Can the speed of light be considered infinite?

[BD2003]

Although one can easily conceive of the fact that light is only so fast, and therefore something can be faster, since its the fastest anything will ever travel, can it be considered infinite?

Taking into account time dilation, wouldnt traveling at the speed of light seem as if it was infinitely fast to the person traveling at that speed?

Or do I have it backwards, that the poor bastard in the spaceship traveling at the speed of light will feel as if he's going infinitely slow?

 

[thEnEuRoMancER]

The speed of light is invariant, meaning not dependant on the speed of observer.

 

[VTHodge]

Speed of light (or any other electromagnetic energy) is constant and finite and is not dependant on reletive motion. The speed of light is about 3x10^8 m/s. No more, no less. Ever.

 

[d0ofy]

<< Speed of light (or any other electromagnetic energy) is constant and finite and is not dependant on reletive motion. The speed of light is about 3x10^8 m/s. No more, no less. Ever. >>



That is until you hit a black hole.

 

[TuffGirl]

<< That is until you hit a black hole. >>


Umm, do black holes make light go faster than 'c'? (seriously curious about the answer)

 

[isildur]

3x10^8 m/s is the speed of light in a vacuum - the speed of light is not invariable, it changes minutely depending on the medium through which it travels.

 

[Elledan]

<<

<< That is until you hit a black hole. >>


Umm, do black holes make light go faster than 'c'? (seriously curious about the answer) >>


Short answer: we don't know.

Long answer: the theories we currently use to explain phenomena at small scales can not describe what happens inside or around a black hole. At best we can approach the answer somewhat, but it's far from perfect.

 

[Capn]

"Speed of light (or any other electromagnetic energy) is constant and finite and is not dependant on reletive motion. The speed of light is about 3x10^8 m/s. No more, no less. Ever. "

Where have you been?

Or do you want to tag on (in a vacuum) onto that line. Anyhow, I've read reports some scientists feel the speed of light may have changed since the beginning of the universe, who knows.

 

[aznspeed]

nothing is faster than the speed of me.

sorry i just had to say that... bump!

 

[Adul]

if you where to reach a infinite speed, would you be able to be everywhere at once?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

you light up my life,
you give me hope,
la la la la la...

 

[BD2003]

I'm not talking about an observer watching, I'm talking about someone actually traveling at that speed....

 

[GoodToGo]

<< Although one can easily conceive of the fact that light is only so fast, and therefore something can be faster, since its the fastest anything will ever travel, can it be considered infinite?

Taking into account time dilation, wouldnt traveling at the speed of light seem as if it was infinitely fast to the person traveling at that speed?

Or do I have it backwards, that the poor bastard in the spaceship traveling at the speed of light will feel as if he's going infinitely slow? >>



In our college physics class, we had a profound example of time slowing down. If a person was put in a spaceship which was then made revolve around the earth at the speed of light for 20 years of the ASTRONAUT's time, then 448 years(or somewhere in close proximity) would have passed on the earth.

 

[Electric Amish]

<< nothing is faster than the speed of me.

sorry i just had to say that... bump! >>



You are wrong. According to Stephen Hawking's theories, certain paticles (I forget which) can travel faster than the speed of light at the event horizon of a black hole. As was said earlier by Elledan we don't know for sure around black holes.

amish

 

[cipher00]

Cop: Ok, fella, just where do you think you were going in such a hurry?

Light: Sorry, officer, I always travel this fast.

Cop: Oh, you do, do you? Let's see your license.

Light: Ummm, I don't have a license, officer.

Cop: That's it, we're going to the station



Can't find the link where scientists stopped light for a few seconds and then sent it on its way. It was in the NY Times a while back...

 

[BD2003]

In our college physics class, we had a profound example of time slowing down. If a person was put in a spaceship which was then made revolve around the earth at the speed of light for 20 years of the ASTRONAUT's time, then 448 years(or somewhere in close proximity) would have passed on the earth.[/i] >>



The way I've always understood it (I'd like to know if I'm wrong), is that it would be impossible for someone to go at the full speed of light, because at that point, they would be infinitely massive...

Is that an example of someone going the full speed of light, or very very close.

In other words, if thats just an example of close to light, if you were going the full speed (or on the ultimate edge of a limit progressing towards c), wouldnt time be going infinitely fast, and the trip from one side of the galaxy to the other would feel like an instant to you, the person in the ship? Or is there a limit to time dilation? Obviously noone can go infinitely fast relative to everyone else (c IS a constant after all), but I'm talking strictly about the guy in the ship...

 

[SirFshAlot]

<< and the trip from one side of the galaxy to the other would feel like an instant to you >>



hmmm
what is the distance across the galaxy?

let me just call it X light years

then it would take X years to get across the galaxy, travelling at the speed of light, not an instant

 

[Elledan]

What we call 'time' is a mere perception.

 

[Milkman95]

<< The way I've always understood it (I'd like to know if I'm wrong), is that it would be impossible for someone to go at the full speed of light, because at that point, they would be infinitely massive...
>>



Im far from a physics major, but my understanding is with our current types of propulsion we can not create enough force to travel at that speed.. i don't know about infinitely massive, but it would take an ever increasing amount of force that we can not create.(i think)

If we are to "travel" at the "speed of light" it will more than likely be a relative thing... meaning our method of "traveling" a distance will not be done in the same way we travel now. Not to pull up Sci-Fi.. but Hyperspace.. Warp travel.. Even the Spice travel in Dune.. All different ideas on how to get from 1 point to another some for viable then others of course...

OK.. i will now stop talking about things i know nothing about!

 

[Elledan]

<< If we are to "travel" at the "speed of light" it will more than likely be a relative thing... meaning our method of "traveling" a distance will not be done in the same way we travel now. Not to pull up Sci-Fi.. but Hyperspace.. Warp travel.. Even the Spice travel in Dune.. All different ideas on how to get from 1 point to another some for viable then others of course... >>


Warp travel appears to be the most likely way of traveling 'faster than light' (relative). We'll only have to find a way to create the 'bubble' around the spacecraft, and off we go.

We'll have to find a way to avoid colliding with asteroids, planets, stars etc. as well, but that's something we won't have to care about yet. First Warp-drive, then Deflector technology

 

[Haircut]

<<

<< and the trip from one side of the galaxy to the other would feel like an instant to you >>



hmmm
what is the distance across the galaxy?

let me just call it X light years

then it would take X years to get across the galaxy, travelling at the speed of light, not an instant >>



To an observer on the outside it would take X years to travel the distance, but if you were going at the speed of light then time would have stopped on your vessel, so it would indeed seem like an instant.

 

[lawaris]

It is a constant in vacumm......and varies if placed in a medium.......

So the question itself is a bit off the mark.....

 

[Tomek]

No, the speed of light does not increase beyond c in the vicinity of black holes, that is impossible, because it would violate the general theory of relativity, however, we don't know what happens after something enters a black hole because light cannot escape from one, it is infinitely red-shifted (i.e. we can't probe a black hole beyond Schwarzschild's radius because that would require passing through it, which would lead the person which passed beyond the horizon to being literally crushed out of existence).
According to Penrose's theorem every black hole with an event horizon contains a singularity, around which the laws of physics are supposed to break down (according to some physicists). Singularities are the reason why Einstein introduced the cosmological constant into his equations, something that he later called "the biggest blunder of his life", since it turns out that singularities are a part of spacetime, and not just flaws in the mathematics used to describe spacetime, which was what Einstein thought.
An answer to the original question is that the speed of light is not infinite, it is definitely finite. Additionally it's impossible to reach the speed of light since that would require an infinite amount of energy because, as you approach the speed of light, your mass would start to increase. The closer an object gets to the speed of light the more mass it has which, in turn, requires that to get that additional increase in speed you would need even more energy than before (i.e. as an object approaches c, the object's mass approaches infinity and to accelerate an object with an infinite mass you need infinite energy).



<< You are wrong. According to Stephen Hawking's theories, certain paticles (I forget which) can travel faster than the speed of light at the event horizon of a black hole. As was said earlier by Elledan we don't know for sure around black holes. >>



Amish, stop pulling false info out of your a$$... quote the theorem Maybe you're confusing this with Hawking radiation, but the effect is not due to matter traveling faster than light, it's due to quantum mechanics and relativity.

 

[Jzero]

--We need to go THE SPEED OF LINT!
--uhh....Don't you mean "The Speed Of Light?"
--No, I mean the speed of lint. Did you ever open the dryer and find lint inside?
--Yes....
--Did you see how it got there?
--No...
--IT'S THAT FAST!

 

[Tomek]

oh, yeah, we know what happens around black holes, we just don't know what happens beyond the Schwarzschild's radius... if you people are more interested in this stuff I would suggest reading John Earman's book "Bangs, crunches, whimpers and shrieks - Singularities and acausalities in relativistic spacetimes". I would like to warn you that you need to know a good amount of math to be able to read the book.

quote from the book
"Theorem (Hawking and Penrose). Let M, gab be a time-oriented spacetime satisfying the following four conditions:
1) Rab V^a V^b >= 0 for any non-spacelike V^a
2) The timelike and null generic conditions are fulfilled
3) There is no closed timelike curve
4) At least on the following holds: a) There exists a compact achronal set without edge; b) There exists a trapped surface; c) There is a p element of M such that the expansion of the future (or past) directed null geodesics through p becomes negative along each of the geodesics."