What about lightspeed makes it related to time. Why would really dense things distort time?
In: Physics
Because we live in a 4-dimensional universe. There are 3 dimensions in space. These are Up/Down, Forwards/Backwards, Left/Right. We can move through these three dimensions at will.
But there is a 4th dimension we move through as well. This dimension is time, and we only ever move in one direction in time, and that is towards the future.
Together these make up space-time.
Now we need to talk about motion.
Imagine you are standing on a train that is movinf at 10m/s. And you roll a ball forward on that train, and you meassure the ball is rolling with a velocity of 5m/s.
But someone who is standing on the outside of the train, next to the tracks, would meassure the ball rolling with a velocity of 15m/s. This because they would meassure the speed of the train as well. This shows us motion is relative.
So we could assume that is the case with everything, correct? If instead of a ball, i take a flashlight and shine it infront of me on the train, i would meassure the speed of light. And the person on the side of the track would then meassure the speed of light + the speed of the train right?
But they dont. They also meassure the speed of light. The speed of light is constant.
So that means that for both of us to meassure the same velocity, when we are moving at different velocities, we have to experience time differently. Time is relative. The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.
The speed of light is not special because light moves at that speed, it is special because we all move at that speed. If you add up the speed that you are travelling in through both space and time, it will add up to the speed of light, and in order to maintain that balance, the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.
The reason why lightspeed is the maximum velocity, is because if you move at lightspeed through space you will no longer experience time at all. The entire existance of the universe will happen in an instant.
Theoretically, we could move faster than light, but we would need an infinite amount of energy to do so. Anything with a mass would need infinite energy to reach lightspeed, so therefore we cant. Light can because it is mass-less.
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