4 ms·

Ok, ok, this question is bugging me: could it be possible that the speed of light is just the maximum speed of anything that can be measured in a relative conte

by _8j50 3y ago

Ok, ok, this question is bugging me: could it be possible that the speed of light is just the maximum speed of anything that can be measured in a relative context? Is there proof that something couldn't go faster than light and slow down later on where then it's speed can be measured again? Given the whole quantum "spooky" action at distsnces where travel is only possible when going faster than light, I thought this was a curious question. If true, could all the weird quantum observations be explained by forces and effects that are takinng place at speeds faster than what observers that are not excited at similar speeds can't measure?

adrian_b 3y ago
I do not believe that there is a way to show that speeds greater than the speed of light are impossible due to some properties of measurement. On the other hand, there exists a line of reasoning that perhaps this speed limit is not some kind of intrinsic property of space and time, but only of the electromagnetic interactions. We do not have any other way to accelerate a body to very high speeds, except by using forces that ultimately are based on electromagnetic interactions (this includes the pressure of a hot gas that creates a high speed rocket jet). There is a possibility to describe the apparent mass increase of a fast-moving body, which limits the acceleration, as a consequence of the reduced effectiveness of the electromagnetic interactions when the relative speed of the interacting bodies approaches the speed of light. Nobody has constructed yet a complete theory along this line of thought, and even if such a theory existed, it is likely that it could not have any practical consequences. Within such a theory, the only way to exceed the speed of light would be to use a yet undiscovered kind of interaction, which is very unlikely to exist. Even if there is no unified theory yet, there is no doubt that both the strong and weak nuclear interactions and the electromagnetic interactions are just 3 forms of a unique kind of interaction. In the case of the strong interaction, this is proven by the fact that both the electric charges and the color charges of all quarks and leptons can be seen as projections of a unique quantized 3-dimensional charge vector (the 3 dimensions are in the space of charges, they do not have anything to do with the dimensions of space-time, exactly like the 3-dimensional vector that describes the brightness, saturation and hue of a colored light has nothing to do with the space-time), whose values sum to zero for each family of quarks and leptons, separately for the particles and for the antiparticles. So the only known interaction that could be distinct from the electromagnetic is the gravitational, but there are theories where the gravitation would arise as a high order effect of the electromagnetic interaction. Moreover, even if there are contradictory results about the speed of gravitation, the more recent results seem to be consistent with the speed of the gravitational waves being the same as the speed of light.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Thanks for the detailed response, that cerainly gives me quite a bit to think about. > So the only known interaction that could be distinct from the electromagnetic is the gravitational There are assumptions from what I understand, in QM about gravitation being the cause or dark matter and other unproven things. Perhaps some of those can be results of a yet unknown fundamental force.
- eesmith 3y ago
  > We do not have any other way to accelerate a body to very high speeds, except by using forces that ultimately are based on electromagnetic interactions (this includes the pressure of a hot gas that creates a high speed rocket jet). On the other hand, we can detect neutrinos which are the product of beta decay, which is due to the weak force and not electromagnetic interactions. (We can also make neutrinos as part of an artificial nuclear reaction, like a nuclear power plant.) They are slightly slower than the speed of light. This shows we don't need to have the ability to accelerate a body to very high speeds to be able to detect non-electromagnetic bodies at high speed, even if that detection is only indirect, eg, by noticing how energy apparently isn't conserved. > There is a possibility to describe the apparent mass increase of a fast-moving body, which limits the acceleration, as a consequence of the reduced effectiveness of the electromagnetic interactions when the relative speed of the interacting bodies approaches the speed of light. If that were so, wouldn't the neutrinos produced in a particle accelerator (starting from particles going at near light speed) have different observable properties than neutrinos produced from a non-relativistic source like a nuclear reactor or the Sun? Since neutrinos aren't affected by electromagnetic interactions, they should not be affected by this reduction of effectiveness, right? And this should be easily measurable, right? In fact, we should be seeing them already in neutrino detection experiments, yes?
eesmith 3y ago
> Is there proof that something couldn't go faster than light No, and of course not. Any proof depends on having a mathematical model of how the universe works, and while what you describe would certainly violate our current model, that doesn't mean our model is correct. We can say that we haven't seen anything like that, and that such an thing doesn't seem to be necessary for our current model, so the first stumbling block is - why should anyone spend time trying to flesh out this alternative model? We can also pose questions like, how does it get from above to below the speed of light? Is there ever a time when it's faster than 99.99999999999999999998% of the speed of light, and why don't we see them if they are so common that they can be used to explain quantum effects? What is the mechanism by which they lose momentum? Where does the energy go? How does it get coupled to quantum effects, including superfluid helium? Why don't we see anything like Cherenkov radiation, which occurs when a charged particle is going through a media (like water) where the local speed of light is slower than that of particle?
stareatgoats 3y ago
I believe you are onto something (but not sure if it's correct), but then again, I willingly confess to being in the "crackpot" camp when it comes to the hard limits that the current physics paradigm postulates. One such is that nothing can exceed the speed of light, another the constancy of the speed of light for all observers, regardless of the relative speeds of the observers vs the light source. The whole thing smacks too much of the mania that gripped the previous century, the belief that we might actually understand it all. We can't, just ever more. In my mind we might live in multiple (infinite?) universes that exists at different speeds (think millions of times the speed of light) and that only interact in such rare and odd circumstances that we only detect it using instruments that peer far into the unknown. I could be wrong.

by _8j50 3y ago

adrian_b 3y ago

I do not believe that there is a way to show that speeds greater than the speed of light are impossible due to some properties of measurement. On the other hand, there exists a line of reasoning that perhaps this speed limit is not some kind of intrinsic property of space and time, but only of the electromagnetic interactions. We do not have any other way to accelerate a body to very high speeds, except by using forces that ultimately are based on electromagnetic interactions (this includes the pressure of a hot gas that creates a high speed rocket jet). There is a possibility to describe the apparent mass increase of a fast-moving body, which limits the acceleration, as a consequence of the reduced effectiveness of the electromagnetic interactions when the relative speed of the interacting bodies approaches the speed of light. Nobody has constructed yet a complete theory along this line of thought, and even if such a theory existed, it is likely that it could not have any practical consequences. Within such a theory, the only way to exceed the speed of light would be to use a yet undiscovered kind of interaction, which is very unlikely to exist. Even if there is no unified theory yet, there is no doubt that both the strong and weak nuclear interactions and the electromagnetic interactions are just 3 forms of a unique kind of interaction. In the case of the strong interaction, this is proven by the fact that both the electric charges and the color charges of all quarks and leptons can be seen as projections of a unique quantized 3-dimensional charge vector (the 3 dimensions are in the space of charges, they do not have anything to do with the dimensions of space-time, exactly like the 3-dimensional vector that describes the brightness, saturation and hue of a colored light has nothing to do with the space-time), whose values sum to zero for each family of quarks and leptons, separately for the particles and for the antiparticles. So the only known interaction that could be distinct from the electromagnetic is the gravitational, but there are theories where the gravitation would arise as a high order effect of the electromagnetic interaction. Moreover, even if there are contradictory results about the speed of gravitation, the more recent results seem to be consistent with the speed of the gravitational waves being the same as the speed of light.

_8j50 3y ago
Thanks for the detailed response, that cerainly gives me quite a bit to think about. > So the only known interaction that could be distinct from the electromagnetic is the gravitational There are assumptions from what I understand, in QM about gravitation being the cause or dark matter and other unproven things. Perhaps some of those can be results of a yet unknown fundamental force.
eesmith 3y ago
> We do not have any other way to accelerate a body to very high speeds, except by using forces that ultimately are based on electromagnetic interactions (this includes the pressure of a hot gas that creates a high speed rocket jet). On the other hand, we can detect neutrinos which are the product of beta decay, which is due to the weak force and not electromagnetic interactions. (We can also make neutrinos as part of an artificial nuclear reaction, like a nuclear power plant.) They are slightly slower than the speed of light. This shows we don't need to have the ability to accelerate a body to very high speeds to be able to detect non-electromagnetic bodies at high speed, even if that detection is only indirect, eg, by noticing how energy apparently isn't conserved. > There is a possibility to describe the apparent mass increase of a fast-moving body, which limits the acceleration, as a consequence of the reduced effectiveness of the electromagnetic interactions when the relative speed of the interacting bodies approaches the speed of light. If that were so, wouldn't the neutrinos produced in a particle accelerator (starting from particles going at near light speed) have different observable properties than neutrinos produced from a non-relativistic source like a nuclear reactor or the Sun? Since neutrinos aren't affected by electromagnetic interactions, they should not be affected by this reduction of effectiveness, right? And this should be easily measurable, right? In fact, we should be seeing them already in neutrino detection experiments, yes?

eesmith 3y ago

> Is there proof that something couldn't go faster than light No, and of course not. Any proof depends on having a mathematical model of how the universe works, and while what you describe would certainly violate our current model, that doesn't mean our model is correct. We can say that we haven't seen anything like that, and that such an thing doesn't seem to be necessary for our current model, so the first stumbling block is - why should anyone spend time trying to flesh out this alternative model? We can also pose questions like, how does it get from above to below the speed of light? Is there ever a time when it's faster than 99.99999999999999999998% of the speed of light, and why don't we see them if they are so common that they can be used to explain quantum effects? What is the mechanism by which they lose momentum? Where does the energy go? How does it get coupled to quantum effects, including superfluid helium? Why don't we see anything like Cherenkov radiation, which occurs when a charged particle is going through a media (like water) where the local speed of light is slower than that of particle?

stareatgoats 3y ago

I believe you are onto something (but not sure if it's correct), but then again, I willingly confess to being in the "crackpot" camp when it comes to the hard limits that the current physics paradigm postulates. One such is that nothing can exceed the speed of light, another the constancy of the speed of light for all observers, regardless of the relative speeds of the observers vs the light source. The whole thing smacks too much of the mania that gripped the previous century, the belief that we might actually understand it all. We can't, just ever more. In my mind we might live in multiple (infinite?) universes that exists at different speeds (think millions of times the speed of light) and that only interact in such rare and odd circumstances that we only detect it using instruments that peer far into the unknown. I could be wrong.