if 2 objects could travel the speed of light & collided would they fuse together?
534703
If you're referring to a massive object, as opposed to a photon(which is massless), No.\n\nParticle accelerators routinely accelerate electrons or protons to around .99999c (c=the speed of light)and then have them collide with other particles traveling at similar speed. \n\nThe result is a shower of sub-atomic particles, called Quarks and Gluons.\n\nQuantum physicists are busy trying to sort-out this proliferation of particles.  Makes for a lot of PhD theses!
1151814
Yes but only to the person observing from one comet the speed of one is only relitive to the still space it occupies , but yes compared to the other it would appeare to go faster than the speed of light.
678688
It's not a yes or no question.\n\nCan one travel faster than the speed of light?  No.\n\nCan objects be moving away from each other at a relative rate faster than the speed of light?  Yes.\n\nMeditate upon this, and you may become enlighted, or enspeeded, or something...
436694
Technically no.  As you get closer and closer to the speed of light the weight of objects grows and grows so that eventually it will stop accelerating.\n\nOne thing that is possible is subspace, freespace, or wormhole travel, all of which are the same thing.  This is where space bends so that the distance is made shorter.  An example of this is traveling to the other side of the world.  You can go around the world, or you can go straight through the center (this is impossible), which distance is shorter.  To achieve subspace travel you must open up a big enough portal of quantum foam, or the space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons.  We can not currently do this because we do not have the ability to make cold fusion which is the only 'safe' way to supply enough power.  Navigation, however, is a completely other story.\n\nhope this helps answer your question.
93828
I think the hardest question ever asked was asked by a scientist.  This was the question, and it literally drove him insane thinking about it:  Two large metallic orbs are traveling towards each other on a collision course.  Both are indestructable, and nothing can divert them from their path in any way.  They can never stop moving on their path for any reason.  What would happen when they collide?  Neither can be moved from the path that they are traveling, they cannot be destroyed, and they can never stop moving.
999339
No, current accellerators can't support M theory, but in the near future they will, hopefully.\n\nWith reagards to faster than light travel, according to current theories, infinite force would be needed to accellerate any slower than light object to faster than light.  So we think that that would be impossible.\n\nLet's assume for a minute, though, that we could accellerate something, say an electron, faster than light.  It would cross the "time barrier" and begin to travel backwards in time.  As a particle (from rest) goes faster and faster, it's perception of time slows down.  When (and if) it hits the speed of light, time ceases to exist for it.  And when (and if again) it begins to go faster than light, it would travel backwards in time, very very fast.  As it went faster still, it would begin to travel more slowly backwards in time.\n\nAn electron travelling backwards in time, it turns out, is the same as a positron.  So to answer your question, if an electron were going faster than light, it would become a positron.  The same is true for any other particle, it will become its respective antiparticle.  Richard Feynman was the first to propose this idea.  He actually went so far as to suggest that all the electrons and positrons in the universe are actually just one single electron, travelling both forward and backwards in time a great number of times!
10713
no, only things traveling at speeds close to the speed of light experience the distortion of time.  Light itself doesn't have mass or anything, it's an electromagnetic wave.  And even if it did, time is only distorted for the thing thats moving at the high velocities, so you wouldn't ever know it.
163148
Nothing happens, the car lights will travel at the speed of light in comparasion to the car. This doesn`t mean that the lights will travel twice as fast, you cannot add this velocities without taking into account Lorentz equations.\n\nIs it deja-vou or is it the third time this question has been asked?
935501
Well theoretically you wouldnt be able to travel at the speed of light. At the speed of light yoru mass would become infinite and time would virtually stop for you. But at the speed of light the light would still be infront of you. Think of it this way if you are in a race and the runner directly infront of you is traveling at the same velocity as you you would neither fall behind nor would you catch up. So the light would be in front of you.
928008
The short answer is all objects with an initial "rest" mass become infinitely massive as their velocity approaches the speed of light.\n\nMost of the energy expended to make an already fast mover go faster, as it approaches the speed of light, goes mostly into increasing its relativistic mass and increasingly less into increasing its velocity. The formula for this is (which I suggest you graph to see what's happening):\n\nM = m / SQRT (1 - v^2/c^2), where M is the relativistic mass, m is the initial "rest" mass, v is the relative velocity, and c is the velocity of light.\n\nAs v approaches c, the their ratio approaches unity, 1 minus the square of their ratio approaches zero, the square root approaches zero, and the relativistic mass approaches infinity.\n\nThis doesn't come about because of theory. This is observation. The Special Theory of Relativity tries to explain what is observed.\n\nThe web site cited has an interactive Java applet that will let you plug in velocity to see how much the relativistic mass increases as an object approaches the speed of light.\n\nNow, if somehow an object were already going faster than the speed of light, it presumably would shed mass if it went even faster and move backwards in time. Tachyons were proposed as particles that could do this, but no one has ever observed a tachyon.\n\nAs for fighter jets, they can and do go a LOT faster than the twice the speed of sound, but no where near light speed.
122048
Peple I know you want the points, but can you please not just make up answers out of whole cloth like that?\n\n>>>>>Massive objects cannot go the speed of light.\n\nYeah, they can. They can't accellarate to the speed of light but they can be created at lightspeed and continue on.\n\n>>>>>> However if they could, no you could not see, becuase the light could not go furthur then the builbs at the front of your car\n\nNonsense. The speed of light is constant for all frames of reference. From the FOR of the bulbs the light would be seen travelling away from it at lightspeed. \n\n>>>> You'd be seeing the light go by your side.\n\nNo, you would not be seeing the light by your side. You would still be seeing all light in the universe travelling away form you or towards you at the speed of light, just as you do at your current velocity\n>>>>>The light would not shine out in front of you because you are going the same speed.\n\nIncorrect. Light always sines out in front at lightspeed in the observers FOR. It makes no difference if that FOR is stationary or lightspeed itself.\n\nYou quite obviously made that answer up.\n\nws, this question seems to get asked here every couple of days. You can go back and have a look and see it answered quite well several times.\n\nIn brief,\n\nLight is funny stuff. Light always travels at the same speed relative to you, it doens't matter how fast you travel. \n\nIf you are sitting still and a person is going past you at light speed you can both look at exactly the same light beam, and it will be travelling at lightspeed compared to both of you.\n\nIf you are going at lightspeed and turn on the headlights the light will move away fomr you at lightspeed. If it strikes something it will be refelected back at lightspeed. If someone is sitting completely still beside you he will also see that light move away form him at lightspeed, and get reflected back at lightspeed.\n\nIt's weird stuff light, it doesn't behave like anything else. The answer to any question that asks how fast light is moving towards you or away from you is always "lightspeed". It doesn’t matter what else we add to the question, the answer is always 'lightspeed".\n\nSo if the light leaves the bulbs at lightspeed and gets reflected back at lightspeed does that mean you could see?\n\nProbably not. \n\nAlthough light doesn't change speed relative to the observer it does change wavelength. The faster you travel towards a light source the bluer it will look. \n\nAny object that your headlights strike will reflect the light back to you at lightspeed, that's OK. But because you are travelling towards the object at lightspeed the light will be shifted way, way towards the blue end of the spectrum. It would all be ultraviolet an X-rays. The human eye simply can't see those wavelengths. So plenty of light would be reflected back, but it wouldn't be visible to you. As a result it would all look dark.\n\n\n>>>>> if the interior light inside your car was on at\n>>>>> the time would you see that?\n\nYes. Because both you and it are travelling at the same speed it woulnd't be red shifted at all. Similarly because you and the interior of the car are travelling at the same speed you would be able to see the light reflected off that just fine as well.\n\nEverything in the universe that is travelling as fast as you will look normal.Everything outside will appear black.
148002
It's technically impossible for something with mass (like a spacecraft) to go the speed of light in our universe under the laws of physics.  As something approaches the speed of light, it gains mass.  In theory, if something were to actually go the speed of light, it would have infinite mass, which is impossible.  \n\nOf course, no one can say for sure.  Science fiction on television and in books have gotten around these rules by using wormholes, subspace, etc., none of which are known to actually exist.
61325
the Flash @ speed of light ;)
1120914
I believe it would be instantaneous, but it's a fascinating question.  Perhaps the speed of light, because there are those who argue that gravity is another form of energy generally, and the whole "unified field" thing that I confess I do not understand at all.  \n\nI suppose part of the question is how the sun could "suddenly vanish" in the first place.  Would it in fact vanish instantaneously, or at the speed of light?  Even if it fell into a black hole, that would be an event, and events have a place in space/time.  That we would not know it had vanished until the light stopped coming to us some minute or two later (speed of light for 93 million miles), because of the light, then would gravity be following with that light?  The light is, after all, energy and therefore -- says Einstein -- matter, and that's what responds to gravity . . . \n\nGeeze, you make my head hurt with these puzzles.  I hope some really heavy-duty physicist takes a shot at this question!
336972
Wow, great question(s)!  You're brooding over something called the 'twin's paradox', read more about it in the link below.  Basically, what you're fretting over are a couple of the (wierd) implications of special (and general) relativity.  You (and what some others have said) are right, all velocity is relative, which comes from the simple fact that there is no special place that we can call 'still' which we could measure our velocity against.  The single exception to this lies in the speed of light, which is constant for everyone everywhere, no matter what their speed is relative to anything else.  (Note: light isn't special, the only reason it's able to travel at the upper speed limit is because it's particles, photons, have no mass.  Nothing with mass can ever travel AT the speed of light, only near if it is pumped up with huge amounts of energy.)  Think about the wierd implications of this; even if you were able to travel at 99.999999% the speed of light, and your friend would also be able to travel the same speed in the opposite direction, if you shined a light back toward your friend and could measure the photon's speed as they travelled between you the photons would STILL be travelling at the speed of light.  Ok, what does that mean?  The speed of light is just a speed, like any other, but is a constant that can not be exceeded.  Well, like any other speed, c (the usual symbol for the speed of light) is definded as the ratio of the distance travelled (call it 'x') by the time it took to travel it (call it 't'), or c=x/t.  But if 'c' can't change (because it's a constant) what is changing?  There's only two other things in the equation, x (the distance, a measure of space) and t.  Time and space enter into Einstien's equations here, the only way to keep c constant is for x and t to somehow collaborate to change together to make it so.  This is why time (and space) are so 'relavent' to velocity.  And as a matter of fact, time is 'relavent' to gravity as well, as Einstein pointed out so much better than I can.  For Einstein, the breakthrough came when he realized that there is no measurable way to distinguish between gravity and acceleration (a.k.a. the rate of change of velocity with respect to TIME), or more importantly, between the lack of gravity (say a person floating in space) and a particle (or person) in a falling box, they're indistinguishable.  From these two simple ideas (the constancy of c, and the equivalence of gravity and acceleration) Einstein formulated the theory of general relativity, one of the crowning achievements of human thought.  You ask good questions, keep wondering!
214684
No massive object can move at the speed of light, so the question is ill-posed. Sorry.\n\nAs a physicist, please let me give you a little advice: don't loose your time with this nonsense, try instead to focus on the mathematics of the relativity theory, that's the way to understand it. The rest is pseudo-science.
1128096
If you want an answer based on the known theories or experiments... they all will fail on the very assumption of something moving at speed greater than speed of light.\n\nBut in principle.... if something like that can be done.. it would be possible if not clearly see.. but record such events.\n\nMicrowave Background Radiation (if you have ever heard off) are the signatures of what must have happened at time of birth of universe i.e. just after big bang.