Light speed ...fact or theory

claymore | 11:38 Sun 28th Nov 2010 | Science

3 Answers

Has a practical experiment ever been carried out to prove that nothing travels faster than light or is it all mathamatical theory? Thinking of it, what kind of experiment could be tried?

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vascop

The answer is yes, an extremely famous experiment, called the Michelson Morley experiment was carried out in 1881. The result of this experiment forms the basis for the special theory of relativity put forward by Einstein in 1905. One of the consequences of this theory is that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded.

claymore

Question Author

Vascop, their experiment was to measure the speed of light, and it did form the basis for Einsteins special theory of relativity, but it is still a theory proven mathamatically. My question was ,has anyone tried to move something faster than light speed, or would they just look at the maths and say, Einstein said it couldn`t be done so what`s the use of trying.

jake-the-peg

Very very interesting question claymore because as opposed to what people generally tink it's based on observation not on theory at all.

The special theory of relativity was founded on the observation that the speed of light is an absolute barrier.

vascop is right though - MM experiment was not to measure the speed of light but to attempt to measure the difference in the speed of light depending on the direction of the Earth's travel. In otherwords to see that it went faster in the direction of the Earth's travel.

Which of course it doesn't.

CERN of course try to make things travel faster than light all the time - of course what we find from Relativity is that as you get closer to c that energy goes into mass which makes it exponentially harder to accelerate it further.

There was an idea once that in theory with enough energy matter might be able to quantum tunnel through the light barrier. Perhaps that could have happened in the big bang - these particles were dubbed tachyons and people went out trying to find them but never did.

Another beautiful theory broken on the wheel of ugly fact.

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