Traveling at the speed of light paradox?

[md65536]

Huh? Negative interval squared (imaginary interval) just means more (real) distance than (real) time. At no point did I suggest distance squared would be negative.

Putting an imaginary number in x, y, or z is has no meaning that I can think of without further context.

Oops I got stuck thinking of real spacetime intervals with imaginary distance. But I've long left behind knowing what I'm talking about, so I'll leave this thread until I figure some of it out.

[Schrödinger's hat]

Oops I got stuck thinking of real spacetime intervals with imaginary distance. But I've long left behind knowing what I'm talking about, so I'll leave this thread until I figure some of it out.

 

Hahah, so have I somewhat -- as of the last post. Which is why I suggested moving to speculations earlier.

[questionposter]

Wait a minute, people are talking about that stretch dilation when something moves nearly the speed of light, but why doesn't that happen in particle accelerators? Why doesn't a proton stretch to be 20 kilometers wide or etc?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Wait a minute, people are talking about that stretch dilation when something moves nearly the speed of light, but why doesn't that happen in particle accelerators? Why doesn't a proton stretch to be 20 kilometers wide or etc?

It's length contraction that occurs, and it does happen in particle accelerators; the particles or atoms being accelerated to high speed seem to "flatten" into thin pancakes.

[Schrödinger's hat]

Wait a minute, people are talking about that stretch dilation when something moves nearly the speed of light, but why doesn't that happen in particle accelerators? Why doesn't a proton stretch to be 20 kilometers wide or etc?

We were trying to talk about things moving faster than c.

As there's no situation which could result in moving faster than c (barring some strange stuff in certain varieties of string theory that I have absolutely no comprehension of other than it is the reason people prefer different varieties of string theory to these ones) we had to make up a step and then try and see what happens.

The step I made up was as close as I could think of to the suggestion you made (suddenly jumping to faster than c from a speed the same amount lower).

 

I then followed the same logic that leads to other results in SR (such as the derivation of length contraction) and came up with the conclusion that things moving faster than c would be all stretched (but in a very weird way) and other kinds of strange stuff.

 

Bear in mind this is purely speculation. It is restricted and informed by what I know of SR, but does not represent anything I (or anyone I know of) believe to be related to actual physical events.

 

It's length contraction that occurs, and it does happen in particle accelerators; the particles or atoms being accelerated to high speed seem to "flatten" into thin pancakes.

 

This part is the science, and it is observed.