Hubble Finds Mystery Object

[mike]

as always these are just my ideas im no expert. but tachyons aside VSL is still being kicked around
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_speed_of_light

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Other_theories_concerning_the_speed_of_light

im not convinced the speed of light is a constant or the upper limit, and to be honest if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to observe it..... i still reckon it makes a hell of a racket as it goes down.

it just seems to me that if it takes 8 mins for light leaving the suns surface to reach earth, all i have to do is do it in 7 mins.
perhaps this would take lots of energy, but it seems doable to me.

shaving one min of the sun/earth record just just doesnt seem impossible to me

 

[Hoffmeister]

its made impossible by the fact that anything with mass that tries to travel at the speed of light will keep getting more mass, and if it were going at the speed of light it would have infinite mass.

Having said that, i still havent worked out how they can get protons in the LHC to 99.999999% the speed of light. Surely the protons would then get 99.9999999% the mass of infinity if this is actually happening.

I have been meaning to ask one of the lecturers from my local uni but havent seen him in a while, does anyone else know?

 

[DamnDirtyApe]

its made impossible by the fact that anything with mass that tries to travel at the speed of light will keep getting more mass, and if it were going at the speed of light it would have infinite mass.

Having said that, i still havent worked out how they can get protons in the LHC to 99.999999% the speed of light. Surely the protons would then get 99.9999999% the mass of infinity if this is actually happening.

I have been meaning to ask one of the lecturers from my local uni but havent seen him in a while, does anyone else know?

The LHC pumps an ENORMOUS amount of energy into getting a tiny amount of protons to that speed. In fact if you used the old formula Kinetic Energy = mass X velocity squared/2 we would have EXCEEDED light speed.

But since that equation doesn't take relativity into account, it fails near light speed (although for day to day things it works fine)

There is an asymptotic curve describing energy and acceleration. So while 99.999999 etc. seems "close enough" to equal lightspeed, it's essentially still "an infinity" away from it. You would need to pump more and more and more energy to increase the proton's speed (and inertial mass) one decimal place faster. And then to move it one decimal place beyond that would take exponentially more energy etc. You can never quite get there.

PS: the relativity adjusted equation is :

We can thank Albert Einstein for that one! Remember 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 <> 100

 

[Hoffmeister]

The LHC pumps an ENORMOUS amount of energy into getting a tiny amount of protons to that speed. In fact if you used the old formula Kinetic Energy = mass X velocity squared/2 we would have EXCEEDED light speed.

But since that equation doesn't take relativity into account, it fails near light speed (although for day to day things it works fine)

There is an asymptotic curve describing energy and acceleration. So while 99.999999 etc. seems "close enough" to equal lightspeed, it's essentially still "an infinity" away from it. You would need to pump more and more and more energy to increase the proton's speed (and inertial mass) one decimal place faster. And then to more it one decimal place beyond that would take exponentially more energy etc. You can never quite get there.

PS: the relativity adjusted equation is :

We can thank Albert Einstein for that one! Remember 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 <> 100

Good answer! Cheers!

 

[Chuckleberryfinn]

Some space scientists think that space-time can expand faster than the speed of light. Perhaps that's how the Universe can be only 12 billion years old yet extend to about 93 billion light years.

 

[mike]

strikes me that if your looking for an almost infinate energy source to cause the effect we seem to see, you cant go past the big bang as a candidate.
im only guessing but i dont think they get any bigger than the raw energy output at the moment of the bang

 

[TClaeys]

Some space scientists think that space-time can expand faster than the speed of light. Perhaps that's how the Universe can be only 12 billion years old yet extend to about 93 billion light years.

I don't know that I can explain it very well, but what you're talking about is inflationary theory which is the predominant theory of cosmology. It explains this apparent discepency. A short period of extreme expansion of spacetime itself.

 

[Aaron LeClair]

They haven't ruled out dust on the lens I read.


Tachyon? Nah, we won't get a pic of something that travels faster than our light, I reason.

 

[Ron Collins]

They haven't ruled out dust on the lens I read.


Tachyon? Nah, we won't get a pic of something that travels faster than our light, I reason.

Right, I believe that one. So.... how do they explain the disappearance of the dust over the same amount of days. Not alot of wind inside the big space telescope.