Hypothetical question: If we ever travel at the speed of light how can we communicate with earth?

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Bekker

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Sep 6, 2000
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Once had a math prof who was sure we will at some time travel at the speed of light. If so, how could Earth ever communicate with the ship since messages would also travel at light speed, thus never catching the ship? Also since the ship is moving away at the speed of light, how could it's signal reach back to Earth?

Just wondering.:D
 
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TheoPetro

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Nov 30, 2004
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.......what if the ship isnt moving in a strait path away from earth. if the ship is circeling earth then we could just shoot a few trillion random signels out there and one is bound to hit the ship....as for processing time and soforth not sure. as for the ship talking to earth i doubt that would be much of a problem. however this is assuming all "normal" laws of physics apply to a ship moving the speed of light.

on seccond thought, this ship would have inf amount of mass thus sucking the earth into it once the earth is apart of the ship i doubt communication would be much of a problem
 
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TheoPetro

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acheveing the speed of light wouldnt be too cool IMO, accelerating w/ the speed of light...now thats where its at.
 
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Descartes

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Oct 10, 1999
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Velocity addition/subtraction isn't the same in special relativity. The speed of light is the same in all reference frames, including a shuttle traveilng at the speed of light.

If I remember correctly
 
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state 08

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Jun 6, 2005
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They did it in Ender's Game. Forgot what they used... some kind of Alien technology.
 
shortylickens

shortylickens

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Jul 15, 2003
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Originally posted by: Descartes
Velocity addition/subtraction isn't the same in special relativity. The speed of light is the same in all reference frames, including a shuttle traveilng at the speed of light.
If I remember correctly
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You are partially correct. A ship could send a message back to earth and we would recieve it at the speed of light. No math involved. The issue the OP brought up is:
How could earth talk to them?
In theory the shuttle would never recieve the signal. If its any distance away and travelling away at the speed of light (c ?) then a signal cant hit them.

 
Shawn

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
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Originally posted by: Powermoloch
space folding FTW
Click to expand...

I agree. Traveling at the speed of light wouldn't work. It's not fast enough anyway. Everything is too far.
 
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SampSon

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Jan 3, 2006
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The ship would also appear to be suspended in time, making communication useless.
 
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LordMorpheus

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Aug 14, 2002
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Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
quantum entanglement
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Well that is the only option for real time 2-way communication.

The ship will have no trouble communicating with earth if you look at relativity. It sees signals from earth as traveling at c towards itself, and its signals traveling at c towards and earth that is retreating at nearly c. Same with earth, but if you work through all the length and time dialation stuff it works out to agreement.
 
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Bekker

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Also, if the message from the shuttle to earth is being composed in real time the time interval between the individual items would be so far separated they would come in so dispersed they could not be deciphered in one's lifetime, could they?
 
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