if nothing travels faster than light how is it according to big bang theory  did all matter accelerate into all of the observable universe in a trilonth of a second. this would require matter to travelmany millons of times the speed of light since most of the observable univers is millions of light years away
201298
This period of "inflation" is one of the big mysteries in cosmology right now.  We have a pretty good idea that something like it happened, but we don't really know how or why.  The timing of the period of inflation fits with the timing of any grand unified theory breaking down, so it may be a result of a symetry breaking of the universe.\n\nThe theories are getting better, but inflation is still one of the toughest topics to try and get a handle on, as the timescales and energies really are at (and even) over the hairy edge of what we know and can comfortably call physics.
71168
Some scientists think you'll just wind up on the other side of the same universe. Especially if Universe is curved inwards or outwards. Like walking around a beach ball, you'll wind up where you started. Or if universe is"flat", you'll just wind up on the other side of the universe. Kind of like a video game screen, there is no such thing as the edge.\n\nAlso universe may be much bigger than 13.7 billion light years away. It may be so big that light from the "edge" will never reach us as universe is expanding and in fact accelerating. The edege of the universe may be expanding faster than the speed of light because of the accelerating expantion.I know you are thinking nothing can travel faster than speed of light, but exception to this rule may be that universal expantion can travel faster than speed of light. \n\nIt's weird, but that's what they say.
6776
According to the lorentz transformation the space time coordinate of two inertial reference frame moving at a relative speed v along x axis is\nx'=(x-v*t)/L\ny'=y \nz'=z\nt'=(t-v*x/c^2)\nwhere L is lorentz factor=sqrt(1/(1-v^2/c^2));\n\nThe tricky thhing is this if any object moves faster than light the L of above equation will become imaginary.\nSo for an observer the proper time t' and the relativistic mass m=Lm0 becomes imaginary...\n Thus it cannot be faster than light.\nHowever theoritically there exist tachyon particles which moves in superluminal(faster than light)  velocity with imaginary proper time.\n But those crazy physix!!!
318147
Nothing can travel faster than light. Your question is a good one and it relies on a nuance of relativity. Einstein stated that nothing can travel THROUGH space faster than the speed of light. The universe recession speeds have nothing to do with moving through space. We observe the universe receeding because SPACE is expanding faster than the speed of light. It is like a balloon being inflated. Since space itself is not limited by the theory of relativity no contradiction occurs I hope that helped.\n\nTo the person who mentioned black holes, these do not in any way prove that einstein was wrong. Follow me here it may get confusing. Light travels through space at the speed of light. A black hole is an entity so massive that it infinitely warps spacetime. So as light is moving through space it comes to this infinitely deep hole. The light follows the contour of space into the black hole. And because of the extreme force and curvature the light cannot escape.\n\nEinstein has been tested hundreds of times and every time it has stood up to the test. Another key aspect of his theory that you should know that light is not relative. If a car is driving 20 miles per hour and the headlights are on the light goes away from the car at light speed and a person standing on the curb will also see the light moving away at light speed. The speed of light is completely independent of reference point and that is why it makes the ultimate reference point
211982
Greetings,\n\nKinda outta my league, but perhaps the link I posted can be of some use to you.\n\nDiscover had an article last year about a couple of inflation cosmology theorists who believed the speed of light, while constant now, was not constant in the very early universe, it was in fact slower.  Not sure about all that, but thought you might want to go digging for the article.\n\n-matt
556925
The only thing that can travel at the speed of light is light. So basically yes.
13170
It is not possible for any particle that has mass to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason has a lot to do with relativity. Because the faster you go, the slower time passes for you. So if you are at 80% of the speed of light, and launch a projectile in front of you at light speed, because of your slow passage through time, it will still appear to you to travel at light. Everything is relative, and because of that, certain constants like the speed of light never change.\n\nAlso, a particle with mass would achieve infinite weight at light speed. Since you can't obviously exceed infinite weight, you can't exceed light.\n\nThe ideas behind things like "warp speed" don't propose actually traveling faster than light. What they propose is taking shortcuts through space, kind of like skipping a stone across the surface of the water. Even "warp speed" is subject to the laws of relativity.
437498
It is exactly that question that inspired Einstein to formulate his theory that nothing can ever travel faster than light. I am not saying the Einstein had a goal to make a theory saying nothing can travel faster than light. I am saying that the question made him think about how to explain what would happen in such a case and then the math lead him to a theory of motion in general which says nothing can travel faster than light.
66960
>>>>why can nothing excede the speed of light?\n\nLots of things can and do exceed the speed of light.\n \nNo information or mass can exceed the speed of light. Why? Because the speed of light is our one reference point. If anything exceeded the speed of light it would arrive at its destination BEFORE it was sent.\n\nIt's exactly like recieving a letter the day before it is written. It's impossible and  it makes no real sesne to ask why it can't happen. Cause has to preceed effect.\n\n>>>>if radio waves are slower than light\n\nRadio waves are just electromagnetic radiation. They travel at lightspeed just like all other EMR.\n\n>>>>>then wouldnt gama and X rays be faster?\n\nNo, they also travel at C. They just have higher freqencies.\n\n>>> or do all waves travel at the same speed and the light >>> part is just a term\n\nWaves have all sorts of speeds. \nOcean waves travel at variable speeds, often les than 10  kms.hr. \nSound waves travel at a bit over 1000km/hr. \nLight waves travel at the speed of light.\n\n_______________\nInfinity said:"By the way, the quote "Lots of things can and \n>>>>>>do exceed the speed of light" is entirely false.\n\nI really, really wish people would do some basic research before attempting to adress points they clearly don't understand.\n\nThe expansion of the universe itself is faster than the speed of light (see the link below).\n\nAnd as wd5gnr and Hound both said it is perfectly possible for non-information bearing events to propagate faster than lightspeed. We recently had an in depth discussion on the experiments which have managed to produce pahse vlocities hundreds of times faster than light.\n\nAnd of course there are many many other events that travel at speeds well in excess of C.\n\nReally Infinity, you should at least take the time to do some research before correcting others. It saves you embarassment of this kind. More importantly it prevents you misleading others and spreading your ignorance.
517315
Well theoretically you wouldnt be able to travel at the speed of light. At the speed of light yoru mass would become infinite and time would virtually stop for you. But at the speed of light the light would still be infront of you. Think of it this way if you are in a race and the runner directly infront of you is traveling at the same velocity as you you would neither fall behind nor would you catch up. So the light would be in front of you.
303300
Just one doubt about your  theory,how do you know that only one big bang has taken place as you say that a second one is coming up???And tell me how you would accelerate something to the speed of light as the mass would become infinite.\nAnd according to your theory the total energy in the universe will go on increasing.You are stuck in a viscious circle!!!
324937
The universe, from your reference frame, would be length contracted into a single plane perpendicular to your direction of motion, thus enabling you to cross it by traveling no distance. Time for you would be stopped completely, thus you would travel this no distance in no time, at a speed of precisely c in your reference frame (light does that in every reference frame), despite the fact that by definition you are stopped in your own reference frame. Every other light ray would also travel at c in your reference frame and so would pass you in a finite period of time, except time would never move forward and so it wouldn't actually go anywhere. If you looked outside at the infinitesimally thin slice of universe, you would find that the area no distance ahead of your light ray is in the future of the origin (as viewed from any valid reference frame) and the area no distance behind it would be in the past. The beam you are riding on would have no frequency and would appear as a constant electric or magnetic field. Since the beam you are riding on is still traveling at c, it would therefore have infinite wavelength and so the field in question would permeate out to infinite distance in front of and behind you - not that it matters because there is no universe in either place. Speaking of the universe, every particle in it would appear to you to be infinitely massive and the universe would thus collapse on itself infinitely fast, if only there were time for it to do so.\n\nBy the way, there is a reason the speed of light is not considered a valid reference frame in special relativity. This is it.
397466
Nowhere in the Big Bang theory it says that before it there was nothing. Basically because the big bang theory does not study what caused it and what was before it.\n\nSo your whole statement is wrong from its basis. The thermodynamic laws where not there before the big bang. Matter and energy and laws that govern it are for this universe we live in and experience daily and did not start to apply to only a few fractions of a second after the big bang. \n\nJust an addition for Mr Drummer boy below.\n\nWhen you start going back to far, things become fuzzy. The physical laws we’re all familiar with start to break down under such high energy densities. Really weird stuff starts to happen, like different fundamental forces ceasing to exist and merging with one another.\n\nThanks to work in particle accelerators, which can recreate such high energy densities for brief fractions of a second, we’re starting to get a feel for how physical laws operate under these conditions, and thus, are slowly working our way backwards. But there comes a point where we just don’t have a good enough handle on things to be able to say how things work back to pretty early (10-35 seconds), but things were happening so fast and furiously, there’s still a long ways to go before we can uncover what happened to cause the whole mess.\n\n\nWe only now start to see what was like in the very few fractions of the second after the big bang and there is plenty of evidence in the universe that something like that took place.\n\nOh by the way I cannot believe that you are a physics major and wrote to us that 10 to the minus 43 is .10000000000... which is obviously equal to 0.1 - 10 to the minus 43 is 0.000000000000000000000(42 zeros)1. If you got a physics major I am an astronaut.
285974
No there is no 'summation' of speeds involved with light.  Light is Electro-Magnetic Energy, although light travels as particles as well as waves.  In this Universe the speed of light is a constant, roughly 186,000 miles-per-second, or 300,000 km/sec or 300 Mega-Metres / sec.  Unless some POWERFUL external force acts upon light, it cannot change speed.  This entails the gravity of black-holes and such. (Not even light can escape from them.)\n\nA vehicle might weigh somewhere in the neighbor-hood of 3,300 lbs. (Approximately 1,500 Kg, for those of you who have not learned to count properly, just yet ...)\nCheck out da' math ...\n\n60mph = 100 kmph = 27.77r mps. \n(1,500 Kg x 27.77r mps) / 9.81 mps = ~ 4,246 N\n\nI doubt, very seriously, that a little over 4,000 Newtons is enough force to even put a dent in the factor of light-speed.  For more info, look-up Einstein's Theory of Realtivity' (Although I believe 90% of it to be short-sighted ancient crap ...)  This subject is covered in it ...\n(umm covered in Einstein's Theory, not copvered in crap .. which err .. is the same thing at times ...
469691
That is what science is trying to figure out.\n\nOne theory is that all matter and energy exploded in a Big Bang from a point particle or singularity.\n\nHowever, current technology prevents us from going back to time zero or the origin of the universe. At a point in time (just s tiny fraction of a second before the Big Bang) all laws of physics break down and yields meaningless answers.\n\nThere are several other theories as well. Another thought (that has been largely abandoned) is that the universe was continually expanding, in cycles, from a Big Bang to a Big Crunch.\n\nThere is another theory that the universe is constantly folding over on itself, continuously annihilating and creating itself.\n\nAnd in quantum physics, the is a concept which even suggest that reality, all of human experience, may be nothing short of a personal subjective concept without substance at all.\n\nQuantum physics is a mysterious world that suggests that many of our concepts are too limited and that there are worlds we can't even imagine (parallel universes, many worlds, branes, dimensions, steady state, etc.)\n\nOur knowledge and understanding of the universe is akin to the knowledge and understanding that an ant has of the world economy.
340897
According to Mark McCutcheon who sort of justifies why Einstein’s Theories of Relativity are flawed, and according to his Expansion Theory of the Universe, here is what he says in his book The Final Theory:\n\n“Warp speed has been within our grasp ever since the early days of the space program. We simply have not achieved it because we haven't tried, and we haven't tried because Special Relativity Theory said we couldn't – and we believed it. All that is required is continuous acceleration from an extended fuel burn; a spaceship would accelerate faster and faster as its fuel burns, just as common sense tells us it should. The spaceship will not undergo a mysterious "relativistic mass increase" as it increases in speed, it will not need to burn more and more fuel to compensate for such "mass increase," and it will not have any special difficulty approaching or exceeding the light-speed "barrier." ”\n\nNow, you can imagine the implications for these particle accelerators which apparently cannot accelerate particles at speeds beyond the speed of light because their weight or relativistic mass reaches infinity. McCutcheon states:\n\n“The "energy" used to accelerate the particles is supplied by electromagnets that are timed to pulse as the particles pass by, giving them a boost. However, as shown in the previous chapter, a magnetic field is actually a cloud of expanding electrons. If each pulse sends a cloud of electrons expanding toward the passing particles at the speed of light to give them a push from behind, it is not surprising that the particles are accelerated less and less as they speed by faster and faster. As the particles approach light-speed they would be shooting past almost as rapidly as the electron clouds would be expanding behind them. The expanding electron clouds would barely be able to catch up with the particles as they pass, and so, would only be able to give them a tiny additional boost that gets smaller still as the particles get even closer to light speed.”\n\n“Increasing the energy input simply means producing denser electron clouds from the pulsing magnets, which improves the efficiency of each boost (makes each push more solid) but does not increase the speed of expansion of these electron clouds. Therefore, as ever more energy is put into the system, the passing particles receive ever more solid nudges toward light-speed but still can never exceed the speed of light since this is the limit of the speed boosts. This need not be considered as validation of the mysterious "relativistic mass increase" concept of Special Relativity Theory, but merely as an expected result once the true nature of magnetic fields is understood.”\n\nAnd yet, we’re going to create micro-singularities soon, or micro black holes, in the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2007. So we’re going to accelerate the particles even closer to the speed of light, and that will be enough? Who knows...
186537
Well the answer comes with the Einsteins theory of relativity. Time is relative IE. it changes with respect to everybody. to explain in better way you have to first understand that speed of light is absolute. Suppose u are driving a car with a Friend in the same direction parallel to your Friend. if your speed is 10kmph and your Friend's is 20kmph then your Friends seed will be only 10 kmph with respect to you. However it does not happens with light. Suppose you are driving car with 150000000 m/s in the direction parallel to light and seed of light is 300000000 m/s then also speed of light remains the same with respect to you. In this case you will feel that time has slowed down. in this case for you 1 second will become 2 seconds. and if u travel with speed of light for you 1 second will become infinite second and time will stop for you