What is the max speed that anything can move?

[callumf]

Guys, PLEASE.
It's 300,000 Kilometers per SECOND.

As you grow closer to the speed of light, your mass increases towards infinity. Look up mathematical limits on wikipedia or whatever to find out about how that works.
Since V=E/M (that is Velocity is equal to Kinetic Energy divided by Mass), You need to add more energy each time you want to go an extra km/h faster than before, as the mass has increased each time.

Other funky Relativistic effects include:
Time Dilation, where time slows down proportianlly (i think) to the percentage of light speed you are travelling. (e.g. at 99% C, you age 3.65 days per year on Earth.

Squishy face (I forget the actual name lol) where, from a stationary viewpoint, you will look 1% as long as normal as you shoot past at 99% C. Assuming anyone can C you do that. (oh no he didn't!)

Just in case any of this crap tickles your sci-fi fancy, I'd recommend Alistair Reynolds' books, Beginning with Revelation Space.

 

[Abengoshis]

The speed of light if you're moving normally. If you mean the time it takes for you to travel a distance then it would be taking the farthest points and getting from one to the other via a wormhole. Tachyons are hypothetical particles which move faster than the speed of light though.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

The fatest thing something can move is the speed of light travelling throuhg a vacuum (something with no state of matter in it), becuase if there is matter the energy would be slowed down by the particles obstruciting its movement.

 

[SpecklePattern]

Are we talking about anything as the title asks or projectiles that have mass like original post asks?

Everything moving at considerable fractions of c have mass. For the precise reason you stated:

"that if you start pumping the energy and the c is the constant light speed in vacuum, the mass need to grow."

EDIT: that is why there is a differentitation between rest mass (mass while the object is at rest) and mass.

Yes. I was thinking electromagnetic, as I was wondering what the OP ment by things with mass. The rest mass or effective mass. EM radiation has the speed of light itself (people spread the speed of light and the vacuum speed as equal but anyways). EM radiation is not bothered that it has the speed of light, even on the mass aspect. The photon energy pumping goes to the fields itself. Are we counting entities like EM radiation (and photons) in this review. So my simple question holds: Are we talking about anything as the title asks or projectiles that have mass like original post asks? (And that question was about projectiles that have rest mass or entities like photons as they cannot be observed and thought as equal what comes to the speed.)

Did I make less or more sense on my comment? Sorry. Not my primary language at all.

 

[Quaxar]

Good question. Quantum entanglement shows effect can move faster than the speed of light, if you count that as something.

Well, you still have to check the data at lightspeed tops and there are certain other flaws having to do with quantum mechanics.
But yes, the speed of light (300.000 km/s or 1 080 000 000 km/h) is generally considered to be the top speed at which information can travel. There may be particles faster than the speed of light, but if they exist they don't interact with matter.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Just under light-speed. That is, in our regular space-time dimension.

FTL travel is, technically, more than possible. You just need things like wormholes or space-warping.

 

[Lacsapix]

From what I learn in class is its 3*10^8 METERS PER SECOND
or 300.000.000 Meters per second
or if your really geek (like me) 1.080.000.000 Km/H
M/s*3.6=Km/h
Km/h:3.6=M/s

 

[Zacharine]

Did I make less or more sense on my comment? Sorry. Not my primary language at all.

Yes, but I would still like to state that any forces do not, as such, travel. They exist.

If this is false, and forces do travel, they must travel by something - such as a carrying particle such as a photon, or the theoretical graviton, or in the case of electricity, electron. (EDIT: at least, according to our current understanding. String theory is one candidate to potentially change this)

Particles are objects, which therefore have mass. But again, to be precise, mass refers not to rest mass.

Even light has mass. I do understand what you mean, but I am questioning your terminology.

And english isn't my native language either

 

[jomala]

My goodness - so much inaccuracy in one place. Can we not get a physicist to offer one correct answer, since we all know there is one, so that everyone who is guessing and misremembering can stop clouding the issue?

That being said, here's my contribution!

c = speed of light = 300,000,000 m/s (and probably all the things that Lacsapix says too)

Stuff without mass (e.g. light) can travel at this speed. Stuff with (rest) mass (e.g. matter) can never reach this. One way of looking at why is to say that its relativitist mass increases, so the energy required to get it faster becomes too high. Kinetic energy = 1/2 mass x velocity squared normally (callumf!) and I think this still applies.

Wormholes are proposed shortcuts that use the curvature of space/time, and don't break relativity. I've no doubt that there are other theories that do.

Information is generally considered to only travel at the speed of light. However, quantum entanglement may be a way round this.

Hope that's accurate and helps.

 

[chuketek]

To elaborate a little on that last point with a little basic relativity, the equations relating energy, momentum and velocity are:

(E^2) = (p^2)*(c^2) + (m^2)*(c^4)
KE = E - m(c^2)
(gamma)v = p/m
gamma = lorentz factor = c/sqrt((c^2)-(v^2))

E is total energy
KE is kinetic energy
p is momentum
m is mass
c is lightspeed
v is velocity

gamma looks like a mess, but that's only because the velocity is irrelevant in high energy physics, it's much cleaner if you ignore velocity and just use momentum and energy (there are expressions for gamma without using v, but this thread is about speed so.....)

Basically what these relationships mean is:
For m=0, KE=E=pc, v=c (takes a little bit of algebra, but it's there) i.e. photons (the only current zero mass particles) have momentum related directly to their energy and travel at light speed.

For v=0, gamma = 1, p=0, E=m(c^2), KE=0 i.e. non-moving objects with mass have only the energy of their mass.

For v<<c, gamma~1, p~mv, KE~(1/2)m(v^2) (you need the first term of a Maclaurin series to get that answer) i.e. slow objects more or less obey classical mechanics

For v>>0, gamma>1 i.e. objects obey relativistic mechanics

For v~c, gamma>>1, KE~E i.e. particles travelling close to the speed of light act as if they have zero mass (because their kinetic energy is so much larger than their mass)

Hopefully you can see that as v gets close to c, gamma gets really large so momentum and energy also get really large.
But it's not like you can just pick a speed for something to fly at. You make things faster by putting in more energy. So if it's taking more and more energy to make something just a little bit faster it'll never get to the speed of light, it would take infinite energy before that would happen.


Incidentely, some more advanced theories doesn't completely rule out faster than light objects, there are some called tachyons. However they slow down as they pick up energy and would require infinite energy to slow down to c, so you couldn't accelerate something past the speed of light, or slow it down past it either. There is also absolutely no evidence for (or against) their existence, at the moment they're just hypothetical particles.

edit: ps, in response to the last post, I am a physicist

 

[Fangface74]

Good question. Quantum entanglement shows effect can move faster than the speed of light, if you count that as something.

Well, you still have to check the data at lightspeed tops and there are certain other flaws having to do with quantum mechanics.
But yes, the speed of light (300.000 km/s or 1 080 000 000 km/h) is generally considered to be the top speed at which information can travel. There may be particles faster than the speed of light, but if they exist they don't interact with matter.

I suppose being entirely theoretical could be seen as a flaw. None of it actually exists, it just 'makes sense' along side other stuff.

 

[lee1287]

on QI it was a plant that shoots pollon. REALLY fast. thats the fastest living thing.

 

[spartan231490]

Well 300'000km/h is the speed of light, and if I remember basic Physics right E=MC^2 means that anything with mass cannot travel at the speed of light. That is, if I remember right.

Calumon: ...I'm confused.

E=MC^2 doesnt prove that anything with mass cant move faster than the speed of light. It is the formula for energy released by nuclear reactions and the like, energy = mass lost time the speed of light squared.

Relativity is Eisteins theory and I believe that is the one that explains that nothing can move faster than speed of light.

 

[Zamn]

I'm impressed by the level of wild speculation and extremely badly-remembered physics classes in this thread. Looks like its been reasonably well cleared up now though.

 

[V1C3M4N]

If policy makers keep bitching about health and safety, nothing would go faster than 20mph, not even a Zonda

 

[jomala]

edit: ps, in response to the last post, I am a physicist

Thank you, chuketek. That's exactly what we needed!

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[Quaxar]

Good question. Quantum entanglement shows effect can move faster than the speed of light, if you count that as something.

Well, you still have to check the data at lightspeed tops and there are certain other flaws having to do with quantum mechanics.
But yes, the speed of light (300.000 km/s or 1 080 000 000 km/h) is generally considered to be the top speed at which information can travel. There may be particles faster than the speed of light, but if they exist they don't interact with matter.

I suppose being entirely theoretical could be seen as a flaw. None of it actually exists, it just 'makes sense' along side other stuff.

Yeah, it's pretty much the "god" of particle physics. You can say there are particles that move outside every boundary and don't interact with matter, but you can't actually prove that one, can you?

 

[oktalist]

99.99c

Basically, anything just under the speed of light. I don't know the exact number...

Lolz @ exact number.

There is no maximum speed in the way that you mean. You can always go a little bit faster. You just can't ever reach the speed of light.

When we say something is "going really fast" it is only going fast when compared to the object next to it.

Light is the exception to this rule. Light (in a vacuum, pedants) always travels at the same speed irrespective of your frame of reference. That's the key fact from which all of relativity emerges. It's why there is time dilation and all that funky stuff. It's why you can't go faster than it.

ok, you had this coming.... OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hint: Just because he 'had it coming' doesn't make it funny

No, but it does dent the legitimacy of people who noisily refuse to find it funny.

Well, you still have to check the data at lightspeed tops and there are certain other flaws having to do with quantum mechanics.
But yes, the speed of light (300.000 km/s or 1 080 000 000 km/h) is generally considered to be the top speed at which information can travel. There may be particles faster than the speed of light, but if they exist they don't interact with matter.

I suppose being entirely theoretical could be seen as a flaw. None of it actually exists, it just 'makes sense' along side other stuff.

Quantum mechanics, far from being entirely theoretical, is supported by a mountain of experimental results, and has been known since before anyone had heard the name of Einstein. You may be thinking of string theory.

Yeah, it's pretty much the "god" of particle physics. You can say there are particles that move outside every boundary and don't interact with matter, but you can't actually prove that one, can you?

Nothing in science can be proven, so that's not the problem. The problem science has with God, or non-interacting particles, is not that they can't be proven, but that they can't be disproven. Even if they don't exist, there is no experiment one could perform that could possibly prove their non-existence. Contrast that with any proper scientific theory, for which there are countless experiments that might be able to disprove them, if indeed they are false.

 

[photog212]

Incidentely, some more advanced theories doesn't completely rule out faster than light objects, there are some called tachyons. However they slow down as they pick up energy and would require infinite energy to slow down to c, so you couldn't accelerate something past the speed of light, or slow it down past it either. There is also absolutely no evidence for (or against) their existence, at the moment they're just hypothetical particles.

edit: ps, in response to the last post, I am a physicist

But theories do exist to suggest that certain quasars may be superluminal (faster than the speed of light). I am aware most reputable astrophysicists believe that superluminacity is an optical illusion. However, the speed of quasars as well as their energy consumption does raise interesting questions about the speed of light and mass.