Blazing Speed: The Fastest Stuff In The Universe

Unfallversicherung writes "'If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second. But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.' Astronomers are now measuring matter that moves at 99.9 percent of light-speed. Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas embedded in streams of material ejected from hyperactive galaxies known as blazars."

Comments

Not so fast

[Hatta]

This stuff is at rest. It's we who are moving at 99.9% the speed of light.

Re:Not so fast

[mindstrm]

That's irrelevant. It's all completely releative. There is no such thing as absolute position or absolute motion.

We could also say that a force slowed it down relative to us by .999c. The end result is the same.

Re:Not so fast

[Scott Ransom]

Sorry, but that is wrong. You are correct in that there is no "absolute position or absolute motion" as you put it, but who or what gets accelerated certainly does make a difference. Acceleration is how the twin paradox, for instance, is resolved (see here: http://www.weburbia.demon.co.uk/physics/twin_gr.ht ml The rest of the relativity FAQ is very good as well).

IAAA.

Re:Not so fast

[cnettel]

Nah, it's not completely relative. Remember the twin paradox, one of the twins is changing his acceleration and by doing so, they are no longer equivalent and it's completely logical that the two twins will age differently.

In this context, it's all changed by the fact if we can watch the "blazar" and its speed, and then watch the exhausts from it.

Gamma is not linear

[durandal61]

Ah, how I love hillbilly journalists. Though the facts of the article itself are not incorrect, the way they are presented reeks of naiveté.

Gamma, the factor that in general relates quantities (time, mass, energy, momentum) in two reference frames in Special Relativity, is non-linear. Being within 0.1% of the speed of light does not place you any 'closer' to breaking it than being within 50% of it.

This is why instead of speaking of the speed of particles and objects travelling close to that of light, we refer to the kinetic energy they have, which gives a much more practical way of understanding these speeds.

Re:Gamma is not linear

[say]

For anybody out there wondering why you can't go faster than the speed of light, this equation is the reason.

An equation cannot be a reason, only an explanation or description. In this case, it is just a description. But since you couldn't go faster than light before Einstein created this equation, the equation can't be the reason for this "rule".

Re:Gamma is not linear

[Jim Starx]

You're right, it is. But violating causality is a very good reason why things can't go faster then light.

Re:Gamma is not linear

[Rares Marian]

Actually it is a good reason. One, you need to reach the speed of light first where you will be dividing by zero. Two, taking the square root of a negative number gives you a result which does not map to the number system you are using to determine energy in the first place. It's like saying your birthday is Feb 31st.

hrrmmm

[odyrithm]

"Nothing we know of zips along more quickly than light. Einstein, nearly 100 years ago, said it's not possible."

Erm did'nt he say nothing(matter) can accelerate to the speed of light?

Stuff can go faster than light

[PsiPsiStar]

Theoretically. It would just go backwards in time. Nothing with mass can travel AT the speed of light.

I ain't a physics geek, but I did learn that much in college.

Uhm..

[nr]

So what would it feel like to get hit by matter traveling at 99.9% of light speed? It would probably slice thru the body like a hot knife thru butter and you would not feel a thing, if it's not too big that is. :)

heavy

[Doc Ruby]

Wouldn't such large, fast masses thereby account for the majority of "stuff" (matter/energy) in the Universe? If they were previously unaccounted, wouldn't that reduce the amount of "dark matter/energy" postulated to be bending the observable universe, by showing another gravity sink instead?

Re:Light Speed Travel

[Alan Partridge]

"approaches infinity"?

What nonsense is this? A value is either finite or it is infinite, NOTHING "approaches" infinity.

In just what reference frame...?

[JonLatane]

If I'm not mistaken, one of the basic principles of Special Relativity is that light travels at the same speed in all reference frames. In other words, if you're driving at 50mph and a beam of light passes you, it passes at the same speed (relative to you) as if you were standing still or traveling at 100mph, or even at 1,000,000mph.

I suppose it must mean these gases travel at (nearly) the speed of light with reference to stationary objects. But of course, light itself still moves as fast compared to this stuff as it does compared to us.

Re:Mindbender question about lightspeed.

[Abcd1234]

The speed of light can be given in terms of other fundamental electromagnetic constants (1/sqrt(permeability of vacuum * permittivity of vacuum)), but I suspect that this doesn't really answer your question.

On the contrary, I think that answers the question perfectly. The speed of light is directly derivable from other fundamental constants which are inherent properties of our Universe.

And, of course, the way to answer the question "Why are those constants inherent properties of our universe?" is to invoke the anthropic principal: these constants are what they are because those are the values necessary to produce us, thus allowing us to ask the question in the first place.

fair enough, but aren't you forgetting one detail?

[conJunk]

As an example, the LEP accelerator at CERN which was used in the period 1989-2000, acceleratod electrons to about 99.9999999977% c.

right, sure, but, an electron is one thing, a ball of gas the size of jupiter is another... on earth we accellerate tiny little masses to high speed... what they're measuring is something more massive than our own planet

Simple

[brsmith4]

There is a lot of talk and a lot of debate going on here with regards to the effects of near-light speed travel. A theory that seems to fit General Relativity and recent expeditions to measure a phenomenon called "Frame Grabbing" should provide some insight:

1- Any object that travels through space-time has an effect on space time. Think, for a second, of space-time as a gas. When you accelerate an object through this gas, much of the surrounding gas is pulled along with the craft due to drag. Any object/material traveling through space-time will pull along with it "Frames" of space-time. This, in theory, is the cause of Time Dilation, as predicted by General Relativity.

2- As you approach c, you are dragging more "Frames" with you. Hence the reason Time Dilation is more evident and further exagerated the closer you get to c.

3- To achieve speeds faster than that of c, the material must be "invisible" to space-time itself. Any drag on space-time, produced by a craft or any sort of matter will render any attempt to break the limit c impossible. Current linear motion produces an almost cavitational effect, where frames are, in essence, skipped while older frames are continually dragged by the mass causing clock skew and a need for even more energy to achieve acceleration. This is not dissimilar to the effect of breaking the sound barrier, only we are describing a completely different medium, space-time, not gas.

4- By skipping over current frames and dragging older ones with you, the time lapse occuring on or within that particular body will appear slower to the observer than said observer's time lapse. It is because of this that it is theoretically impossible to travel backwards in time and only possible to travel forward at different rates.

If anyone has any objections to this, let me know. IANAP (I am not a physicist) so I could be dead wrong. It is just that, this makes the most sense to me and seems to fit the facts best.

Re:Yes but...

[ravenspear]

nobody thought it was physically impossible for any body to move supersonically; not only did no law of physics forbid it, but there were well-known examples of supersonic motion.

That's basically all I'm saying. If we start to see examples of bodies (be that particles or planets) that seem to be traveling faster than c, then we really need to reexamine whether it is a fundamental limitation.

Some recent experiments already might indicate that it isn't.

Thanks for the link. Now what about...

[leonbrooks]

...the idea that if the astronomers had simply got the distance to the host galaxy wrong? Say the gas is moving towards us a little, thus appearing hotter/faster in addition to the putative distance error, and the host galaxy is exhibiting a genuine doppler redshift in reaction to this, thus appearing further away?