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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Speed of Light and beyond
Message-ID: <5602@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 16-May-85 13:05:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5602
Posted: Thu May 16 13:05:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 13:05:01 EDT
References: <1776@mordor.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20

> I know this is impossible, but what would happen if...
> 
> A ship could exceed the speed of light?  When the space shuttle crosses the
> sound barrier, there is a sonic boom.  If it were possible to cross the
> "light barrier", what phenomenon would result?

A lot of heart attacks in the physics community, for one. :-)

More seriously, as I recall it, the basic answer to this from relativity
(if we ignore tachyons, which are a messy case) is "does not compute".
Faster-than-light speeds involve logical contradictions (notably, loss of
the normal cause-and-effect relationship) according to special relativity.
This being the case, the theory basically cannot give coherent predictions
about such a situation.

I'd be very interested to hear this contradicted by somebody who knows
more about the subject...
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry