Slashdot Mirror
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."
>> is it instantaneous
No. Imagine a train at rest. The engineer decided to back up. Boom boom boom go all the cars in sequence as the slack between them is eliminated by the cars compressing together. Finally, the caboose moves. Same deal with matter, but on a much smaller and faster scale, involving molecules and atoms.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Not really. Take a brick of Jell-O. Push one end. You'll move it, but it will distort in shape, compress, wobble, send waves, etc.
The only difference between Jell-O and every other solid substance is that your eyes and brain just aren't precise enough to see at a small scale that they are all behaving the same way, just to different degrees.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.