can light travil faster

[3l3ctr0]

can light travil faster? just for the argument of descution if we were able to make a jup to light speed. and light whent in with us woould it go faster because we are doubleing its speed or would it stay the same because it is all ready traviling at C?

[houserichichi]

Well two things...1: We can't go the speed of light because we have mass, and 2: the speed of light is the same in all inertial references.

SO, if we went, for instance, 99% the speed of light an outside observer would measure us at that speed and see that light is only beating us by a little bit, however to us the speed of light would remain fixed...it would appear to US that light is still travelling at 3x10^8 m/s faster than we were. Did that answer your question?

[jinydu]

Here's another way to understand this.

Suppose you're standing on a train, moving with a speed u relative to the ground. You throw a ball with speed v towards the back of the train, in your frame of reference. What is the speed of the ball, as seen by someone standing on the ground?

Newtonian mechanics would say u + v, but in Einstein's theory, the answer is instead:

(u + v)/(1 + (uv)/(c^2))

Notice that if u and v are much less than c, the bottom of the denominator is approximately 1, so Einstein's prediction is almost exactly the same as Newton's, which is what you'd expect, since Newton's theory was accepted for so long.

But if u and v are close to the speed of light, things are very different. Basically, the denominator prevents you from actually reaching c. For instance, if u = v = 0.99c, the value you get is not 1.98c but instead 0.999949c.

[3l3ctr0]

yep thanks

[brasileiro]

It's a nice way to think about it.. but it's also kinda easier to see when you try it. Do it from the bed of a truck. I saw Bill Nye the Science Guy do it one time... it made things clearer... that was when I was like... 8... so you can see why I liked that show... it was very visual.