Question about blazers and fast matter

bryanharley · Jan 18, 2005

This is in response to the recent article at SPACE.com http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blazing_speed_050118.html I was wondering...how would we be able to tell if an object or type of matter was moving faster than the speed of light? I know Einstein's theory tells us it's not possible, but if it is possible and happening... how would we know it?

bryanharley · Jan 18, 2005

This is in response to the recent article at SPACE.com http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blazing_speed_050118.html I was wondering...how would we be able to tell if an object or type of matter was moving faster than the speed of light? I know Einstein's theory tells us it's not possible, but if it is possible and happening... how would we know it?

vogon13 · Jan 18, 2005

I seem to recall Isaac Asimov postulating that matter could travel faster than light but he added some interesting caveats. (I know I'm never going to find the article so if I mess up some of the details, I will happily accept corrections.) He felt matter that was traveling faster than light could never be decelerated below light speed no matter how much energy was applied. He felt the speed of light was a barrier both ways, from slower, and faster. Since it's a 'barrier' I guess neither speed regime of matter will ever know about the other. Neat idea, 2 universal realms, occupying the same dimension(s) but walled off from each other, by nothing more than velocity. Phrase "luxon wall" just popped into my head, may have been the title of article. A close understanding of Einstein's speed limit may suggest matter traveling exactly light speed is forbidden, but faster and slower are ok. How you transition from one to the other with out experiencing the intermediate state is the real trick. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

Saiph · Jan 18, 2005

Isaac Asimov's article was likely elaborating on a part of relativity often neglected. Everything you said is correct, and is a valid prediction of SR (Therefore the work is ultimately attributable to Einstein, who did talk of this). There are three realms of motion. Sub C, C, and Super C velocities. You can go any three of these (even if you have mass). However, you cannot change from one, to the other. All objects traveling slower than C, are forever bound to that region, same goes for C (though we have not seen any objects with mass at this speed) and super C regions (also non-detected). In the Super C region, the more energy the object has, the slower it goes (closer to C). So to speed up, you remove energy. Sounds screwy, I know. But material in this region also goes backwards in time. Such theoretical particles are called Tachyons (often part of star trek technobabble). Tachyons, or anything going faster than C (and thus back in time) have never been observed. So the answer to how we determine if an objects going faster than light: We watch for two things, it's behavior when it has more, or less energy. And if it's doing strange things like going backwards in time. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

claywoman · Jan 18, 2005

Now I know this is going to sound stupid, but for me and my understanding, how are we going to know if it goes 'backwards in time' if we are always going forward in time?

robnissen · Jan 18, 2005

One of the problems with matter reaching the speed of light, is that its mass goes infinite. Now, I am not saying that is a reason that matter can not go the speed of light, perhaps our equations are wrong. But, those equations appear to be accurate at below light speeds. So my question is: If the protons in cosmic rays are traveling at 99.9999999999 (I think the article I saw said 10 decimal places?), how FRICKEN BIG are those protons in terms of mass, as compared to a regular proton? Also, is it just mass that increases at relativisitic speeds, or does the volume get bigger as well? If the volume does get bigger, what would the volume of a proton be at this speed? Can I look forward to seeing soon: Godzilla 12, THE PROTON THAT ATE TOKYO? <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

sithlordaj · Jan 18, 2005

the mass increase fomula: (initial mass)/(sqrt(1-(v*v)/(c*c))) = new mass so, as v gets closer to c, the bottom part of the equation becomes the square root of 0, which is by definition 0, and then we have the initial mass divided by zero. therefore, the new mass would be infinate. also, if E = mcc then if the mass becomes infinate, so does the energy. the same goes for the energy required to get it to this state. there is a stretching effect. you would see a trail similar to when ships go to warp on star trek. all of this is relative, so if you were the proton, you wouldn't feel any heavier or think you've been stretched.

newtonian · Jan 19, 2005

bryanharley - Good question. I am not sure. Inflation theories have our universe expanding FTL (= faster than light) very early. The evidence for this is not actually observed directly. It leads to the current popular model that our universe's radius is greater in light years than our universe's age in years. And the result is that much of the universe is beyond our visibility horizon - it's light has not reached us yet. Some theorize that much of our universe will never be seen in light because of expanding permanently FTL from us. Theoretically, matter travelling faster than light is called by theoretical physics: tachyons. Back to earth with your question: I would assume that the energy from collisions from FTL matter would have a specific higher value that the energies from those cosmic rays apparently hitting earth at 99.9 plus 19 zeros % the speed of light. To be more specific in my answer, I would have to know how they measured the speed of these almost FTL cosmic rays, and why they are only suspecting these are protons, rather than knowing for sure. Anyone know?

robnissen · Jan 19, 2005

I understand that the proton would not feel different, but the particles it reacted to in our atmosphere would. Doing the math very roughly (using 299799.999999999999999 for the speed which gives a speed a little lower than the one in the article which was a percentage with 99 followed by 19 9s), I get a proton mass over 12 BILLION times larger than a non-relativistic proton. While that is still a small mass over all, it is pretty big to react with the particles in our atmosphere. Hopefully, one gram worth of protons, never gets sent our way, I think 12 billion grams of protons traveling virtually at light speed, would make all of our asteroid doomsday scenaries look like Mary Poppins. Maybe we should start a deep impact mission to visit a proton. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> BTW, there is no warranty that I didn't screw up the math.

vogon13 · Jan 19, 2005

I don't think we have to worry about 1 really, really big proton smacking us back to the stone age. Read some where (damn, wihs I could remember better)(and spell, too) high energy particles interact with cosmic background radiation and dissipate some energy as they cavort thru universe. Kind of a cosmic speed limit. On really long flights, particles experience expansion of universe(or if you would rather think we are moving away from them as they overtake us,which lessens their kick)and loose energy that way too. All part of the long, relentless, and unavoidable burning out of the universe. Entropy gets you coming and going. Life is uncertain, eat desert first. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

igorsboss · Jan 19, 2005

There are three realms of motion. Sub C, C, and Super C velocities. You can go any three of these (even if you have mass). However, you cannot change from one, to the other. Is it possible that particle transitions between Sub C and Super C could occur inside a Black Hole? Do String Theory(ies) and EQD theories differ on this subject?

vogon13 · Jan 22, 2005

Could we entertain the possibility time passes backwards (compared to us) for superluminal matter? Perhaps causality violations would somehow be detected and attributed to SLM. Keep in mind superluminal beings might be speculating same thing about us and our realm. Since it's late and this is getting a little whooly- - - - How small is infinitely small?? How much room is there between between what we consider really, really, really tiny and infinitely small? Room enough for a universe? More than one? Infinite number? Cosmology seems concerned with the really, really big picture, what if the really big picture is right in front of your face. Didn't Dr. Suess have a cogent speculation in this emerging field? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

nexium · Feb 18, 2005

On the slight possibility that Newton was nearer correct than Albert Einstein; we can use film with our telescope to detect suns like ours traveling hundreds of times the speed of light. Optimise our scope for best focus and least chromatic aberation etc. Point it at an easily identified group of stars near the zenith. Missadjust your tracker so it moves the scope slowly toward the zenith. Expose for 1/2 hour if your sky has light polution/up to 10 hours if you have very dark sky. The photo should show normal stars as parallel lines, slightly curved. Planets and faster than light stars will be not quite parallel and either shorter or longer than the lines made by the normal stars. With incredibly good luck, there will be a very short faint line which means you almost tracked a faint object most everyone else missed. Someone else several thousand kilometers away needs to track the same object, at the same time to determine that it is very far away rather than an artificial sattelite, comet, asteroid, KBO, UFO etc. Please comment, embellish and/or refute. Neil

Saiph · Feb 18, 2005

1) The biggest shift will be due to earths rotation 2) Any motion in the stars will be very, very, very, small, basically undetectable by such a method. Typical yearly shifts in stars is less than a tenth of an arcsecond (and stars to earth based scopes appear to be ~1 arcsecond across!) 3) The stars that don't make parrallel tracks (ignoring the detectability issue) are not only those relegated to faster than light speeds. Any motion will do, and all stars are moving around, and we're moving too, so all stars will do this. 4) There isn't a slight possibility Newton was nearer correct than Einstein, as relativity out performs Newton's mechanics in explainations and predictive power, AND gives us newtons laws if you say speeds are slow (i.e. newton's laws are a special low velocity case for relativity). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

bryanharley · Feb 21, 2005

I asked my astronomy professor what he thought about my initial question above. Here's what he had to say: <blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Dear Bryan, To date, there has never been a reliable observation of anything moving faster than c, the speed of light in empty space (300,000 km/s), that couldn't be explained in any other way. This hasn't been from lack of trying, believe me. Hypothetical particles that travel faster than c are called tachyons. In order to obey Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (which I'll cover later in PSci 21, when we get to black holes), tachyons would have to have some very unusual properties, such as having to move backward in time. Quite what "moving backward in time" means, exactly, I don't know. Many scientists say it doesn't mean anything, because tachyons don't exist. I'm not sure we need to be this harsh, but it does give a good joke: (Q) Why did the tachyon cross the road? (A) Because it was on the other side! Every now and then, someone does a search for tachyons in a high-energy physics lab, or in cosmic rays, but nothing that couldn't be explained without tachyons has ever turned up. A problem with this, though, is that physical law as we know it may not necessarily apply at speeds faster than c. Special relativity does accurately predict the properties of particles moving at speeds that approach c---but, does special relativity necessarily apply to particles that move faster than light? There's nothing implicit in special relativity that demands that it should. Also, how would a tachyon emit or interact with light, or electrons, or other particles, so that one might be able to detect its presence? No one really knows, so that I wonder: if one were standing directly in front of a source of tachyons and looking right at it, would one know it? I'm</blockquote>

Saiph · Feb 21, 2005

good stuff, thanks for posting it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

Saiph · Feb 21, 2005

speed is hardly imaginary. It is relative yes, but having a relative speed has significant and real consequences. It being a derived quantity (it's units a composition of several others) as opposed to the fundamental quantities (whose units cannot be split, e.g. seconds) does not make it an imaginary, or any less important, of a quantity. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

newtonian · Feb 21, 2005

vogon13 - Hi! In response to your question about how small is the smallest, or even infinitely small. I do not believe anything is infinitely small. The standard smallest length is Planck length. However, some astronomers theorize the singularity in which our universe began was smaller in diameter than Planck length, perhaps even infinitely small. This may be one reason why we do not understand how our universe was created exactly - though we do know energy was converted into matter. The Bible links energy with the sustaining of stars: (Isaiah 40:26) "26 "Raise YOUR eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one [of them] is missing." However, other forms of energy preceded stars - e.g. God's dynamic energy and power. We do not know specifically how small these types of primordial energy and power can be in units, assuming the energy was not photons which were formed later than our universe's origin. For example, we do not know how small the units are for dark energy, or even if dark energy is quantized as in quantum theory. However, it is likely that this form of energy preceded photons in the origin of our universe. While I agree that there may be undiscovered complexity in very small sizes, including possible intersections with other dimensions (compare membrane theories for the origin of our universe), your mentioning of infinite universes involves things much larger. In the following ancient model, our universe may be one of many, though not infinite in number, universes that are located within a much larger universe, a heaven of the heavens so to speak: (1 Kings 8:27) "But will God truly dwell upon the earth? Look! The heavens, yes, the heaven of the heavens, th

vogon13 · Apr 13, 2005

{bump} <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

dellcom200 · Apr 13, 2005

"In the Super C region, the more energy the object has, the slower it goes (closer to C). So to speed up, you remove energy. Sounds screwy, I know. But material in this region also goes backwards in time. Such theoretical particles are called Tachyons (often part of star trek technobabble)." could this be the inverse of our universe?

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