Test Question: What is faster than the speed of light, anything?

I suppose we are referring to different things, as science clearly places a limit on the impulses (electrical signals) that form our thoughts. If you are aware of something I am missing, I would very much like to know it.

 

Really, I'm at a loss here. Think about a banana in your hand. OK, can you do that? Is there a physical banana in your brain? No? Does that mean you can't think about one? Is your thought a real thought?

Now think about that banana orbiting Jupiter. Can you do that? Is there an actual banana orbiting Jupiter? No? Does that mean you can't think about it? Is your thought a real thought?

This means the banana you are thinking of moved from your hand to Jupiter instantly. Did anything physical move? No? Does that mean you were thinking fake thoughts? Does it mean you required half an hour before you were able to think about the orbiting banana (if Jupiter is now half a light-hour away)?

OK, then what DID move instantly from your hand to Jupiter?

 

Okay....I get it now.


Thing is, the time it takes for my brain to see the Banana, understand what it is, and decide it is in orbit around Jupiter has no actual bearing on light speed or distance.

What you are noting is a measure of imagination and thought....both of which are limited by the speed of neural synapses and have nothing to do with distance in this situation.

In other words....I can imagine warp drive...even watch it on TV. But that does not mean I am traveling at warp.


the physical act of momentum must be considered here...as must distance traveled and mass.

 

I guess I'm getting through. I am indeed talking about imagination and thought. I can think about walking on the moon, and half a second later think about orbiting Procyon. The objects of my thoughts are not constrained by any speed limits.

So I can think about point A and then about point B. What I can NOT do is transfer any information between points A and B faster than light.

So the initial question is, is anything faster than the speed of light? And the answer is, yes, many things are BUT information is not one of them.

Consider a highway filled with speeding cars. Now picture a bottleneck, so cars come to a stop. Viewed from above, what you will see is the "end of the line" propagating back from the bottleneck. The end of the line can (in principle) propagate faster than light! Note that what is propagating at that speed is not anything material, it is only a locus -- a changing location. So the question is, is a locus a "thing"?

 

You are correct in the context of your point...but not correct in physical reality.

Though it is true we can imagine things beyond light speeds...they do not actually move in that way.

I concede to your point, yet I do not see it as a valid answer to the OP.

 

Yes, but they're not traveling. The fabric of space itself is expanding.

 

That will eventually happen. If we survive as a species long enough, we'll reach a point that the only thing we'll be able to see is the remnants of the Milky Way-Andromeda merged galaxy. Everything else will be so far away and receding so quickly that it's light will stop reaching us. It will only be if we manage to maintain the knowledge we currently have that we'll have any way of knowing there are other galaxies and there was a big bang. If science has to start all over again at that time, we will appear to be the lone galaxy in a vast, empty universe.

 

Groan.

I'll make one more try and then I'll give up. Current theory says that no material object can travel through space faster than light. The OP asks if any "thing" can travel faster than light. If by "thing" we are referring to physical objects and ONLY to physical objects, then no, nothing can. But how about "things" that are not physical objects? You know, like thoughts? Or imagine taking two long straight sticks. Angle them so that the as you move them, the exact point where they overlap moves. Can that POINT OF OVERLAP move faster than light? Yes, absolutely it can. Is the point of overlap a "thing"? Well, it's not a physical object yet it really exists. And it's very useful - it's the point where scissors actually cut, for example.

 

Understood...you are correct.

 

100 billion years from now seems to be the estimate.

 

Well, yes, assuming the currently observed rate of the universe's expansion is in fact real, assuming our measurements of it are reasonably accurate, assuming this is a constant, etc. I think I read that the Europeans are preparing a satellite to be orbited in maybe 2020 that is intended to pin these assumptions down much closer than they are now.

 

That's what I mean.. It needs to be a thing to travel through space. Changing thoughts or focus is just electrical signals in your brain doing different things.

How could you have measured how fast your focus change "traveled" anyway?

 

Here is a short video on breaking the speed of light.
[video=youtube;lR4tJr7sMPM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR4tJr7sMPM[/video]

 

But not THING things, I take it?

In my example, we can estimate distances between stars quite accurately. But consider my example of the scissors. As you squeeze the handles, the point where the blade meet and do the cutting moves outward toward the ends of the blades. Is that cutting point a "thing"? We can see it, use it, describe it, measure its speed with great precision. Now imagine that the blades are miles long. As you squeeze the handles, as the cutting point moves away from you it does so at an accelerating pace. That's just the geometry of scissors. AND that point can exceed the speed of light. AND no question the cutting point is traveling. So is that point a "thing"?

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But not THING things, I take it?

In my example, we can estimate distances between stars quite accurately. But consider my example of the scissors. As you squeeze the handles, the point where the blade meet and do the cutting moves outward toward the ends of the blades. Is that cutting point a "thing"? We can see it, use it, describe it, measure its speed with great precision. Now imagine that the blades are miles long. As you squeeze the handles, as the cutting point moves away from you it does so at an accelerating pace. That's just the geometry of scissors. AND that point can exceed the speed of light. AND no question the cutting point is traveling. So is that point a "thing"?

 

If our distant descendants are going to be around to see it (or, I guess NOT see it), we're gonna have to figure out how to get off this rock. It's only going to be a viable host for life for about 4 billion more years.

 

I know what's faster than a speeding bullet. How many points do I get for that on the test?

 

Theoretically, the speed of light is contrained by vacuum energy. If space-time can be warped, the speed could be altered.

Light travels more slowly through a glass of water than through air. This is why the light bends (refraction).

 

"You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?…It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs."

That is an 18 parsec course ffs...

 

The ultimate speed in the 4th spatial dimension is c squared, or 6 light-years a second. This explains the irrational and impossible "spooky science" of entanglement. It is not two particles in a Corsican Brothers arrangement; it is one particle going back and forth at that speed, entering and exiting our 3D world.

 

The propagation through a medium is slower but the photons still move at the exact same speed.

 

These theories are made up by sick people who actually like to get depressed. The motto of the Quantum Quacks is, "If it's weird, it's wise."

 

I didn't get it at first, because I don't believe that time is a dimension. It has no extension, it is here and gone. No past or future actually exists. As in much of the Authoritarian Irrationalism of postmodern science, it is an error inherited from theology. To be consistent, a god cannot know the future any more than he can create a square circle.

 

Kind of off-topic, but for anyone interested in an explanation of the confusing use of the term "parsec" in that quote (since it is a unit of distance, not time):

http://scifi.about.com/od/starwarsg...-Say-He-Made-The-Kessel-Run-In-12-Parsecs.htm

Of course, the real reason is just that Lucas made a mistake, though #3 has become the canon explanation.

However, if you want to get even more Star Wars and physics geeky, you can read why it doesn't really matter and was impossible anyway:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/02/kessel-run-12-parsecs/

(yes, I'm a huge Star Wars geek)

 

Because it is made out of 4th Dimensional light, which can reach the speed of 6 light-years a second.

 

I hereby declare this method be called "exhaustion trolling". It's not typical trolling, per se, but seemingly by repeating the same incoherent nonsense as often as possible in as many threads as possible, one can achieve a similar effect.