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Faster Than The Speed of Light?

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Imagine that you are suspended in empty space (so there is no gravity) and you can see two stars that are three light years distant and one light year apart. you could point from one to the other in a matter of seconds but suppose you were holding an incredibly long pole that reached almost all the way to one of the stars but not far enough to be affected by it's gravity. Surely it would still take seconds for you to move your hand (and the pole as well) between the two stars but the end of the pole would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light for it to move between them so quickly. However, according to Einstein's theories of relativity nothing can travel faster than the speed of light so what would happen?

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  • Asked by Elthron
  • on 2010-05-17 17:35:59
  • Member status
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Categories: Our universe.

Tags: Speedoflight, faster, pole.

 

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aturnb says:

The pole as you call it is not infinitely stiff and if you pushed on one end it would not move the other end instantaneously as you appear to imagine. What would happen is that the movement at your end would be transmitted along the length of the pole in much the same way a wave travels or a worm moves. In fact the movement of the pole would be incredibly slow.

You also wouldn't be able to tell when the pole started moving as it would take two years for the light at the end of the pole to reach your eyes.

You'd be dead long before anything observable actually happened.

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Tags: Speedoflight, faster, pole.

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posted on 2010-05-21 13:59:31 | Report abuse


 
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