Mistrealm

Science

Light Speed Barrier

And then there is this "Nothing may travel faster than the speed of light" nonsense.

The theory of relativity is basically good science, it applies the concept of light as a medium to measure the world by.

When you work the math for an object traveling faster than the speed of light, you end up with a square root of a negative number as part of the solution. This only tells me that you cannot see an object that is coming at you faster than the speed of light.

Seems pretty logical.

So, on to the example.

You are on a meteorite that is traveling relative to a point in space at .75C (a plausible rate of travel, per Einstein). There is another meteorite heading straight at that same point in space with the same.75C. Now, you, standing on the first meteor, look up towards the meteor. Relative to your position, how fast is the other meteorite?

Reality: .75 + .75 is 1.50, in other words, half again faster than the speed of light. Work the Einsteinian math, and you end up with a square root of a negative number.

Curiously, electrical engineers use these "impossible" numbers daily.

This is a quote from a lecture, swiped from some university:
   "There's the problem that an object going faster than light would have a length that is an imaginary number - the square root of a negative number - and this doesn't seem to make any sense"

As often quoted, common sense isn't.

Check out Use of imaginary numbers for the short answer, or for more in depth, check the wiki Complex_number entry.

Seems like a lot of practical math and science for something derided as imaginary.


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