Any scientists out there? Need an answer!

[Reply #40 on:]

 

Except that a photon can't travel at anything other than the speed of light.

interesting tidbit, there's a grad student at caltech who has been working for 6 years... who is SAID to have accelerate light to an infinte factor, this sounds implausible, but the explanation was too complex i had to accept it...   

TOTPDYIKTICBIRHIIWTFTBP



top of the page dance yes, i know this is corny, but i really hate if i were the first to break precedint

[Reply #41 on:]

You mean like...

"Scientists have found ways to break that speed limit. In one experiment performed by researchers at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., a pulse of light was sent through a transparent chamber filled with specially prepared cesium gas and was pushed to travel at speeds of 300 times the normal speed of light. The light travels so fast that the main part of the light pulse exits the chamber even before it enters. Theoretically, this means that you could see a moment in time before it actually takes place."  from a New York Times Article

[Reply #42 on:]

 

Originally posted by Nerd-Aroma (sike!):
(and I believe Relativity actually has been contradicted under certain conditions)

By Niels Bohr... Represent, bitches!
When an atom emits radiation, the electrons change orbit instantaneously.

I haven't read up on it, but when a person (or an object) travels at the speed of light (or a fraction thereof), is it the subjective time that slows down, or is it the time relative to the surroundings? This is the key to whether a lightspeed traveler would percieve time as a moment or an eternity.

Then what happens to time if you're sucked into a black hole, where you'd be accelerated to speeds greater than that of light (according to popular science)?

[Reply #43 on:]

 

Originally posted by Pikka Bird:
I haven't read up on it, but when a person (or an object) travels at the speed of light (or a fraction thereof), is it the subjective time that slows down, or is it the time relative to the surroundings? This is the key to whether a lightspeed traveler would percieve time as a moment or an eternity.

I think that time slows down only relative to others.  Subjectively, time continues to pass at the normal rate for the traveller.

 

Then what happens to time if you're sucked into a black hole, where you'd be accelerated to speeds greater than that of light (according to popular science)?

Well, anything that happens inside the event horizon of a black hole can never be observed by anyone outside the event horizon, so according to quantum mechanics, we can never know what's happening in there.  You can have cats that are half-dead and half-alive, or whatever you want.

[Reply #44 on:]

 

Originally posted by futz:
You mean like...

"Scientists have found ways to break that speed limit. In one experiment performed by researchers at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., a pulse of light was sent through a transparent chamber filled with specially prepared cesium gas and was pushed to travel at speeds of 300 times the normal speed of light. The light travels so fast that the main part of the light pulse exits the chamber even before it enters. Theoretically, this means that you could see a moment in time before it actually takes place."  from a New York Times Article

It may be possible to send information faster than the speed of light by an effect known as quantum tunneling. The laws of Relativity break down at the quantum level.

 

Originally posted by Pikka Bird:
Then what happens to time if you're sucked into a black hole, where you'd be accelerated to speeds greater than that of light (according to popular science)?

Nothing can travel through space faster than light, not even a Black Hole can break that rule. However, once you reach the singularity at the centre, time stops.

   

Originally posted by David A:
I think that time slows down only relative to others.  Subjectively, time continues to pass at the normal rate for the traveller.

Yes thats correct.

[Reply #45 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chug a Bug:
Nothing can travel through space faster than light, not even a Black Hole can break that rule. However, once you reach the singularity at the centre, time stops.

Of course, you can never actually reach the singularity, because time gets slower and slower the closer you get.

[Reply #46 on:]

Thats like the old irresistable force meeting an unmovable object paradox....

I see your point but I'm not entirely convinced. After all if matter doesn't fall into the singularity then where does it go? Theres a Black Hole at the centre of our galaxy containing thousands if not millions of solar masses and yet the area that contains it is so small that matter falling into it simply has to be compressed into a singularity.

[Reply #47 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chug a Bug:
Thats like the old irresistable force meeting an unmovable object paradox....

It's more like Zeno’s Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles .

 

I see your point but I'm not entirely convinced. After all if matter doesn't fall into the singularity then where does it go? Theres a Black Hole at the centre of our galaxy containing thousands if not millions of solar masses and yet the area that contains it is so small that matter falling into it simply has to be compressed into a singularity.

In theory, yes.  In reality, the black hole is continuously losing mass by way of Hawking radiation (and the larger the area of the event horizon, the faster the rate of loss).

[Reply #48 on:]

Feeding black holes gain mass faster than they lose it by Hawking radiation. The mass has to go somewhere.

The mass of the black hole at the centre of our galaxy hasn't had enough time to evaporate all of it's mass anyhow.  It doesn't work that fast.

[Reply #49 on:]

Okay, forget the Hawking radiation.

Mass falling into the event horizon increases the radius of the event horizon, so there's always room for more.

[Reply #50 on:]

Yes.... but the dimensions of the event horizon are still extremely small for it's enormous mass.