Why have we ruled out the possibility of finding something faster when we’ve only scratched the surface of space exploration and understanding?
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I’m a layman with zero experience and extremely limited understanding…isn’t quantum computing ‘faster’ than light in that, the computations are faster than the speed of light?
Am I understanding that correctly?
So, it turns out that everything is moving at the same speed all the time. That’s because if you add how fast something is moving in *space* and how fast something is moving in *time*, you get the same result. For everything. For that to work, fast things in space have to move slower in time.
And it turns out, they do.
We don’t notice this in our daily life because, in the grand scheme of things, everything in our lives moves at about the same speed so the time difference doesn’t get noticed. People who work with satellites notice it, though, and they have to correct for it constantly. It’s a big deal at grand scales and unnoticeable at small scales.
But back to light. It turns out the light is going *so fast* in space-speed that the only way for that equation to balance is if the time-speed for light was 0. And we have confirmed experimentally that it is! That means that to go faster than light, one of two things has to happen:
– our equation, which has worked over and over again for everything, must be broken, or
– somehow you can move so slowly in time-speed that you go negative, moving backwards in time
The first one is pretty unlikely because it’s worked so well experimentally for so many different things. The second one… well, there’s no eli5 version, I’m afraid. It’s very complicated and probably not possible at macro scales but it’s an area of ongoing research.
The “Speed of light” is in reality the speed at which information can be transmitted in our universe. This includes everything, also gravity. Light travels at the maximum speed at which information can be transmitted, same as gravity and other things.
That is the reason why nothing can be faster than light, but it also means that light isn’t the only “fastest thing in the universe”.
We only call it the speed of light because historically that was the first thing people researched.
The “Speed of light” is in reality the speed at which information can be transmitted in our universe. This includes everything, also gravity. Light travels at the maximum speed at which information can be transmitted, same as gravity and other things.
That is the reason why nothing can be faster than light, but it also means that light isn’t the only “fastest thing in the universe”.
We only call it the speed of light because historically that was the first thing people researched.
The “Speed of light” is in reality the speed at which information can be transmitted in our universe. This includes everything, also gravity. Light travels at the maximum speed at which information can be transmitted, same as gravity and other things.
That is the reason why nothing can be faster than light, but it also means that light isn’t the only “fastest thing in the universe”.
We only call it the speed of light because historically that was the first thing people researched.
I think you’re getting a lot of answers that focus on the “light is the fastest” part and not on the “scratched the surface of space exploration and understanding” part. They’re basically going into detail on the “relativity” model and what it means for light, speed, etc.
But *why* do we believe “relativity” is accurate?
The reason we believe our current “relativity” model with such certainty is that we’ve tested it *incredibly thoroughly*. We’ve done not only an enormous number of tests – we’ve done them across all kinds of contexts and circumstances; with different kinds of equipment; by different teams; by different *nations*, including nations figuratively or even literally at war with each other.
Further, we’ve tested not just one kind of prediction of the model, but every prediction the model can make; the model of “light speed” is deeply linked with our model for gravity, space, time, etc. And every test that we keep doing on every prediction from all those different parts of the model *keeps confirming* the model.
We have not done much *physical* exploration of space. We don’t have probes – much less people – on a lot of different planets. But we can *see* an enormous amount of space – billions of light-years of it; and we’ve been studying all that data coming in, for a long time. Yes, there are lots of things to discover; but we’ve already seen a huge amount of stuff and we have yet to find anything that has overturned, or even given any evidence against, relativity.
I think you’re getting a lot of answers that focus on the “light is the fastest” part and not on the “scratched the surface of space exploration and understanding” part. They’re basically going into detail on the “relativity” model and what it means for light, speed, etc.
But *why* do we believe “relativity” is accurate?
The reason we believe our current “relativity” model with such certainty is that we’ve tested it *incredibly thoroughly*. We’ve done not only an enormous number of tests – we’ve done them across all kinds of contexts and circumstances; with different kinds of equipment; by different teams; by different *nations*, including nations figuratively or even literally at war with each other.
Further, we’ve tested not just one kind of prediction of the model, but every prediction the model can make; the model of “light speed” is deeply linked with our model for gravity, space, time, etc. And every test that we keep doing on every prediction from all those different parts of the model *keeps confirming* the model.
We have not done much *physical* exploration of space. We don’t have probes – much less people – on a lot of different planets. But we can *see* an enormous amount of space – billions of light-years of it; and we’ve been studying all that data coming in, for a long time. Yes, there are lots of things to discover; but we’ve already seen a huge amount of stuff and we have yet to find anything that has overturned, or even given any evidence against, relativity.
I think you’re getting a lot of answers that focus on the “light is the fastest” part and not on the “scratched the surface of space exploration and understanding” part. They’re basically going into detail on the “relativity” model and what it means for light, speed, etc.
But *why* do we believe “relativity” is accurate?
The reason we believe our current “relativity” model with such certainty is that we’ve tested it *incredibly thoroughly*. We’ve done not only an enormous number of tests – we’ve done them across all kinds of contexts and circumstances; with different kinds of equipment; by different teams; by different *nations*, including nations figuratively or even literally at war with each other.
Further, we’ve tested not just one kind of prediction of the model, but every prediction the model can make; the model of “light speed” is deeply linked with our model for gravity, space, time, etc. And every test that we keep doing on every prediction from all those different parts of the model *keeps confirming* the model.
We have not done much *physical* exploration of space. We don’t have probes – much less people – on a lot of different planets. But we can *see* an enormous amount of space – billions of light-years of it; and we’ve been studying all that data coming in, for a long time. Yes, there are lots of things to discover; but we’ve already seen a huge amount of stuff and we have yet to find anything that has overturned, or even given any evidence against, relativity.
Anything with mass requires energy to accelerate. The faster you go, the more you actually get a diminishing return on the energy you put in. This effect is tiny at first, but as you approach the speed of light, it gets so big that, for example, a particle accelerator has to put in gobs of energy just to get an elementary particle to go from 99.98% the speed of light to 99.99% the speed of light. And the energy required to get to 100% would be infinitely large, and thus impossible.
Anything with mass requires energy to accelerate. The faster you go, the more you actually get a diminishing return on the energy you put in. This effect is tiny at first, but as you approach the speed of light, it gets so big that, for example, a particle accelerator has to put in gobs of energy just to get an elementary particle to go from 99.98% the speed of light to 99.99% the speed of light. And the energy required to get to 100% would be infinitely large, and thus impossible.
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