Question

I'm riding a rocket in space and going at the speed of light. I have a tennis ball in my hand, I throw it forward, will the ball exceed the speed of light?

Answer 1

Nope. Relativity.

Answer 2

So, when I have the ball inside of my hand and doing the throw movement, during the swing of my arm, the ball is ALREADY going faster than the speed of light, explain.

Answer 3

You're talking as though physics at the speed of light can be accurately analogized to physics in normal conditions. That is not really the case.

Answer 4

It's important to remember that you can't actually travel the speed of light. The concept of limits is useful here. Your speed can approach the speed of light, but it cannot reach it.

Answer 5

yea but explain the question

Answer 6

you are just avoiding to answering it

Answer 7

I already answered the question, the answer to the question is no. If I'm not doing a good job of explaining that answer, it is because relativity is not the easiest thing to explain :P

Answer 8

yea but, i'm asking, during the swing, is the ball traveling faster than light?

Answer 9

Here's a good analogy for you. The speed of light has been compared to the north pole, in that when you're at the north pole it is impossible to go any farther north. So, your question is basically, if you're standing at the north pole and throw a tennis ball north, where does it go?

Answer 10

I know what you're asking, and the answer is still no.

Answer 11

so you are saying that I won't even do the swing movement at all

Answer 12

as my hand is traveling faster than light

Answer 13

No, I'm saying that you can't be going the speed of light to begin with, so your question is not really well-defined, but that regardless of how you define the question, you cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

Answer 14

it's an hypothetical question...

Answer 15

Even hypothetical questions must be well-founded to have good answers. Your question makes impossible assumptions, which is why it seems confusing.

Answer 16

Remember, the speed of light is a limit, you can approach it, you cannot reach it. So you cannot be traveling the speed of light to begin with.

Answer 17

ok imagine this: if you are inside of a very big spaceship, the spaceship is a closed system, and it's traveling at the speed of light. You, who are inside of the spaceship, are running. The question is: will you be able to run?
1) Because if you are, well you are traveling faster than light
2) If you aren't, what will happen, will you just stuck there and not being to move forward at all?

Answer 18

to delete your confusion, let's say the ship not traveling at the speed of light, it's traveling 1m/s slower than light, and you are running at 2m/s

Answer 19

As your speed approaches the speed of light, your relativistic mass increases, approaching infinity. So yeah, you would become unable to move because you wouldn't have enough energy to move that amount of mass.

Answer 20

how can my mass grow infinite, I have the same number of atom no matter what do I do

Answer 21

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence

Answer 22

you can't create something out of nothing, thus mass can't increase, it stays the same

Answer 23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_mass
Relativistic mass is not quite the same as normal mass.

Answer 24

Doesn't matter it's the same as normal mass or not, if the normal mass changes, then that's impossible, because we are creating something out of nothing. If the normal mass doesn't change, well answer the question again

Answer 25

I would recommend finding a good textbook on special and general relativity, this is not the kind of stuff that it is easy to just figure out in your head.

Answer 26

yea I guess, thanks anyway

Answer 27

which grade are you in?

Answer 28

I am not in school.

Re-reading this stuff, having not studied it in a while, I think that you would be able to run and throw a ball in a spaceship that was traveling near the speed of light, but time would be dilated so that the ball would not travel faster than the speed of light. So basically, if you're traveling 1m/s slower than the speed of light, and you throw the ball, it would travel slower than 1m/s, though it would appear to travel faster than that in your reference frame because time for you is dilated.

I'm a mathematician moreso than a physicist though, so I've never been really well-versed in this stuff.

Answer 29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_special_relativity <- decent place to start

Answer 30

If the ship is traveling 1m/s slower than light, and you are running at 2m/s inside of the spaceship, will you be able to do it?

Answer 31

I'd say yes, because the reference point for you is the ship, and the ship for you, is not moving at all

Answer 32

It will seem like you're running 2m/s from your reference frame, but from the reference frame of an observer you will be running much much slower than that because your time will be very dilated.

Answer 33

for the ball time and space will dilate :)

Answer 34

its max V will be C=speed of light