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From: skip@gatech.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Warp 1 on the NJ Tpk - (nf)
Message-ID: <1607@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Oct-83 08:24:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.1607
Posted: Mon Oct 17 08:24:32 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Oct-83 04:00:04 EDT
References: <2068@hp-pcd.UUCP>, <703@hou5d.UUCP>
Organization: Georgia Tech School of ICS, Atlanta
Lines: 21

I've got a BS in physics and have done a little bit of work in relativity,
both special and general.  I don't know if those are credentials or not,
but you are right about the speed of light being measured as c by both
GRANGER and DOPPL.  As to the question of my speeding down the turnpike
at speed c and turning on my lights:  The observer at the side of the
road would never see me do it because, in his reference frame, it will
take me an infinitely long time to do it.  So he will never see the first
photon leave, much less measure it's speed.  As for what I will observe,
I am no longer in the realm of taryons (sp? -- slower than light) so I
don't think of things as you do and the whole question doesn't make sense
to me.  
     By the way, I must have been born at the speed of light in order
to be going the speed of light.  Not only do the laws (but I never went to
law school) prohibit me from going faster than the speed of light, they
prohibit from actually attaining the speed of light, although I can get
arbitrarily close.  However things "born" at the speed of light can stay 
that way, and things "born" faster than the speed of light can also stay
that way.

-- Skip Addison  {emory,allegra}!gatech!skip