What is the max speed that anything can move?

Chameliondude

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Jul 21, 2009
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for our conceivable notion of matter, its a fraction under the speed of light, but information can move at near infinite speed even though einstein said nothing could.

If you take a pair of electrons with opposite spin, if you change the spin of 1, the other instantaneously changes, so you could move them to opposite ends of the universe and it would still work, because the universal laws start to break down at the very tiny.

You can also travel a infinitesimal packet of energy forward in time a fraction of a second..

cool eh.... no, i thought so too.
 

mad825

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Mar 28, 2010
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more than the speed of light, I cannot give the speed because I dont think that no-one will ever get the chance mainly because even light itself has trouble getting out of this paranormal environment
 

kurupt87

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Mar 17, 2010
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lee1287 said:
on QI it was a plant that shoots pollon. REALLY fast. thats the fastest living thing.
I saw that too, a nice way to describe it. I remember it being a fungus that lives in horse crap :D
 

rokkolpo

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Aug 29, 2009
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until time stands still.
and beyond going back in time?

i dunno the theories of people above me seem more....educated
 
Aug 25, 2009
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From what I remember from being told this, the speed of light (as mentioned above) is currently the fastest known speed.

In theory, if we were to travel faster than the speed of light, all sorts of crazy shit would happen, but no one quite knows what.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Except gossip and rumors, which seems to obey their own special rules.
 

Bigsmith

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Mar 16, 2009
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Personaly, we said it would be impossible to break the sound barrier 50 years ago... I reakcon its possible to travel faster then the speed of light, its just that the human body probably wouldn't be able to cope with the forces acting on it... so you would slow down and that would be left of the crew would be large red puddles of where they once where. Or at least, thats my theory.
 

Ekonk

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Irridium said:
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Except gossip and rumors, which seems to obey their own special rules.
Oh christ dammit dammit, is it Terry Pratchett or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Which one is it? I CAN'T TAKE THIS
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Ekonk said:
Irridium said:
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Except gossip and rumors, which seems to obey their own special rules.
Oh christ dammit dammit, is it Terry Pratchett or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Which one is it? I CAN'T TAKE THIS
Douglas Adams actually, so close enough.

And it turns out I remembered the quite wrong, here's the actual one:

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

Still, close enough.
 

Vigormortis

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Nov 21, 2007
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It's simple. Under Relativity, 186,000 miles per second (a.k.a. the speed of light) is the fastest anything can accelerate to.

Well, sort of. Thing is, only light can actually go that fast. Other objects and particles can accelerate close to that speed, but can never quite reach it.

However, within the same theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, if an object can forgo having to accelerate to that speed (as in, is already going that fast), then that same object would have no conceivable speed limit. It is believed that tachyons may indeed (if they really exist) move faster than the speed of light. In fact, they may very well move freely through time.

Then there's the whole sticky issue of Einstein-Rosen bridges, or wormholes, which is a whole 'nother conversation.

[/edit] Just looked at some of the other posts. Specifically chuketek's. Seeing as much of what I've said was said (and he actually went into laying out and explaining the equations), my post is rendered moot.

Damn it!

cloudskyff7 said:
The big bang was faster than the speed of light according to hawking.
Actually, unless I'm mistaken, I'm fairly certain that theory, known as Expansion, was thought up by someone else. It describes how the universe, a few million years after the big bang, expanded faster than the speed of light. It was able to do this only because the fabric of space time was expanding, pulling the matter and energy with it at vastly accelerated speeds.

And, thanks to dark energy, it will continue to expand outward until everything is eventually torn asunder and cools to absolute zero.
 

CaptainCrunch

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Jul 21, 2008
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As speed is represented in the physical universe, light is most certainly the fastest observable "thing."

However, since time flows at different speeds in different parts of the universe (such as near a black hole), one could assume that *something* can be faster than light. However, it would not be observable. Essentially, time itself is the fastest (and slowest) possible speed.

Consider the following:
An object at a point in time, A, moves through space at constant (observable) time, arriving at another point, B. We can calculate the velocity of the object by comparing the distance it has traveled to the time it has traveled. However, time is not constant - it is relative. If the object moves from A to B without progressing time (or by moving a very short amount), by some unobservable force, how fast did it move?

Now, take that philosophical model, and map it to the physical world. By bending space-time, one could travel from one side of the universe to the other less than a second. It would take light many billions of years to do the same thing!

Short answer: anything derived from an observation of time can be considered without limit. Speed is no exception.
 

Ekonk

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Apr 21, 2009
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Irridium said:
Ekonk said:
Irridium said:
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Except gossip and rumors, which seems to obey their own special rules.
Oh christ dammit dammit, is it Terry Pratchett or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Which one is it? I CAN'T TAKE THIS
Douglas Adams actually, so close enough.

And it turns out I remembered the quite wrong, here's the actual one:

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

Still, close enough.
Oh yeah, and some race tried making ships run on bad news, and they did in fact go faster than light, but nobody wanted them there when they arrived since they always brought bad news. I remember.
 

Vigormortis

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Nov 21, 2007
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Well, thing is Crunch, by bending space-time between point A and B, you are effectively shortening the distance an object has to travel. Now, from an outside observer's point of view (and only seeing the object when it leaves and arrives, as it would be unobservable while in that warped space), it would seem like it had traveled faster than the speed of light. However, when the object traverses that warped area of space, it's maximum speed in that space would be C, the speed of light. So, while bending space-time theoretically allows "faster-than-light" travel, the objects speed is still limited to C.

Another way to look at it is, as I stated before, when traversing the wormhole (area of bent space-time), the object didn't accelerate to or beyond the speed of light. It's simply traveling instantly at a speed greater than light. Which, coincidentally, is allowed in General Relativity.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Ekonk said:
Irridium said:
Ekonk said:
Irridium said:
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Except gossip and rumors, which seems to obey their own special rules.
Oh christ dammit dammit, is it Terry Pratchett or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Which one is it? I CAN'T TAKE THIS
Douglas Adams actually, so close enough.

And it turns out I remembered the quite wrong, here's the actual one:

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

Still, close enough.
Oh yeah, and some race tried making ships run on bad news, and they did in fact go faster than light, but nobody wanted them there when they arrived since they always brought bad news. I remember.
Hehe, great books they are.

I'm gonna go re-read them.