Scientists break the speed of light

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feo

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It was supposed to be the one speed limit you cannot break.

But scientists claim to have demonstrated there is the possibility of travel faster than the speed of light.

The feat contradicts one of the key tenets of Einstein's special theory of relativity - that nothing, under any circumstances, can move faster than 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light.
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feo said:
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I could be wrong here, but if I remember correctly, Einstein never said that traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible, but accelerating from a speed less than the speed of light to a speed faster than the speed of light is impossible. It all depends on what your starting point is.
 
Bernie said:
I could be wrong here, but if I remember correctly, Einstein never said that traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible, but accelerating from a speed less than the speed of light to a speed faster than the speed of light is impossible. It all depends on what your starting point is.
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Quite correct. According to my understanding the issue comes when you try to accelerate an object through light speed, whether speeding up or slowing down. Tachyons (theoretical) are particles with superluminal velocities. I don't believe one has ever been observed though.
 
Angstrom said:
According to my understanding the issue comes when you try to accelerate an object through light speed, whether speeding up or slowing down.
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Just accelerating an object up to the speed of light would be problematic.
 
Don't tachyons move exactly at the speed of light?

Anyways, the primary problem when it comes to accelerating is the fact that as an object approaches lightspeed its mass increases, meaning that more energy is required to maintain acceleration. Once it reaches the edge of lightspeed its mass becomes infinite ... meaning that an infinite amount of energy is required to accelerate past the boundary (or edge, cusp ... whatever).

Or so I think anyways, my science is a bit rusty ... :p
 
Why/how does light travel so fast? Anyone got the short answer?
 
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