What happens when something goes faster than light?

Question

I would like a relatively detailed answer to my question. I'm sure I can understand it.

What happens when something goes faster than the speed of light

Answer 1

It's totally not possible but still it depends on the material! if the thing's an electromagnetic wave it's not gonna cause anything, because such waves need no medium they can even travel through vacum but if the object is not an electromagnetic one then the object's gonna send out a shock wave through it's path and gonna create a sonic boom! for example when a bullet is fired or a supersonic jet aircraft moves through the air, the sound waves created by them are piled up in the form of a cone which is a shock wave or highly compressed air. these carry lots of energy and the sound made by it is very very loud, this is known as the sonic boom. all of this happens when an object moves faster than the speed of sound, now I reckon you're smart enough to anticipate what will happen if an object moves faster than light! :P

Answer 2

No material object can ever go the speed of light, not even a tiny electron. As speed increases, mass increases toward infinity so it gets harder and harder to go any faster. The closer you get to light speed the slower time goes as observed by an outside observer. To you though, it would seem unchanged (you won't move in slow motion or anything like that.)



However, , if it was possible to use something like a wormhole to travel a large distance faster than light can travel by the ordinary route, it is thought that you might be able to exit the wormhole in time to look back at your starting point with a telescope and be able to see yourself going into the wormhole when the light you reflected finally does arrive at the exit location. We will probably never know for sure.



If something could it would simply cease to exist you've defied the laws of physics! anything could happen, Time travel possibly? who knows it wouldn't be pretty though.

Answer 3

Photons are more or less the only things that can move at the speed of light, because they have no mass. Anything with mass will grow heavier and heavier the closer it gets to the speed of light, and at that point a spacecraft would effectively turn into a black hole because of it's increased density.



For all intents and purposes, nothing can travel faster.

Answer 4

This question has been asked repeatedly and the answer I always give is to point out the ludicrousness of the question.



" If something that is impossible actually happens then what else must become possible at the same time"

Hardly a question that has an answer is it?



If we believe that it is impossible then no one has any idea that it could happen.

Answer 5

Okay well that's a great question so here's a better answer... We HAVE seen particles move faster than light.



We know light moves slower in water and EVEN slower through glass.



We have accelerated particles so that that are traveling faster than light within a particular medium!



This causes a "boom" like in a sonic boom but instead of sound, it causes massive light radiation.

Answer 6

How the *beep* is anyone supposed to know? All you're going to get are hypothetical answers backed up by nothing. Expect nothing less ridiculous than: "Bruce Lee reincarnates himself from his grave, teleports to the particle and gives it a fine for speeding."

Answer 7

What "happens" is that mass, space, time and velocity become "imaginary" numbers (involve √[-1]) so space and time no longer exist.

Answer 8

the universe will explode~