Matter Discovered Traveling at Near Light Speed

mcgrew writes to mention New Scientist is reporting that scientists have clocked matter traveling at 99.999% the speed of light. "The fastest flows of matter in the universe shoot out of dying stars at more than 99.999% the speed of light, new observations reveal. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it collapses to form a black hole or a neutron star. In the process, some of the matter from the star also explodes outward at blistering speeds, producing an intense burst of gamma rays and other radiation."

Comments

99.999%

[Trigun]

Slackers.

Re:99.999%

[hkgroove]

Well, report back to us when your contrails are plaid.

Re:99.999%

[the dark hero]

That's Ludicrous!

Re:99.999%

[snowgirl]

I had a friend playing Silent Hunter, it was a German one, and when he put the boat into full speed ahead, they were saying "Wahnsinnige fortfahr aus!" I really had to listen to it a few times just to be sure. Then I confidently told him that one of the possible translations of that was "ludicrous speed".

He also got a kick out of "periscope" being literally "see-pipe" in German.

99.999% Of the speed of light

[Timesprout]

will be snails pace when we get warp technology.

Re:What's the speed of force?

[The_REAL_DZA]

The only way you'd get a superluminal effect is if you had a perfectly rigid pole (and, seeing as how this is Slashdot, I'm going to discount that possibility.)

Re:What's the speed of force?

[totallygeek]

Hey guys, let's say you have a 500 foot pole out in space, far away from anything (no friction, nothing). you are on one end of the pole, and i on the other. Then i push the pole towards you. When does the other end of the pole move towards you, after MY END MOVES? is it instantaneous? or does it take .000000005 seconds of whatever. Like the atoms of the pole push each other on and on and so forth till it gets to the end. if it does take time, is it faster than light, or slower? what if the pole was 300,000,000 meters long? does it take about 1 second for u to notice the other end moves?

Do not try to push the pole. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no pole. Then you'll see, it is not the pole that is pushed, it is only yourself.

Re:Kudos to the editor

[It doesn't come easy]

Actually, the speed was calculated to be 99.9997% but there was a rounding problem when the report was generated via their new-fangled AI system and the system kept crashing from the unexpected logical impossibility...

Red-shift?

[bugnuts]

"But officer, the light looked green!"

Re:Red-shift?

[PhxBlue]

"But officer, the light looked green!"

I tried that and got a citation for speeding instead. Do you have any idea what the fine is for going 201,184,560 mph in a 35-mph zone?

Re:Blistering speeds?

[forrestt]

It's the speed at which an object in a vacuum must travel to spontaneously get blisters to appear on its surface. What did you think it meant?

Re:What's the speed of force?

[veganboyjosh]

I think he's just yankin' your chain.

Re:What's the speed of force?

[whimmel]

Woah! I can see why this hasn't been modded up yet. Too much emotion in your impression. Whoa.

Re:Blistering speeds?

[FrameRotBlues]

You mean between ridiculous speed and ludicrous speed, right? Wasn't that the order on Spaceballs? Light Speed, Ridiculous Speed, Ludicrous Speed?

Re:Blistering speeds?

[drkich]

Please, for the sake of Scientific completeness, do not forget PLAID!