If we can get particles at CERN to near-light speeds, why can’t we extrapolate that to rockets?

Question

Alternatively, why can’t we put a particle accelerator on the back of a rocket and use that?

Edit: okay thanks guys it was a dumb question I see that now lol

In: 0

Answer 1

Well, we could, I suppose. Need one heck of an enormous and powerful electromagnetic accelerator though, like solar-system size range. Not likely to happen any time soon.

I don’t think you quite understand how small and nearly massless a positron or electron is. They are a fraction of an atom, and atoms have to be accumulated in numbers of 10^23 to even get into a gram range of mass. So, multiply that km-sized accelerator by something like 10 followed by 30 zeroes, to get into the equivalent size, to scale it properly.