ForumsWEPRQuestion for the scientific community of AG.

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CrossViper
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CrossViper
481 posts
Nomad

If you travel faster than light, can you see?

Elaborate please.

  • 75 Replies
thisisnotanalt
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thisisnotanalt
9,821 posts
Farmer

Well, we don't know how much being faster than light would be, but it has been proven that time passes more slowly when you're going faster. The effect is negligible in modern-day society, though - it only had an effect of a few days saved for an astronaut twin~

snazzy777
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snazzy777
739 posts
Nomad

You might be able to see depending on the light which you are traveling faster than . . . on the other hand, you may not be able to see at all because you are going so fast . . .we will never know until we accomplish it . . .

AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

You dont see much. Any light in front coming towards you is entering your retina at a huge rate, and just looks like... um... white light. But the upside is that if you have a photon denuturalizer you can actually hold photons in your hand, in fact... you can eat them. They taste like strawberrys. I know this because I do it to get to college on time on a regular basis.

quakingphear
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quakingphear
410 posts
Peasant

Orson Scott Card talks about faster than light travel in his Ender's Game series. I haven't looked into it enough to say if it is all plausible(it is a sci-fi novel after all). He paints an interesting picture with it though. Like how if you could manage to travel even near light speed, then you would age normally, but because time is relative years would pass in the universe around you. A perk he points out is if you have a bank account with decent interest, you could be a billionaire after taking a few trips around the colonized universe.

fractalman
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fractalman
635 posts
Nomad

If you go faster than light...the flow of time will not simply slow; it will take on an "imaginary" (sqrt(-1) ) direction; nobody is quite sure what this means.

However, hypothetical tachyons are different; they take on imaginary dimensions when they move slower than light, and so can only exist at faster than light speeds.
If relativity is weird, tachyons are even..weirder; as you try to catch up to a tachyon, it speeds up...and it has less energy from your perspective.


So, in answer to the original question: IF you went faster than the speed of light...you'd probably wind up seeing another universe or something.

CrossViper
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CrossViper
481 posts
Nomad

Weird. But awesome.

Parsat
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Parsat
2,180 posts
Blacksmith

Personally, I believe the question to be unanswerable because it is fundamentally absurd. Just going at a fraction of the speed of light will tear your body into shreds; don't even think about seeing anything.

tennisman24
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tennisman24
4,682 posts
Farmer

yes u can see
it is just you are going faster than it

hard to explain

hypoxia
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hypoxia
589 posts
Nomad

Couldn't sound be used as an analog to predict what would happen?

What would you hear if you travelled faster than sound?

loloynage2
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loloynage2
4,206 posts
Peasant

Yea, there is still light going in all direction.

German3945
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German3945
996 posts
Nomad

yes u can see
it is just you are going faster than it

hard to explain

not really, that's just dead on.

things may appear slower when you are going faster than the speed of light, but then again, you're going faster than the speed of light, so you can't analyze how fast/slow things appear to be moving anyways.
playaholic
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playaholic
1,098 posts
Farmer

i dont know,but scientists say they've figured out how to teleport and make space cloaking device,the prob now is how to make use of the formula,get the right items etc etc

Grim275
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Grim275
23 posts
Nomad

you would probably die from going way to fast.

And if you could travel at the speed of light or faster you would not age becouse of the Space-Time Theory or something like that.

Maverick5762
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Maverick5762
240 posts
Peasant

Yeah like someone said, What happens when you travel over the speed of sound. You can't hear things behind you right? Maybe you could only see things that are ahead of you as the light is traveling to you, but if you look back, maybe you can't see anything because you are going faster than the light.

Graham
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Graham
8,051 posts
Nomad

you would probably die from going way to fast.


that really.... doesn't... explain.. anything.

Yea, there is still light going in all direction.


das true.

could find what pilots hear at a sonic boom (speed of sound(like 752 mph, real low)) and try to compare
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