I disagree with einstein..

[ColJack]

time is not relative...

everyone says that if you travel at the speed of light then time for you slows down..
I don't think it does..

if i travelled away from the earth for one year at the speed of light and was observing the earth as i travelled, it would appear as though time stood still on earth as I would be traveling at the same speed as the light from it was traveling ( so I'd be looking at a "still" from a given moment rather than a movie ).
now when I stopped the earth would appear to re-start is't movements etc but be a year behind.
when I then head back at the speed of light for another year, I would be crashing into the light from earth so it would appear to be speeding up.
when I arrive back 2 years will have passsed for both me and the earth surely?

 

[oompah]

Is this the drink still talking

 

[ColJack]

no, sober as I usually am.. ( i don't trust that judges and vicars are never drunk.. )

 

[oompah]

Was it Newton who said about, for every action there is a reaction,so assuming one could travel at the speed of light what would the the reaction to this be?

 

[Lincsbodger]

time is not relative...

everyone says that if you travel at the speed of light then time for you slows down..
I don't think it does..

if i travelled away from the earth for one year

one year measured by whos time frame? Time is relative.

at the speed of light and was observing the earth as i travelled, it would appear as though time stood still on earth as I would be traveling at the same speed as the light from it was traveling ( so I'd be looking at a "still" from a given moment rather than a movie ).
now when I stopped the earth would appear to re-start is't movements etc but be a year behind.
when I then head back at the speed of light for another year, I would be crashing into the light from earth so it would appear to be speeding up.
when I arrive back 2 years will have passsed for both me and the earth surely?

no, the fundamental mistake you are making is that your assuming the speed of light can vary. it doesnt. The speed of light is universally constant immaterial of the speed and direction of the observer. Light cannot travel 'slower' or 'faster' than 186,000 miles per second. What varies is your local time frame speed in seconds per second.

Furthermore, as YOU travel closer to the speed of light, you experience distance contraction, so that at the speed of light all distances in the universe tend to zero, therefore the time taken to traverse the universe also tends to zero, by your time frame.

If you thought General Relativity was bizarre, dont even go near the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics.

 

[ColJack]

I recon you'd disintegrate as the electrons in your attoms wouldn't be able to travel forwards in the direction of your travel as nothing can travel faster than the speed of light and they would have to to do that...

there's also the problem of light waves / particles coming at you in the opposite direction.. if a ship can be pushed by solar winds ( ie the pressure of sunlight on a large sail like area ) then it stands to reason that light from the other direction of a smaller magnitude would act as resistance?

 

[Lincsbodger]

I recon you'd disintegrate as the electrons in your attoms wouldn't be able to travel forwards in the direction of your travel as nothing can travel faster than the speed of light and they would have to to do that...

well that wouldn't occur, because the forward movement of the electron is too small to be affected by its direction of travel. What WOULD occur though is that traveling at the speed of light effectively pumps infinite energy into the atom and it become infinitely massive. It woudl tend to decay into a series of very heavy particles, which is exactly what they are trying to do in the Large Hadron Collider, because the first particle the infinitely massive atom should decay into is a Higgs Boson.

there's also the problem of light waves / particles coming at you in the opposite direction.. if a ship can be pushed by solar winds ( ie the pressure of sunlight on a large sail like area ) then it stands to reason that light from the other direction of a smaller magnitude would act as resistance?

Well, its a bit hypothetical. You have to understand the universe from a photons point of view. Remember photons go everywhere at the speed of light, so from a photons point of view:
- the universe is the same size as you. You can 'touch all the walls' of the universe from where you are standing in all directions
- because you're as big as the universe, its takes zero time to traverse it, ie you can go anywhere in the universe instantly. However, you require infinite energy to move anywhere.
- since it required infinite energy to make you travel at the speed of light, and matter and energy are interchangeable, then you have also effectively infinite mass, ie you are as heavy as the universe

If a photon og light hits a photon of light coming in the opposite direction, they absorb then reemit........as two photons. effectively they pass through each other.

Stop thinking of photons of light as objects like we know them, they arent. They are the only things that provably exist at the speed of light, and they fall into a special class of there own. (Until someone proves tachyons exist)

What a light wave looks like at our mass, speed, and density is entirely different to what a photon looks like from its own point of view.

 

[wotan]

time is not relative...

everyone says that if you travel at the speed of light then time for you slows down..
I don't think it does..

if i travelled away from the earth for one year at the speed of light and was observing the earth as i travelled, it would appear as though time stood still on earth as I would be traveling at the same speed as the light from it was traveling ( so I'd be looking at a "still" from a given moment rather than a movie ).
now when I stopped the earth would appear to re-start is't movements etc but be a year behind.
when I then head back at the speed of light for another year, I would be crashing into the light from earth so it would appear to be speeding up.
when I arrive back 2 years will have passsed for both me and the earth surely?

If only

 

[lifesagasman]

no, sober as I usually am.. ( i don't trust that judges and vicars are never drunk.. )

If you are either as drunk as a lord or as sober as a judge, why do you call a judge "M' Lord"?

 

[EdwardCurrent]

Cheers ColJack. .

I am going to take a few pain killers and have a drink. .

My new invention will involve a conveyor system that holds you in the air long enough, and at the correct speed to drop you back down to 'earth' in time to re-live and rectify, any mistakes, regrets etc that you have just made !!!

Eureka moments like this are few and far betweeen and I will make sure you get your cut.

Ed (+Stella).
See me soon on the Dragons Den.

 

[donglebang]

you would have not aged or just ages 1 year whils the earht will have aged 2

 

[ColJack]

no.. i still travel for 2 years..
one outbound, one inbound..
same time has passed on both the earth and the ship..

 

[Lincsbodger]

no.. i still travel for 2 years..
one outbound, one inbound..
same time has passed on both the earth and the ship..

2 years measured on whos timeframe ?

time will run at different rates for you and for the earth because you are travelling at different speeds. The whole things comes apart on the phrase "i still travel for 2 years.. ". Whos years? Your years? Earths years ?There not the same. Time has not passed the same on the ship as on earth.

 

[sooey]

Nothing is ever as it seems. With appropriate equations I can prove this.

Go on then.

 

[joinerjohn]

Lincs has hit the nail on the head there. According to Einsteins theory, as you approach the speed of light, time itself slows down, relative to the observer. (earth in this case) whereas time for the person travelling at near lightspeed remains the same.
As for the statement someone made about the speed of light being constant, there is one theory that the universe came about simply because the speed of light itself slowed down.

Anyway, it's late and I'm getting tired. If I wake up tomorrow morning on Alpha Centauri, I'll make my way back at the speed of light and will report back here on my findings in 50 or so years.