Slashdot Mirror
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."
To get first post? ...probably not :(
Thats impossible nothing can go faster than the speed of light.
Of Course Not! Thats why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.
From TFA: "For us, the speed limit makes strange sense: Go faster than light, and you could return before you've left, become your own grandpa, or other perform other leaps of cosmic logic."
Someone's been watching too much Futurama.
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.
My motorbike travels in Chile.
"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?
moo
1) Under the current physics, light-speed travel is impossible. As you approach the speed of light, the energy required to accelerate you further approaches infinity.
2) As you accelerate to 99.9% the speed of light, time slows down very significantly. Theoretically, at the speed of light, the passage of time stops, but since you cannot accelerate to the speed of light, that's a moot point.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
My buddy had a blazar and that piece of shit would be lucky to do 0 to 60 in 10 minutes.
AH HA get it? chevye blazar kekekekekeke kthxbye
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Not really, see this is exactly what special relativity explained. The speed of light is constant. If you're moving at 50% of the speed of light, and some light wizzes past you, it looks to you as if it were going at 100% of the speed of light (not 50%). And to an outside observer seeing you go past, it also looks like the light is going at 100% of the speed of light (not 150%). What has happened is that because you are going at 50% of the speed of light, time for you has slowed down, so the if the light goes past at what would apparently be 50% of c if time were not slowed, it still looks to you as if it were going at c.
As I recall from a late 1990s lecture by Hawking, some matter can exceed "the speed of light" and in doing so, escape a black hole. At an event horizon exactly, that border at which matter including light either escapes a black hole or not, the position of particles is known with complete precision. As such, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle dictates that the speed of the particles cannot be known as precisely. Photons at the event horizon of a black hole are allowed, by a tiny quantity, some Scotty Factor in their speed because their position is certain. In plain words, these are the mathematics of the matter :) Some leptonic matter, in only such a particular position, can be slightly faster than "the speed of light."
As theorized, Hawking's predictions that black holes might leak have, I understand, been observed as radiation from what are as-yet assumed to be black holes. Anyone knowing more than I do about this particular phenomenon is (un?)certainly welcome to add more. The explanation Hawking made was directed at interested and able nonprofessionals; he put forward some mathematics around but not specifically deriving the surprising conclusions. Made sense to me, anyhow. I believe the matter discussed here, blasers measured at .999999... of light's speed, is the fastest measured "directly." But I do not believe this is the fastest known matter, if you allow that "knowing" the speed of the matter Hawking discussed (observed as radiation) was theoretical and later indirectly measured.
BG
Observing particles moving at 99.9% c is not so amazing as it sounds. First of all we routinely accelerate matter to great speeds for use in particle physics experiments (in places such as CERN, SLAC, FermiLab, Brookhaven, etc.).
As an example, the LEP accelerator at CERN which was used in the period 1989-2000, acceleratod electrons to about 99.9999999977% c.
But even outside the laboratories we have previously observed even larger speeds. The UHECR (ultra high energy cosmic rays) whose origin is still a mystery seems to consist of protons moving at speeds of 1-1^(-22) = 0.9999999999999999999999 c.
Furthermore, it might seem like we need absurd accuracies in our measurements to discern the numbers from each other. But we don't really - the speed of the particle is practically the same when 0.99c and 0.99999c are compared, but things like the momentum of the particle will still differ wildly. For the curious, the formula is: momentum = m*v/sqrt(1-(v/c)^2).
You should also read about the Oh My God particle (it's real and not a joke). This proton particle travels almost as fast as light. After traveling one light year, the particle would be only 0.15 femtoseconds--46 nanometres--behind a photon that left at the same time.
Banu