not at. If you accelerate to 99.9999% of the speed of light you just get all of the normal relativistic effects, just to a more extreme degree. Time slows down (you see it as time slo
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:2)
Re:Light Speed Travel (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Relativity (Score:4, Informative)
First rule of relativity club is the speed of light is the same for all observers. Which means your laser will appear to be travelling the same speed for somebody travelling through space at "Breakneck speeds" as it would for somebody just leaning back in a chair sipping a Corona watching you.
Re:Relativity (Score:2, Informative)
I don't have to think about it, Einstein already did it for me: the speed of light does not "add" to other speeds. Time warps instead. That's (very very basically) what the Theory of Relativity is all about.
TWW
Re:Relativity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Relativity (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Simple way to EXCEED LIGHT SPEED. Seriously. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple way to EXCEED LIGHT SPEED. Seriously. (Score:4, Informative)
It's easy to create signals with "phase velocities" faster than the speed of light, for example set up a series of identical oscillators such that the phase of oscillation is perfectly in sync (within a stationary observers frame). Such a system will have an infinite phase velocity, (or within the limits of experimental error it can easily be made greater than c). This phase velocity merely means the phase of the "wave" of the oscillation appears to travel infinitely fast from one oscillator to the next.
But the key point is that no information is transferred faster than the speed of light, and thus everything still adheres to the confines of special relativity. So the parent AC is correct that one can create an effective velocity larger than c, but one cannot do anything useful with it.
Re:Simple way to EXCEED LIGHT SPEED. Seriously. (Score:2)
Imagine this:
A probe going to Moon drops 100 "beacons" every 1% of the route. The beacons have light receptors, precise clocks and flashlights. Send a flash from earth. Each beacon upon receiving it, starts the clock. The signal gets reflected from the Moon, gets back to Earth, the return signal puts an "end mark" on the clocks. The beacon by Earth ha
Re:Faster than Light, yeah (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Faster than Light, yeah (Score:2)
Re:Faster than Light, yeah (Score:2)
Perhaps your cluelessness will inspire other impressionable minds to go look up the difference between veolicity in Newtonian mechanics and velocity in Einstein/Lorentz relativity.
Re:Faster than Light, yeah (Score:2)
Re:general relativity (Score:3)
Re:general relativity (Score:3, Informative)
No. That equation has nothing to do with the speed or energy of a photon. It's only used to calculate the energy equivalent of mass, or the mass equivalent of energy. Just because a photon has no mass doesn't mean it can't have energy or velocity.
Re:general relativity (Score:3, Informative)
No, it can't have any mass or it wouldn't be able to travel at c. It has energy, of course, and that energy can be considered to be equivalent to a certain mass, but that's different.
There are two ways you can think about gravity affecting light. One way is to think of it affecting the mass-equivalence of the photon's energy. Th
Re:general relativity (Score:3, Informative)
That's a good question, and the answer is very simple. The equation E=MC^2 is a simplification. The actual equation is E^2=M^2*C^4 + P^2*C^2, where P is momentum. For particles at rest, momentum P is zero, so the equation simplifies to E=MC^2. For photons, rest mass M is zero, but they are always in motion, and the equat
Re:Physics question here (Score:3, Interesting)