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Mar 6 2013 05:06pm
Beauty!
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Apr 18 2013 08:54pm
love me some science
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Apr 19 2013 09:10am
can someone explain me why speed of light is the maximum speed??

maximum speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s but why is 299 792 500 m / s not possible?
I just don't get it.
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Apr 19 2013 10:01am
Quote (YaC @ Apr 19 2013 08:10am)
can someone explain me why speed of light is the maximum speed??

maximum speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s  but why is 299 792 500 m / s not possible?
I just don't get it.

Increasing the velocity of a particle, increases its momentum, which increases its energy. According to special relativity, when you increase the energy of a particle, you also increases its mass. This new mass makes it more and more difficult to accelerate the particle to an higher velocity (it requires more and more energy to increase the velocity). If you work out the details you will find it will take an infinite amount of energy to exceed the speed of light.

This post was edited by Azrad on Apr 19 2013 10:03am
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Apr 19 2013 12:02pm
Quote (YaC @ Apr 19 2013 11:10am)
can someone explain me why speed of light is the maximum speed??

maximum speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s  but why is 299 792 500 m / s not possible?
I just don't get it.

Also as an extra bit of trivia, 299,792,458 m/s is the defined speed of light in a vacuum. We redefined the length of the meter to be the distance that light travels in 1/299792458 of a second.
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Apr 22 2013 04:49am
Quote (Azrad @ Apr 19 2013 04:01pm)
Increasing the velocity of a particle, increases its momentum, which increases its energy. According to special relativity, when you increase the energy of a particle, you also increases its mass. This new mass makes it more and more difficult to accelerate the particle to an higher velocity (it requires more and more energy to increase the velocity). If you work out the details you will find it will take an infinite amount of energy to exceed the speed of light.


im not really sure, but I think blackholes have enough energy to make it even impossible for light to escape from them.
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Apr 23 2013 05:10am
Quote (YaC @ 22 Apr 2013 11:49)
im not really sure, but I think blackholes have enough energy to make it even impossible for light to escape from them.


The definition of a Black hole originates from the idea that nothing can escape from its gravitational pull (No light can escape => You can not see it => Black).
Light (or rather photons) is to be affected by gravity - photons have no mass and thus aren't particles, but they do have a momentum - which also implies that an extremely massive body could have a gravity field large enough to not even allow light to escape from it. Ie: Black hole.
Theories claim that energy CAN escape from a Black hole, through Hawking radiation, but this isn't proven. That's a quantum physics thing btw, so it doesn't really contradict the statement that "not even light can escape it", even though it makes the Black hole something "not quite black".

Whether it is possible or not to accelerate a particle to the speed of light isn't exactly related to the light-can-not-escape-from-a-black-hole, since light isn't a particle and since light (obviously) travels at the speed of light(!).

Also, as Azrad said, a particle travelling at the speed of light would equal infinite energy, which isn't possible due to the fact that the Universe only contains a fixed amount of energy. Energy can not be created, as the first law of thermodynamics so kindly states. :)
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Apr 23 2013 07:50am
Just beautiful... :thumbsup:
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May 4 2013 03:40pm
Wow!
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