Question: Is it possible for light to go faster than light?
What happens to light from, say, a pulsar that's rotating very fast, when has traveled a very far distance? I've read that there is a pulsar that spins 716 times a second. And I've also read that there is a pulsar 5.7 kpc from earth. So if the light was traveling around that circumference 716 times a second, it would be going much faster laterally than the speed of the light going away from the pulsar. I'm sure this isn't allowed, but what happens? Does the light just trail behind like the arms of a hurricane? I would like to find out.
Relation Questions:
Answer:
I don't quite understand your question. Pulsars are actually very small, maybe about 10 miles across. That would give a circumference of about 32 miles. If it were spinning 716 times a second, 716 x 32 = 23 000 miles per second. This is about 12% of the speed of light, so I see no contradictions.
additionally, if look at light through a medium, different wavelengths of light will have different velocities, depending on which is chosen as a reference, light will either be faster than light or slower than light. so in spirit of quantum physics, the answer to question is yes and no!
Nope.
Let's say a pulse of light from that pulsar has V = C the speed of light, duh. And it flies off tangentially from that whirling star that has a tangential speed of U = kC < C, close to but not quite the speed of light.
In a classic case, the two speeds would add up so that the light would be seen as going W = U + V = (1 + k)C > C but from the theory of relativity, we know that light can only go C. What gives?
What gives is that space and time adjust to keep W = C no matter what U and V are doing. And here's how that works...drum roll please.
W = (U + V)/(1 + UV/C^2) where the denominator results from a series of Lorentz Transformations on W, U, and V and their respective times. Now, with space and time adjusting, as the STOR predicts, we have:
W = (kC + C)/(1 + kCC/C^2) = (1 + k)C/(1 + k) = C...ta da. That pulse of light off the whirling star will been seen by an observer back on Earth as going C, the speed of light no matter what. QED.
Well, based on experiments on trying to confirm whether there is an "ether wind" or not, it was found that light traveled at a constant speed, c, regardless of the inertial reference frame of the observer. You could be stationary, and someone else could be traveling close to the speed of light, and light coming from a flashlight would appear to both observers to be traveling at c. This is counter-intuitive, because when we observe everyday objects, the speed of a moving object to two different inertial frames of references is different, but apparently electromagnetic waves do not follow the same rules. So in theory, light should still travel at c near a pulsar... but I am only a lower division physics student, and I have heard that Einstein's General Relativity fails when it comes to what happens in black holes, so who knows.
correct wording is nothing can go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, cherenkov radiation is photon's being emitted by a particle moving faster than the speed of light through a medium such as water. In the medium, the speed of light is much slower than that in a vacuum,
According to the physical laws of today and Albert Einstein light cannot go faster than light speed.
Yeah, first reach light speed, then run forward while holding a flash light.
According to Einstien: NO
You wouldn't be able to see it that is for sure.
no