From: SFPhysics@aol.com
Date: Thu May 17 2001 - 12:08:52 PDT
From: SFPhysics@aol.com Message-ID: <82.b2f6648.28357bc4@aol.com> Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 15:08:52 EDT Subject: relativity - why speed limit of "c"
> Jhumki Basu said:
>A few student questions that I cannot answer:
>1) If objects cannot travel at the speed of light (time, length problems are
>created), why can light travel at the speed of light?
Greetings Jhumki:
It's about time. Light travels at just under 300,000 Km/s because of time.
You know about time slowing down as you move closer to the speed of light but
did you realize that time completely stops at "c" the speed of light in a
vacuum? To a photon packet whizzing along in a vacuum time has stopped. The
difference between any two points of travel on a line at the speed of "c" is
zero. Why not go faster? It they did go faster time would reverse and go
backward. If that were to happen then the light beam could exist before it
was generated. That would be a contradiction. So, light is limited by time
to the speed of "c".
I hope that answer will help as it is the only way I can think of to express
how quantum electrodynamics limits defines "c" without getting into some
heavy math.
Best wishes to all,
Al Sefl
Still trying to teach San Francisco Unified how to do decimal addition after
them screwing up my pension for six months............... Keep all your pay
stubs kids!
They not only lost 30 million dollars in Prop A upgrade funds they lost my
funds to the Health Service System and the State Teachers Retirement System.
So far it has cost me about $7K. And, don't forget to put your max into a
403b!
"Physics is the study of how God put the universe together, wound it up, and
made it tick." - Albert Sefl
"The most incomprehensible thing in this universe is that it is all
comprehendible" - Albert Einstein
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