Posted on 01/16/2005 2:53:56 AM PST by plenipotentiary
Photons change position from one quantum level to the next over time. Let's say our friend Mr. Proton happens to arrive at 31416 South PI Street and finds out that this is where all good little photons get their vectors changed (a mirror lives there). His very next move is going to be with a sorely bent vector.
Time only happens between addresses, and location is only found between times, so our little photon friend never got any 'rest' during his vector-bending experience, because 'rest' means staying in one place over a length (however short) of time..
That is true.
And since time grinds to a halt at v=c then photons don't experience the movement of time either. The dawn of creation and the end of time all happen at once for your run of the mill photon.
Can this be true too?
One set of solutions that is allowed is for objects to exist on the other hyperbola, which lies on the other side of the asymptotes. These hypothetical objects, known as tachyons, would move faster than light, and be geometrically unable to move slower. But if such objects exist, they are unable to interact with normal matter objects.
Furthermore, what makes you think that if you had an FTL spaceship, it would be able to nudge a photon so as to make it go faster? We have slower-than-light objects that nudge photons all the time, but never in such a way as to slow photons down. They keep on travelling at the same speed no matter how you hit them.
How so?
What happens when your faster than light spaceship hits a slower than light space deer?
What physical principle do you mean to invoke to convey this nudge?
Let me say, very gently, that you hold a lot of misconceptions about physics. I mean that charitably. Your entire post is so rambling and incoherent - in terms of the way physicists frame the question - that it is more or less pointless to respond to your physical arguments. Let me rather, gently and constructively, try to suggest an alternative way to think about the question, without giving you your Nth physics lesson of the day. More an explanation of the process of physics.
In the first place, the idea that "nothing can travel faster than the speed of light" is not an assumption, an axiom or a definition. It is the logical conclusion of other, not at all counterintuitive, assumptions. These assumptions are called "laws of physics", principals derived to explain widely observed and repeatable phenomena, with remarkable accuracy, simplicity and clarity.
To date there is scant evidence to contradict the theory of relativity. (I would say none, maybe the Pioneer gravitational anomaly, but there is likely to be some other explanation.) Physics works by deriving theory from observation, not speculation or surmise. (Dirac applied astute mathematical speculation to derive possible laws of physics which were later shown to be consistent with experiment, setting a bad precedent for several generations of less astute emulators. He also poured water on his tires in an attempt to help the graduate student dispatched to dig him out, but only succeeded in freezing his tires to the pavement.)
It is true that Einstein advanced physics my means of "thought experiments", but his thought experiments applied the laws of physics of his day, which he understood thoroughly, and pointed out their internal contradictions. (Like Galileo's assault on Aristotelian gravity theory.)
It's always fun to speculate about novel applications of the laws of physics - the name we give to the current set assumptions. But this is really the realm of science fiction, not physics.
Begging the question. Your mechanism for causing a photon to exceed the speed of light assumes a vehicle already travelling faster than light.
I like hamburgers.
I believe that the speed of light is constant relative to you no matter how fast you go.
IIRC there was an experiment that measured the speed of light on "both sides" of the planet, with the expectation that the speed of light would be measured faster coming from the direction Earth is moving through space.
But in fact both measurements were equal, meaning that the speed of light is constant relative to the observer. So no matter how fast you move towards a photon, it will always be moving away from you at a constant speed c.
The apparent contradictions with this are probably explained by relativity on how time slows down relative to the observer when they travel faster.
ABrit,
For the literary evidence for Faster Than Light (FLT) rent K-PAX the movie, check out Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach from the library, and see Beyond the Second Law of Thermodynamics by Thomas Newton below:
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:vlRLDByEaRkJ:hatteraslight.com/hnavy/fleet/scarshoulder/NPC.html++%22beyond+the+second+law+of+thermodynamics%22newton&hl=en&lr=lang_en
For the physical evidence look for “Light itself will travel slower than c when not in a vacuum (causing refraction), and in certain materials other particles can travel faster than it (but still slower than c), leading to Cherenkov radiation.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Thomas Newton
Conservative Poet
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