Life is full of mysteries that leave us wondering and scratching our heads. Lice can also do this. But if you have a question about life, or even about lice, this is your chance to ask it. Just shoot me an email, at TippyGnu [at] gmx.com. Or, if you don’t feel like shooting me, you can ask the question in a comment.
Colin Chappell, famed author of the book about his dog, Who Said I Was Up For Adoption? and celebrated co-author of the novel The Odessa Chronicles, and beloved owner of the semi-dormant blog A Dog’s Life . . . and mine . . . and yours! has an important question to get the gears in our heads grinding.
Just remember, there are no stupid questions. So here’s Colin’s:
Based on the speed of light, and acknowledging the huge distance that some stars are from us, we know that some stars we see no longer exist. i.e. the light has only just reached us, but the star disintegrated years ago…….. so ……….
Given that what we see is governed by the speed of light, then if we travel to the moon and back at twice the speed of light, then a quick trip to a telescope upon our return should show our landing on the moon. Taking that one-step further, if we go to the moon and back at four times the speed of light, then (upon our return) we should see ourselves taking off from earth. What is wrong with this picture?
Categories: question
Chasing Unicorns 
What is wrong with the picture is that you can’t exceed the speed of light. This is because the object traveling the speed of light is traveling at infinite speed in its own reference frame. As you approach the speed of light, time slows to a near stop and you instantly travel from your starting point to your destination from your perspective. But from the perspective of the stationary observer, you were traveling the speed of light (300Mm/s). You can blame Einstein for all of this.
So, if you took off at the speed of light and traveled to a place 4 light years away, you would be there in an instant from your perspective, but it would have taken you 4 years from someone else’s perspective.
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But even though it takes an instant from your perspective, wouldn’t you have 4 years of beard growth? And wouldn’t you be 4 years behind in your credit card payments?
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My theory is that your beard would grow at the speed of light and destroy the earth.
The credit card debt would grow so large, that it would become the bank’s greatest asset. And as the bank’s greatest asset, I would command a board seat. And once on the board, I would work to convince or coerce the other board members to forgive my debt. I would then retire with a fat bonus for some reason.
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It might come close to destroying the Earth, but I doubt it would. But I’m willing to agree it would be a close shave.
This sounds like an effective way to get rich, though I suspect I would soon get board.
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There have been dumber get-rich-quick schemes I think.
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And I’ve probably tried them all.
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I have tried to focus on get-rich-slowly schemes. I hope I live long enough for one to work.
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Well, keep plugging away. I tried get-rich-quick schemes for many, many years, until one day I tried one that worked.
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What about if we travelled at the speed of something other than light … something currently unknown but faster. Perhaps we could reach a speed where we leave light behind us. Perhaps we could use dark matter fuel? Perhaps we could use a black hole to catapult us beyond the speed of light?
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I don’t know. Sounds like sci-fi. If you could travel faster than light, you’d travel backwards in time.
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I think the trick to all this is to forget about light. Instead, you have to figure out how to travel faster than time. Now, time travels at the speed of 60 minutes per hour. So if you can figure out how to travel faster than that, you’ve got it made.
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that’s easy. Astronauts on the International Space Station are doing that right now.
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Are there really astronauts in an International Space Station, or is it all a simulation?
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And is it really International? Some very important questions here (and there)?
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Who knows, perhaps it’s Intergalactic.
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Yes …….. that as well.
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Both answers are correct
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Then I guess I know two much.
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Sounds reasonable to me. 🙂
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But…! No, I think I may actually understand you.
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That sounds like a problem.
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Yes, its a little scary.
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E=MC^2 Einstein proved that once you exceed the speed of light squared, you don’t matter anymore.
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That’s a real letdown. I thought the result would be that your relatives wouldn’t matter anymore.
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It depends on one’s frame-of-reference. From your relative’s perspective, you may not matter. But from your perspective, they’ve simply increased in mass enough to block the light.
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In other words, business as usual.
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I heard matter mentioned once in a science class, but I guess that doesn’t matter either.
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Buddy Holly made some money from something not mattering anymore didn’t he?
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I suppose. I know that after his plane crashed, nothing mattered to him anymore.
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Perhaps if they had been flying at twice the speed of light, they would have been able to see what was coming and made alternative plans … Oh Boy! That’ll be the Day!
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He apparently had strong enough glasses to see just about anything.
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Including Peggy Sue no doubt.
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Yeah, he looked too long, and so she sued him.
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I think Metallica also made a few bucks singing about nothing else having matter.
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Enter Sandman ………… or The Hero of the Day. 🙂
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As long as we’re on physics and all, according to the Catholic Church, gravity only works 1 day per week, hence you only have to go to mass on Sundays.
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Is this why they also claim that we’re all descendants of Atom?
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😶🤚!
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Their history brings their credibility highly into question. I don’t think one can trust the Catholic perspective, especially when it comes down to mass and rhythms and other such anomalies.
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This conversation is brilliant…if only it could travel at the speed of light; but then if it did, I’d probably have missed it. Or I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to witness it…yet. So back on planet earth, where only light is traveling that fast…yeah…I got nothing.
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…… apart from some wayward sparkles, and they have to be worth something!
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I think we have to make our brains travel at the speed of light, in order to follow the conversation. Currently, my brain is still trying to break the sound barrier.
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My brain’s trudging along at the speed of donkey. Okay, I was going to say donkey farts, but thought better of it, but then I read “Go ahead, blurt it out,” so, yeah, I did.
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So, as fast as the speed of smell?
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The silent ones tend to be the fastest.
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Uhm, yeah, sure.
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😶🤚!
I knew this thread would go downhill!
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It really stinks.
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GROAN!
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Why not, that’s what donkeys do.
On an unrelated note, I’ve often wondered why donkeys are quoted as saying, “Hee-Haw.” It’s always sounded like “Haw-hee,” to me.
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So, I have a relevant question…asking for a friend: do Gnu farts smell worse than old farts?
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Speaking from experience, I’d have to say that they both smell about the same.
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Haha! I see what you did there…and I like it! M
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Oh gosh, I see I am late to the party! If I had known that you wanted difficult questions I would have asked why the sky is blue and why is the grass green?
Now I will delve into the comments, because I am crazy! Would probably be better for my head not too.
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Difficult questions? Pfft! The sky is blue because it contains emerald dust. And grass is green because it’s always being mowed, and thus it is young and green.
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😶🤚! Annnd I may have “laughed” at emerald dust, smartass!
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😄
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isn’t Elon Musk working on something that will transport people between NYC and San Fran at faster than the speed of light? and what would be the implications for Twitter of such a creation?
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Twittering would reach otherwise unheard of speeds. Perhaps it would have to be renamed simply Twit? Mr Musk could then call himself Chief Twit as self recognition for his work.
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😄
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I have the opposite problem – I need Twitter to slow down. I can’t keep up with it now…
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Well you’re doing better (?) than me Jim. I jumped ship a few years ago.
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I’m actually a fan of Twitter. It’s my go to site when I want to read some breaking news and see what people are saying…
But I know it has its problems…
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I hadn’t heard, but Musk does seem to permeate a lot of things. I think he entered the Twitter deal a little too hastily, and I suspect he’s going to lose the lawsuit they filed against him.
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it’s known as hyperloop. if he could pull this off, it would be amazing. it’s not quite the speed of light 🙂
https://www.boringcompany.com/hyperloop
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To me, it sounds like hype, that can throw investors for a loop.
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that’s probably how he came up with the name…
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