In technical terms, special relativity says a “thing” with non-zero rest mass needs infinite energy to accelerate to light speed. TIP: Unless people are talking about relative time, they are almost always referring to the speed of light in a vacuum when they say “faster than light.” Special Relativity and Light Speed As space expands, two galaxies traveling away from each other far enough away from each other will move much faster than the speed of light. The universe is “Expanding faster than the speed of light” and the farther away objects are from each other, the faster they expand away from each other… but expansion isn’t a “thing” itself, and so it’s not information traveling faster than light. The expansion of space also breaks the limit. ![]() If I wave my hand in-front of a very bright light that casts a very large shadow, the shadow can move faster than light… as the shadow is not an actual thing, but rather the absence of a thing (no “thing”). That said, the absence of information can travel faster than light. We can use light to get standard agreed upon units with which to measure time and distance such as “light years.” The Absence of Information Can Travel FTL TIP: Given the fact that the speed of light is a constant speed at which things happen, we can think of it as “the speed of causality” or the speed at which things take place in the universe. See references section below for the explainer website. Toward the end, it really earns it’s salt as an easy to understand the model of light’s behavior. It appears heady at first, but give it time. This video explains the speed of light being constant without math. The only thing light can do on its own is move at light speed in a single direction forever (which is 299,792,458 meters per second or approximately 3.00×108 m/s). The speed of light is the constant and only speed that pure massless energy travels in a vacuum (the max speed of the universe). We already covered this a bit above, but let’s reiterate one more time before moving on. The key to confirming the above is is found in understanding what light is and how light speed relates to it. ![]() So, empty space expanding, the slowing down of light, the speed of non-information, and that which is explained by entanglement and superposition, none of these break the rule! What is the Speed of Light? In this same vein, quantum superposition doesn’t technically break the speed limit either. TIP: Spooky action at a distance is strange, but it isn’t breaking the speed barrier, it is instead explained by quantum entanglement. The universe has limits (just like one uses for calculus and other mathematics), and the laws of physics depend on constants and limits. TIP: This can all be confirmed by understanding the standard model of particle physics, the physical constants (like light speed or the Planck), and relativity. This means a shadow or the expanding universe can travel faster than light, but a photon or a spaceship can’t as far as we know.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |