Why is it possible to travel at 99 or 98 pecent of the speed of light and not 100?

Question

the speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s. Its an actual speed like actually numbers its not like traveling at the speed of like um idk the word infinity( i know that dosent make sense but this is so confusing i can't even word it right haha) Is it becuase of technology or it defy's the laws of physics or something? if its technology it would be possible just improbable.

Answer 1

because mass is variable and is a function of velocity (discovered by Einstein) its unnoticeable on normal scales, but when you approach the speed of light mass increases and the relativistic mass would become infinite at the speed of light, which is impossible.



M=m/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)

where M is the relativistic mass, m is the mass at rest, v is velocity, and c is the speed of light. when v=c then the equation is M=m/0 which is infinity.

Answer 2

Objects which have mass cannot travel at the speed of light. This comes from Einstein's special relativity and is proved daily in large particle accelerators. As an object approaches the speed of light, ever more energy must be used to increase its speed. To get to the speed of light, the energy needed would be infinite. However, things that have no mass such as photons only travel at the speed of light.

Answer 3

It takes energy to make a massive object move. The faster you want it to go, the more energy it takes. If Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity is correct (so far, nobody's been able to prove otherwise), then it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate something to the speed of light.

Answer 4

becuase the energy needed to increse the speed approaches infinity becuase as the particle increases speed it gets heavier and heavier infinitly.

Answer 5

I still hate using the metric system-light travels @ 186000 miles per second n we dont even come close. believe it or not we did measure something even faster n that is the blink. ur blink is the fastest than anything else. as it is the warp drive in all the science fiction movies is possible but not probable.

Answer 6

As you suggest, it would defy the laws of physics for a mass to reach 100% of the speed of light. Only mass-less photons (light) travel at that speed. As a mass approaches the speed of light its mass increases without limit. As a (poor) analogy if standing still you could shove your buddy very hard but if he is barely beating you in a 100 yard dash you could barely shove him hard on the back. At almost the speed of light, even a photon would bounce off of a fast moving mass in the same direction imparting nil energy (see solar sails). And any mass pushing on the fast moving object would immediately lose speed if it gave up any energy to the object.

Answer 7

Using the earth as a frame of reference for practical purposes it is impossible to travel the speed of light simply because energy with space as a medium is the fastest thing we know of. Like one of the other users said you have to be energy to travel at that speed.



Now if you could distort space and time somehow you would be able to travel faster than the speed of light using the earth as a reference. The fact of the matter is though in your personal reference light would still travel past you at the speed of light.

Answer 8

Because the theory of relativity ('Special' I think) states that you would need infinite energy - more than that in the universe to achieve the speed of light.

Answer 9

its impossible to travel the 100 percent speed of light because light will always be ahead of you, just like the theory of ex. a blue ball is truly everything except blue, blue light is what bounces off and you see it, so if your traveling then there si always going to be something infront of you, even if its by a hairline its still infront of you and thats light. make sense?

Answer 10

It's physically impossible. You would turn into energy.

Answer 11

Well we can travel at the speed of sound, but I think if we went at light speed we would lose our skin.