OT: Faster than the speed of light?
So I found this question and it really interested me especially after watching Interstellar. Can someone answer this for me? I'd like to build a time machine by going faster than the speed of light.
If I built a railroad track that circled the earth in a straight line, then put a train on that track so long that the first car could connect to the last car (making a full circle around the world). This train can go 100 mph. This train also has a set of tracks on top of it with another train (that circles the world) riding on them, this other train can go 100 mph, so relative to the ground it is going 200mph. This 2nd train also has a set of tracks on top of it with another train on them that can go 100mph, and so on and so on...
when we get thousands of trains out one of the trains eventually reaches the speed of light and it can no longer go faster, but the train that is on top of that one would just be standing still? It would only have to be able to move itself at 1mph to be going faster than the speed of light. Each train relative the the one below it only needs to move incrementally faster, what happens to train above the one that reaches the universal speed limit?
DISCUSS & HARBAUGH
EDIT: Let's assume the trains are powered by Dilithium extracted from Denard. Sorry Denard.
This is a real question I have though and there are some smart people on here. Also, NEVER. Observe my tags.
I think that this would pose a risk to migratory bird species. I'm shutting you down.
What if the trains were made of koalas?
one of the koalas was pulling a train?
Yeah, I just don't think this can be done. How could somebody build a train track going around the entire circumfrence of the earth. This just does not sound possible. There are oceans, lakes, streams, creeks, rivers, canals, ponds, swamps, reservoirs, puddles, bays, lagoons, moats, gulfs, estuaries, fjords, seas, streams as well as hills, moutains, canyons, peaks, mounds, buttes, dunes not to mention all of the different types of forests (too many to mention!). This would all stand in they way of getting this project even started.
Just look at the Caspian Sea for example, how do you build a railroad across that!?
Or what about a moat and hill combination such as this. It looks easy but I bet it's a lot of hard work.
And if so, Barry Allen, or Wally West?
The only time I've seen bigger trains than this was the one we ran on your mom
My mom was actually killed by a passenger train passing through our Eucalyptus grove. So thanks for saying this.
He made you eat fast?
You talking to me?
Oh I see . . . Well that's gross that you would do that to an animal. Almost all Koalas have STDs. It's an epidemic. Enjoy your Chlamydia!
Jokes on you I already have it!
but . . . you still F****** a koala.
I heard they got the bomb p***y.
Heard one time that if a baseball were to be thrown at 9/10 the speed of light it would cause an explosion about the size of an atomic bomb. Googled and found something on it...
Pretty sure a train going anywhere near that fast would cause the earth to explode.
But if the train leaves the station at 1:00pm, what color are Harbaugh's pants?
A) Khaki
B) Khaki
C) Khaki
D) All of the above
If I ever get a chance to write tests I'm going to switch things up and use "All of the Below" instead of "All of the Above"
For Example:
A.) All of the Below
B.) Khaki
C.) Khaki
D.) Khaki
the sort of anarchical hi-jinxs I'd expect from Bill the Butcher.
B) Khaki
C) Khaki
D) 42
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Ah interesting. Didn't think of this. Thank you.
Theoretically, anyway
is smarter than your average koala bear.
Interstellar was a great movie. Damnit, if I just can't make it through the whole thing without shedding some tears. But I am not sure how that movie made you think of stacking trains on top of each other.
Good luck with that though.
It was. But when the thread started talking about trains going around the world I figured he was heading for the Snowpiercer angle.
Pro-tip - stay away from car #6.
the bar car?
Well it talked about the time lost when you approach a black hole and so I was thinking about how one could time travel back in time and thought I read somewhere you would have to go faster than the speed of light. What better way to travel than by train!?!
Yeah, but going back in time is way harder then going forward in time. When they were on the planet close to the blackhole, they did not lose time at all. Sure he lost time to spend with his family, but he was actually gaining time or traveling forward in time in respect to the people on earth. While only around 2 hours passed to the people on that alien planet, 23 Earth years passed.
The amount of energy needed to accelerate something increases as the speed increases; it's harder to add one mph to an object when you're travelling at 5000 miles per hour than it is at 50 miles per hour.
As you approach the speed of light, the amount of energy you would need to accelerate approaches infinity. So not only would the outer train not exceed the speed of light, it wouldn't even get close (even in a universe where we're ignoring the physics of thousands of trains stacked on top of each other).
Harbaugh.
This is the actual correct answer. There is no absolute speed for the trains as it changes based on what frame of reference you are measuring the speed from.
Also it will never be measured as faster than the speed of light due to time dilation.
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I am Ph.D. physicist at Caltech. This is absolutely the correct response.
Basically what I'm getting at is the energy expended is equivalent to the energy required to get all of the trains from 0 to 100 mph, not for one of them to get to the speed of light.
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