Question about the speed of light

Hmm i was thinking of this the other day... Einstein once said that matter can never travel the speed or faster than the spead of light...Does this meen it is possible to Infinitely Travel closer to the speed of light? Light travels 186,282.397 miles per second...What i meen by this is if Man Kind can ever harness an energy source to ever get that far in technology you could travel 186,282.39699999 repeating forever and ever or would it eventually just round itself up?

I personally believe that when one reaches the speed of light, only an energy source that has no mass can attain it, since at such a velocity, the resistance of the solid phase is exponentially increased to infinate proportions. At the speed of light, the thoery goes that mass goes to infinity, therefore making it a proverbial 'cap' to speed. I'd expect that there is a gradient rising to such a velocity regarding mass/matter/energy, so getting close to the speed of light would still render an ungodly amount of mass resistance. That resistance I think would negligate any possibility of rounding up over a threshold.

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I personally believe that when one reaches the speed of light, only an energy source that has no mass can attain it, since at such a velocity, the resistance of the solid phase is exponentially increased to infinate proportions.

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I tend to agree with the first part of your statement but I am little confused by the rest. Old school thought used a train & sound waves in respect as an analogy. The trains velocity relative to an indepent observer creates a doppler shift => change in frequency. the observer living close to the tracks hears the sound of the wistle (considered a mono tone or frequency) is higher as the train approaches because the velocity of sound waves in the atmospere is constant so the additive effect of the forward velocity => distance of the sound wave is compressed, producing a higher frequency sound & the opposite happens as the source of the sound passes the observer.therefore the analogy being that as light also has a doppler efect therefore the velocity of light (in a vacuum) is constant. As (light) photons have no inertial mass and a constant velocity then the speed of light represents the limit of velocity.

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note: do photon emission have an acceleration factor?

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One may tend to think 'No, the emitted photon has an instatneous velocity & does not accelerate as does an inertial mass. On the other hand one could think that energy is released as a photo because it has accelerated to its escape velocity => emission of a photon from its molecular boundary.

As for the original question; one may find it easier if you consider it from the point of view of what would happen if man could travel at on near the velocity of light?
So like Einstein's preception by extending it to a know concept.
Super sonic flight produces a sonic boom then there should be a em boom => sonic boom when one reaches the speed of light? Just as a mass moving through the atmosphere produces a shock (pressure) wave then would a ship then produce an electro-magnetic shock wave?
Therefore during an explosion of an nuclear bomb may accelerate particles of mass at or near the speed of light producing an (em boom) E-M pulse that extends outward from its center?
Then a ship would produce such a cone of force just as a supersonic aircraft but would it {the force} effect the ship itself?

Here's on for y'all. What about in a black hole? If the escape velocity of a black hole is greater than the speed of light, what happens to objects that have mass which are trapped in the pull? If you are in a vaccuum and you are pulled by a force that even light cannot escape, couldn't you, in theory, be pulled faster than the speed of light? Of course then, you would have an object that would essentially occupy zero space and zero time with an infinite mass. Since Mass and energy are the same (and this object would surely be ripped to its most fundamental particles) you would suddenly have an infinite energy that occupys zero space and zero time. If this is correct, wouldn't this energy slip through our spacetime? can you say big bang?? Black hole crushes down to singularity with a gravity >= speed of light. Objects with just a tiiiiny tiny bit of mass (smaller than say gluons) that have been ripped apart to the most fundamental particles (perhaps wave form energy?) from the event horizon are accelated to the speed of light and slip through spacetime the instant this happens while also obtaining infinite energy..Now this energy no longer is being crushed and is free to expand. This expansion creates space and a new spacetime universe is created. Are we living in a multiverse? I think so...Just a thought.

could there be a speed faster than the speed of light, for example the speed of thought! Isn't that pretty instantaneous?

just another thought on this, I have noticed that often in dreams, time seems to have its own freaky way of tricking us, so if we imagine a speed faster than the speed of light in a dream, isn't it at some level going to be a real possibility? As you can tell I am not a scientist but haven't many scientific things been inspired by dreams?

Thought is not instantaneous, Each neuron can fire about 100 times a second, though this is fast its not instant and it is limited. The speed of light is really just a term for the maximum speed of change, being that light is the fastest thing known in the universe.

About the dream thing, I really don't see a human mind fully conceiving of the speed of light and then dreaming of something faster. Sure you can dream up a false fact that something is faster, but for what you said to make sense it is about like you improving on all of Earth's major technologies in your sleep then waking up and actualizing those dreams.

The Speed of Sound is constant in air (our atmosphere) yet sound travels at different speeds in various other forms of matter. So is the speed of light in a vacumn is constant so is its velocity vary according to the medium (form of matter through which it moves?

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'Hmm i was thinking of this the other day... Einstein once said that matter can never travel the speed or faster than the speed of light...Does this mean it is possible to Infinitely Travel closer to the speed of light? Light travels 186,282.397 miles per second...What i mean by this is if Man Kind can ever harness an energy source to ever get that far in technology you could travel 186,282.39699999 repeating forever and ever or would it eventually just round itself up?'

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Hmm . . . Isn't Science Fiction great! Isn't it wonderful how Perceptions of Space the Final Frontier!
Ya, I know I thought the starship entering warp ...stretching the ship into a ray as it snaps forth with a sudden acceleration, disappearing in a cascade of light.
How wonderfully does perception3 extend this very thing, the speed of light?
So there they are standing upon the bridge then the Captain gives the order 'Engage' [warp engines], pan to the exterior view against space. Good thing they have force fields to hold the ship together & protect the crew. Wonder, what they did before they developed such shielding? Think about it, could human beings survive?

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As for the original question; one may find it easier if you consider it from the point of view of what would happen if man could travel at on near the velocity of light?

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How many G's are required to accelerate to the speed of light? A few [2 or 3] g's & pilots can pass out, how many g's can the human body withstand? What would extended periods of time of sustained G factor have upon the body? Would they need a special suite (decompression chamber)?

The g's experienced anyway near the speed of light (no idea what but at a guess any more than 5% speed of light) would be so great as to affect the decompression chamber. To give an example the fastest rocket in space goes at about 7000 m/s (though with little resistance). 5% speed of light is 15000000 m/s. That's more than 2000 times greater!

Remember the speed of light is just a constant used in physics. It actually refers to all electromagnetic radiation - x-rays, UV light, infra-red. It should be called the speed of electro-magnetci radiation. And all these are composed of photons. The speed in vaccum i.e. no resistance is a constant speed assumed to be in-exceedable - c. In air and water and other media, c is slower e.g. in water photons travel at 3/4 speed of c.

My question is, photons have a zero rest mass. But we know they have mass when moving because they are slowed in denser media, which means they must offer mass resistance. Therefore, at the speed of light photons must have mass?

Watch out now, because that is a set of loaded dice!
1) an extension of my previous statements difines photon emission differently . . .
2) an extension of inerlial & charged (field) particle w/o mass
Afterall, one of the concepts of chemistry is resonant frequencies as well as hybrid orbitals. Afterall, the wide spread emisson of say a 6400 flash is distinctive from the led flashlite on my key chain or the resonant effect is related to wave length.

Yes, I appreciate this. But it doesn't explain, if there really is no mass, why light would slow down in denser material. If there is no mass, there is no friction, and the speed of light should be constant throughout.

Thinking about geeky brain Hawking and his black hole stuff, he says the effect of gravity is so strong not even light can escape its gravitaional field. If that's true, then it is affected by force, and as far as I can tell, its only mass that is affected by force - that's why you don't get reactive forces in space. If this is true, then maybe the speed of something is limited by its mass - including light. I don't know...but I want to.

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Yes, I appreciate this. But it doesn't explain, if there really is no mass, why light would slow down in denser material. If there is no mass, there is no friction, and the speed of light should be constant throughout.

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Fair question, but the problem being to answer may not be so concise & easy (strait to the point).
Past decisions about the nature of the development of Physics, tend to obscure rather than give definitions (concepts). Look at the perception of Absolute Zero (degree Kelvin) the atomic aspect was built upon a system of concepts that related the changes in potential energy & related it to the flow of energy of a molecular existence ( existence at the atomic level), along comes the Ultimate Particle Search.

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The driving force may lie in the particle vs. wave(energy) debate, but the inertial particles vs non-inertial particles may have unforeseen results which give little or no system or structure. If anything what little nuclear structure & theory has been abandoned without a replacement that resolves any issues, ie produces viable system of understanding.

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As a photographer, I deal with light & lens through which (light) images are focused (formed) & recorded. One could say that the emission of (light) is related to electromagnetic fields, & not so directly related to the inertial field? That the form (elements) give rise to resonant harmonics (cavities) so you could relate to them as the bones, the inertial structure that energy (non-inertial) flows.

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As to what effect does gravity have on light? I don't know that any augment has in effect separated inertial aspect from possible electromagnetic (either electric or magnetic or electromagnetic) fields?

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To an extent you could relate it to cooking a turkey in a microwave oven, the microwave energy tends to follow the bones. Therefore the bone matter acts as a conduit for the flow of [range of frequencies] energy.

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To an extent, the characteristic of atomic (molecular) existence may at that level represent a machine (gyroscope), the inertial mass of matter & energy but that the components are charged, thus form a motor (or generator) which derives our existence. http://www.captaincynic.com/thread/77026/ultimate-particle.htm#77027

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I think Einstein was wrong, because i think that space-time itself is like matter with density. lit me give a good piece of evidence for my claim, dark matter and energy. dark matter is truly space-time in a denser form, i say this because dark matter only occurs in galaxies and super clusters where normal matter causes gravity which compresses space-time which in it self causes gravity because it consists of energy. and dark energy is just the opposite because it occurs where there is little or no gravity. so i say one can increase the speed of light by by decompressing space-time where light then has to travel faster to reach the new speed of light of that piece of space-time. i say this because light has to go so fast that space-time is compressed so much that time doesn't exist. so if you can make two massive points of gravity you can let a ship pass trough at say 2 times the speed of light because the speed of light in the middle is much higher then the rest of the space-time. that might sound complex but indeed it is because of the simplicity that i think it can work.