According to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity , the speed of light can never change —it’s always stuck at approximately 300,000,000 meters/second, no matter who’s observing it. This in itself is incredible enough, given that nothing can move faster than light, but it’s still very theoretical. The really cool part of Special Relativity is an idea called time dilation, which states that the faster you go, the slower time passes for you relative to your surroundings. Seriously—if you go take a ride in your car for an hour, you will have aged ever-so-slightly less than if you had just sat at home on the computer. The extra nanoseconds you get out of it might not be worth the price of gas, but hey, it’s an option. Of course, time can only slow down so much, and the formula works out so that if you’re moving at the speed of light, time isn’t moving at all. Now, before you go out and try some get-immortal-quick scheme, just note that moving at the speed of light isn’t actually possible, unless you happen to be made of light. Technically speaking, moving that fast would require an infinite amount of energy (and I for one don’t have that kind of juice just lying around).
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 14:33:12 +0000
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