Can someone explain how it is possible that the speed of light is constantly 670 million mph irrelevent of relative speed? how is it that you can be going 669 million mph yet light still accelerates toward you at the same rate??

because that is the way it is. (note it does not accelerate at the same rate, it does not accelerate at all, but it's velocity is still 3x10^8m/s)

do they teach mph in american universities??

I think it has something to do with light not having mass, therefore it is not affected by mediums.

 

Its still fishy to me even after taking QM,Rel, Astrophys

I think it has something to do with light not having mass, therefore it is not affected by mediums.

 

 

Light is affected by mediums. For instance, light travels through glass slower than it does through a vacum

Neurocomp2003 said in post # :

I think it has something to do with light not having mass, therefore it is not affected by mediums.

 

No. Light is affected by the medium it travels though, as well as gravity.

 

The speed of light isn't affected by the speed of the observer.

oh my badd...see i'm good with all the math stuff when its time to interpret the stuff...i'm like gah!

 

thats why i like my astrophysics text, carroll and ostlie it makes things alot easier to understand.

Thanks for clarifying my mistake.

Humble man.

I don't get how light speed can be the highest speed, though.

well no one has really explained why yet, just restated the fact. what is it about light waves that are different?

SockCymbal said in post # :

well no one has really explained why yet, just restated the fact. what is it about light waves that are different?

 

They're not different at all. All the exchange particles travel at c, and have similar relitavistic effects.

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

Humble man.

I don't get how light speed can be the highest speed, though.

 

Because of Special Relativity, which is the metaphysical explanation for several phenomena, most noteably Michaelson-Morely.

 

There's a sticky about it (I think) in the relativity forum.

this is kinda off topic but does electricity go the speed of light? What else goes that speed? if anything.

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

this is kinda off topic but does electricity go the speed of light? What else goes that speed? if anything.

 

Electricity doesn't. That's an electron flow, and electrons aren't an exchange particle. Plus, they have mass. Only massless particles can travel at c.

 

The ones that can are types of particle called Bosons.

 

The most common ones in every day life would be the photon (light, which is the exchange for the electromagnetic force) and the graviton (only the subject of conjecture at the moment).

Electrons can go close, but not entirely, the speed of light.

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

Electrons can go close, but not entirely, the speed of light.

 

So can ANYTHING that isn't going at the speed of light though (excluding tachyons of course, but that's approaching the problem from the other direction)

What about tachyons? I don't know about them.

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

What about tachyons? I don't know about them.

 

They're things that are going faster than the speed of light (conjecturally).

 

They're the same as 'non'lightspeed particles in the sense that they can never reach the speed of light (although for them it would mean slowing down), and cannot go sublight speeds, just as we can't go superlight speeds.

some of the stuff is from mathematical observations not actual observers but i believe electrons can travel only 1/10 c. And through the mathematics we assume that mass cannot go at c but i don't think we've ever experimentally shown it.

 

 

And tachyons are actuallly a real physics term??

about the speed of light:

 

we can explain how it works, but we can't explain why.

 

for how it works, look at relativity, and find other posts/threads about it.

 

for how we know... well, that's just what we observed.

 

why?... that can be explained through circular reasoning using relativity. (keyword: "circular reasoining")

The reason IS that c is constant relative to every observer.

Neurocomp2003 said in post # :

some of the stuff is from mathematical observations not actual observers but i believe electrons can travel only 1/10 c. And through the mathematics we assume that mass cannot go at c but i don't think we've ever experimentally shown it.

 

 

And tachyons are actuallly a real physics term??

 

 

Certain accelerators have brought electrons up to .999999...% the speed of light. It takes a rather large amount of energy to accelerate them to there and to bend them where they need to go, hence the use of powerful magnets used by accelerators.

Can anything else go that fast?

Not that I know of.

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

Can anything else go that fast?

 

Anything.

 

It just takes an enormous amount of energy.

Yes, and to go light speed requires infinite energy, according to scientists.

Actually i came to a conclusion, that we are traveling at the speed of light but we'll never see it.