One of the most counterintuitive facts of our universe is that you can’t go faster than the speed of light. From this single observation arise all of the mind-bending behaviors of special relativity. But why is this so? In this in-depth video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln explains the real reason that you can’t go faster than the speed of light. It will blow your mind.
The was a woman named Bright Who flew at the speed of light She went out one day, in a relative way And came back the previous night.
From a good book 😂
Bravo
To her friends said the Bright one in chatter, “I’ve learned something new about matter. “For because of my rate, “Much increased was my weight, “Yet I failed to become any fatter!”
There was a young fencer named Fisk Whose speed was exceedingly brisk: So fast was his action That Fitzgerald contraction Foreshortened his foil to a disc.
@william rivera This is not true, she couldn't have flown faster than the speed of light, since it's impossible, so it must be "THERE WAS A WOMAN NAMED BRIGHT, WHO FLEW OUT THE WINDOW SLOWER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT. SHE SOON LEARNED SHE COULDN'T FLY AND SHE NEVER CAME BACK HOME BECAUSE SHE DIED THE PRIOR NIGHT."
In the faster than light world, everyone says you can't go slower than light.
They have gotten photon to go slower then light and even stand still in the lab via a strong magnetic field On the other hand they have yet to catch a tachion (?) In those giant pools of water
According to this video you can't go slower than the speed of light in this world either.
Actually - that would be true. Google fodder is "tachyon" - which is a theoretical particle that, if it existed, would exist faster than light and the same rules would apply. It could not slow down *to* the speed of light just as we cannot accelerate to that speed.
@Voices of Music That's actually a hella W O K E comment man. Although, it can ONLY be argued if you are said to exist in such a state if you in a relatively stable state of energy or at a undetermined gain vs time spent there. I think there exists a base measurement to go by for the energy gain value required to maintain faster than light speeds and subsequently a factor for acceleration (I suspect it be a runaway value; because of the principle that our universe is not said to be gaining energy.).
einstein says a particle cannot be "accelerated" from less that the speed of light to faster than the speed of light.. however a particle could such as a tachyon theoretically could be "born" traveling faster than the speed of light.
Both the notion of space-time and the abstraction explained here are mathematical tools to better illustrate and package the concepts contained in the theory of relativity. Even though I appreciate the simplicity they bring to the subject, it is perhaps a bit of a misrepresentation to claim that an abstraction constructed to simplify the concept is the reason that the concept works in the first place. To expand a bit on the topic discussed in this video, I should say that we have no notion of the speed at which we move through time so to say that when we are at rest then we move through time at the speed of light is an artificial idea that makes sense only in the context of trying to find a framework to make sense of relativity, and so to claim this constructed concept explains why you can't go faster than light seems wrong. Neither spacetime nor the Minkowsky abstraction explain relativity but rather are mathematical abstractions to simplify visualizing the consequences of relativity.
Smitty , brilliant !!!!! Our thinking is evolving ....
I missed a large chunk of this at the start when I read the email, "I am a Nigerian Prince"......just lost it slowly but surely.....thank you for that Sir!....(..& G'Day from Bunbury , West Australia). Keep up the excellent work....clarity is much appreciated!
Einstein's girlfriend, "I need two things from u space&time Einstein-"Okay what's second"
That's only a rumor...
Damn. Savage.
Fall in love with physics 😏
Einstein replied: Wait a second... I'm busy bending time!!
I think this request from his girlfriend prompted Einstein to think of SPACETIME and not space&time.
0:54 So y'all not gonna talk about the Nigerian Prince in the e mails? 😂😂😂😂😂😂
or the blasphemer who said Einstein was so very wrong?
It must really suck for an actual Nigerian prince trying to use email
WTH! I was thinking the same😂
Hi, I'm a Nigerian Prince and I discovered this new theory of everything. Pls send moneys so that I can go public! Thanks.
The Nigerian prince email is the only sane thing in that inbox. Fraudulent, of course, but sane. 😄
Sir, THANK YOU!! I find this topic very hard to understand.... Or did, until I came across your video. You've made it so easy to understand, and I find it intriguing. Thank you so much! 🙌🙏
I wanna say thank you so much for saying this in a clear way, I ve seen some videos on this and they couldn't really explain it well to me
0:55 "Alpha Centauri is easy" "The New Einstein" "Relativity is an Illuminati plot" "I am a Nigerian prince" LOL
The Nigerian prince is awesome. He gave me $1000000.
To be fair, Alpha Centauri is only a few centuries or even decades of travel away if we can get to relativistic speeds, compared to some of the other stars out there, that’s easy.
All geniuses in a single row😆
"Epstein didnt kill himself" would have been funny
“I am a Nigerian prince” in your email. Nice 😂
And so
And so
And so
And so
And so
By far the best and simplest explanation of relativity and the connection of space and time I have heard. He knows how to get to the core of the subject. Good job! I have become a fan!
fanboy
Why didn't anyone ever explain this to me? Seriously, it took him 8 minutes. I'm seventy f##king one and no one has explained this little fundamental, essential piece about motion through spacetime to me before. Suddenly a lot of other things are much clearer. Damn. Thanks, Prof Lincoln, you're a star!
I am exactly in the same boat as nycbeaff. Thanks Doc...
When you hear "just trust me on this" you know quantum physics is being discussed.
but quantum mechanics was not involved. Causality is what drives both quantum mechanics and relativity. that's why you see people say "just trust me on this" in both cases.
no, what you hear is are physicists trying to explain difficult concepts to laymen without spending months education them. A video that simplified the concept you are asked to accept would be hours long and would lose most viewers very quickly. So before you make snide remarks, which 25 other people like, be sure you know what you are talking about. Here is my retort, given at the same level as yours. "When you read comments like the one above, you can be sure it is coming from a non-scientist who is ignorant of the basic concepts of physics." Now you know what it is like to be insulted.
@@wayneyadams offended by an idiot
@@wayneyadams a. its not offensive if my/our comments appear as "obviously not from someone with a physics background". It is an observation and an accurate one at that. b. rather than ranting about what someone else didn't do, like spend on education, try to focus on what YOU can do if you ARE someone with a physics background, like try and point us to blogs/papers/courses/lectures that have more formal descriptions.
@Abacus false; no ones gives a shit about what you have to say. I was actually interested. But hey maybe thats why only your mom subscribes to your channel.
I am 55 years old and your explanation / analogy of the why we can travel faster than the speed of light was the best I have ever heard. Your caveat concerning the shortcomings of the analogy were most helpful as well.
who cares. how will this impact your actual life.
Some people are enriched by education and knowledge.
This is mostly just BS and old info. Its proven now that one can go way faster than light. This is just old religious talk with old science from the past.
And why can aliens run faster than light? Could it not be that our conscience is 💩?
what does your age got to do with anything?
Its Good to see the many responses to this topic !!!!!😀 . Its through discussion of ideas that we refine our theories . Its strengths and weaknesses .
Outstanding! This was a very nice, and simple to understand, high level explaination for why we can't move faster than the speed of light. Although you didn't get into some of the more intriguing and exotic characteristics of this question, I appreciate how well you were able to convey this information so fast, efficiently, and understandable to anyone. I'll look forward to viewing your other video presentations.
My bicycle can't go faster than light because it's two-tired.
Glen Hunt rofl good one
lol
You shouldn't have spokeN like that.
I dont get it
Glen Hunt tyred
The conclusion seemed to be, you can't go faster than the speed of light because the speed of light is the fastest you can go.
By sight
Kinda, but not really, it was more akin to, that "you can't go faster than light because at that point there is no more time movement to trade for space movement"
@@GummieI "True",and the sound barrier wouldn't be broken but it was so 43 million a second at the speed of "Sight",a man would be in Sun Orbit in half to second and half like I did in 1980 on the Indian Ocean at sunset.Alfonso Cantu
No, what he is saying is, you can't go faster than the the speed of light is because its the upper limit of our space time continum, or another way of saying it is, Universal speed limit. Its interesting to note that towards the end of the video, he said physicist don't know why the limit is there.
@@vsh137 This is simply a proposal without a conclusion
It took me a long time to get this one, but it blew my mind once I got it! Thank you!
This was way more clear than most of the fancy flashy pop science channels. Thanks
Love the "I am a Nigerian Prince" cameo in the gmail inbox! 0:55
I only came here for this comment 😂
No it is ME
Haha
Ahhhh 🤔 So that's why when I go for an hour long run, time only shows 5 minutes have gone by
Everything enlarges at that speed also
Lmao
@@radkonpsygami7634 I bet you're fun at parties
lol! I know this is a humorous statement, but I like inputting so bear with me pls. Firstly, that statement refers to perceived or internal timekeeping, which is notoriously horrible for humans lol. Secondly, the velocity you would need to travel at to even vaguely perceive time dilation or contraction would be way past what a human body could bear lol, but run away flash!
I now think I understand why my one-hour physics lectures used to last eight hours.
This is by far the most visualized and easy to interpret explanation of time dilation and why time cannot be exceeded and it explains the deeper reason behind. Most of the explanations I got is just mass increases and cannot be infinite. In my opinion, speed of light is like video game’s pixel loading speed
The clearest explanation yet. I was blind and now I see. After hearing you everything else just fell into place. Thank you
The email part has to be fake...it's so perfect This guy is better at making memes than all of us
Metric Snobbery is a real trope because they think they have it all figured out. lmao = No appreciation for measurement history.
Did any of you notice the one from the "Nigerian Prince"?
@@i-v-l9335 There's a reason why history is history.
It's definitely fake. Look at the receipt times - all those e-mails came within a few minutes of each other. He just had someone send him a bunch of mails for the sake of that clip.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn w/almost half a million subscribers and videos with views in the millions, I would not be surprised if it was real, even considering the receipts.
The true theory of relativity is this; If you're a millionaire and you die without a will, you'll suddenly have more relatives than you dd when you were alive.
Also true if you have a no friends and then decide to get a swimming pool
LOL!
i know comedy when i see it. very funny.
@xc5647321 xc5647321 Same in New Mexico! Talk to some one for ten minutes and find they are your cousin. I was born there, thirty years later I moved back and yup. I lived in Florida, as south as you can get. and nope. My family didnt live here long enough. It really does show though. "It is a small world after all"
Mind-boggling stuff,you got to have some special brains to study ,get involved and invent & discover things.
It's not tool late to find this out ! thanks for the great job you are doing on this channel
I've been told that the reason is, that as you move faster, more energy is required for increasing the velocity. Then at the speed of light, assuming you'd ever get there as a non-massless object, the amount of energy needed to accelerate beyond the speed of light would be infinite. And since we could never have an infinite amount of energy, we couldn't ever reach the speed of light, let alone go beyond it. Is this incorrect or just another way of looking at it?
... That was a complicated way of saying, that you can't go faster than light because you can't
Give this man a noble prize.
@@kiishaankrishnan6453 Nobel, not noble. **flies away**
@@dabeste6163 A prize for nobles.
@@theodentherenewed4785 Fair enough.
I'm amazed by this community.
I'm glad he moves his hands with every sentence, it really makes the information clearer.
it makes his hands age more slowly.
Ashlee Cadell makes them shorter too
He's batting away the photons that are obscuring his vision.
IDK still cant understand Bernie Sanders
Trump vibes😂
I remember about 11-12 years ago there was this major story in science about how at CERN they had supposedly discovered neutrinos that move faster than light. I never got all the details of the story, but from what I recall, it’s turns out a wire was lose somewhere, which caused this reading, and a number of scientists became embarrassed from having supported this finding (Don’t know if the last part is entirely true though)
Wow, great explanation! first time I've heard it explained this well
I think the explanation on PBS spacetime was satisfying as well. It explained the speed of light was actually the speed of causality. Its the quickest speed that anything can react to anything else in the universe!
@ClearPolitics Information does NOT travel faster than light in quantum entanglement. It is simply that you know the particles are connected in some way, and when you measure one, then based on the exact connection they share you know immediately about the state of the other. But no actual signal traveled between the two particles.
@@ANGRYpooCHUCKER so you're saying the entangled particles share a connection but no information goes through this connection. Seems vague to me. Is this like a worm hole?
@@hannibal02 nah, it has to do with quantum propreties. Basically things that are really small exist almost in a mathmatical and statistical way, so when you create 2 entangled particles all that means is the math involved is statistical probability. Those 2 particles havent interacted with anything yet so they exist in both the 2 possible outcomes possible lets say they are both up and down at the same time. But when you interact with the particle you make it "decide" wich one it is, and since the one interacted resolved its probabilistic nature into a real nature the other particle has to be in arcordance to the one interacted. Think of it this way, we tried our best to beat the rules of causality and information travel speed but the universe finds a way to make it right without breaking its own rules. This prooved that thigs can travel faster than light, but they cant have information
@@hannibal02 The state of entangled particles can be a specific set of things that you know beforehand, if you've entangled them properly. Thus, when you measure one particle, you can deduce instantly what the other one is based on the state of the particle you measured. So, TECHNICALLY, the "collapse" of the wavefunction for both happens instantly no matter how far apart they are, but you (nor the other particle) are not gleaning new information per se. You can't transmit any useful information this way.
I get it now. Thanks for not going too fast. I needed a moment for it to sink in. The graph and car analogy helped tremendously.
I was thinking the same thing the other day and then I thought: If I was traveling at infinite speed. My line would be vertical on the graph. Which means I would not be moving at all because my position on the x axil stays constant. Which is counter intuitive because if my speed is indicated by the slope of the line and a vertical line has no slope. Which means I have no speed. I am stationary. However I could not tell if that was the speed of light. Because if the slope of the line indicates speed. The slope of the line would be determined by how I decide draw the scales on my graph. I would know how much I have traveled because we can measure distance. For the sake of argument, if we rule out relativity at this point which means we think our meters don't change no matter how fast we are moving. I wouldn't know how time is flowing faster or slower. I wouldn't know if my watch is working properly. How could I tell if it was? How would I know if the vertical line indicates the speed of light? This bothers me because there is indeed a speed limit in this universe but it could be whatever I wanted it to be? This didn't make a lot of sense. If I draw the y axil longer all the lines on the graph with the same slope would indicate higher speed.
Here is my question: this explanation is great, but if I am correct it is based on assumption that we move through spacetime at the speed of light. But why at that speed and not, for example, 0.8 x speed of light?
As a person who dropped out of high school to work, then in later life started to enjoy finding out about physics, I have to say, your videos are always ( mostly 😊 ) easy to understand, I just wanted to say thank you for another great explanation! Slainte 👍
Have you started do some math as well? (answering physics questions quantitatively)
@@stauffap have you started TO write ✍️ properly yet? I can enjoy how physics work without knowing the equations, but you being a genius want to take that away from me, because of what, I’m not sure 🤔, maybe contemplate your own thoughts on that! One other thing genius, my comment was to the maker of the video, so why do you care? 🧌
@@101franny Calm down, please. I was just curious. Why do you think, i want to take something away from you? Why did this simple question from me lead to so many assumptions and so much anger on your part? I don't quite get it. Understanding/learning the math has little to do with being a genius. You'll find that it has a lot more to do with hard work/practice. A lot of physicists work very hard. Being a genius gets you there faster, but you can't avoid the hard work. So i reject the genius comment.
@@stauffap my apologies, no I can’t do mathematics quantitatively, that’s why I enjoy these videos, I can grasp the concept of how physics work on a basic level, as in why gravity affects light from distant stars, etcetera, but I work so hard for my family I don’t have time to get in to deep mathematics and equations, so having sites like these is great, especially when I trust the maker of them to be reliable. I took you for a troll, again I apologise, so many people think it is cool, or simply enjoy shooting you down because they can’t do anything else. I hardly comment much anymore because of these people, I think that’s why I was at fault. Thank you for taking the time to come back and tell me! 🙂
I'm going to have to watch it again 😃😃.. good for the brain to grapple with these concepts.. even if you don't really quite get it.....
THIS is the kind of explanation I've been looking for. Much appreciated.
This is great, and technically correct relative to the title (the best kind of correct), but doesn't really explain why you can't go the speed of light. In fact, it implies that you CAN go the speed of light.
The question posed for this video is " why can't you go faster than light?". The answer included the idea that our movement through space time is constant, and we really don't know why that's true. Maybe I'm missing something but that doesn't explain anything in my mind.
I’m with you.
"You cant go faster than the speed of light because you are travelling at a speed of light" really dont answer the question though
This is excellent. Thank you for making this topic accessible to regular folks like me.
Cant even come close to the speed of light, hitting a pebble would destroy whatever vehicle youd be riding in. End of conversation.
0:55 the infamous Nigerian Prince strikes again...
good, im not the only one that noticed that xD
ahaha,
Theo Suharto 😂😂😂
LOL! I didn't notice that when I watched the video. That whole list is pretty clever.
Well spotted! 'Hi. I am Prince Mbeki, and I am writing to offer you a large sum of money ...'
Thank you for the explanation! Now I am going to watch your video titled "How to travel faster than light." 🙂
Thanks. If v > c then the Lorentz factor is complex. Does this possibly mean that if we could jump to a velcoity v >c (maybe not through typical acceleration which would never exceed c), we could move out of space time and maybe into something inbetween it. I guess my thought was that this might be similar to the >c jumps in star treck. Based on travel between space-time, we could emerge at other points in space-time with little or no difference in the actual change in time within space time. So a complex time might mean that time exists in more than one dimension, or that there is a complex addition to space-time. Is it possible that sub-atomic particles might be able to make these jumps? So changing position without observation?
The laws of physics spread at the speed of light but empty space was created faster than c because nothing CAN move faster than light. Maybe a particle from a parallell universe leaked to the part of universe where there were yet no laws? Itcould move faster than c andcan never move slower than c
You clearly have a deep understanding of this. You explained something commonly very confusing for people very simply. Bravo.
Thank you so much, Dr. Lincoln. Your videos are so helpful and have helped me gain a more complete understanding in some key and fundamental concepts in physics through the consistency of your presentations. I also love how you make sure to include other videos linking to the content in the current video. It's taking me down a wonderful rabbit hole of knowledge!
Qk
Love
And why can aliens run faster than light? Could it not be that our conscience is 💩?
The travelling car analogy is perfect. So easy to visualize Space x Time when thinking of it as North & East. Now, what if you threw the car in reverse??? hmm....
sign of a good theorist .. able to convince everyone that they understand fully his theories
"There was a young lady named Brght Who travelled much faster than light She took off one day In a relative way And came back the previous night"
Good one, mate, a very picturesque short poem
You can't go backward in time.
@@Muralidharan001 Apparently going back in time doesn't break any of the laws in physics; so theoretically it is indeed possible to do so.
@@MrBoybergs But not in the way people imagine it, by going back to past events. In the understanding of physics, 'going back in time' is not the same is rewinding history.
@@aimxhere well my understanding is only that resulting from a casual interest in the subject but I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you talking about multiple time-lines wether going backwards or forwards or something else?
Thank you sir. Very clear and wonderful way of explaining. Science is amazing.
When I was 18, more than half a century ago, I postulated that the speed of gravity was faster than the speed of light. And this deduction made me think of how a spaceship could travel at the speed of gravity (faster than the speed of light). Here's how I deduced all this: I imagined that a laser light briefly turned on and off (pulsed), and that as the light pulses or beam moved forward it would be bent or otherwise distorted by gravity. In order for the pulses to be "captured" and distorted by gravity, the force of gravity had to move quicker than the light pulses could move. Therefore, gravity was faster than the speed of light. With this in mind, I imagined a round spaceship (a flying saucer) with a giant size gyroscope inside. I had a large enclosed gyroscope toy that had a crank to wind it up (instead of a pull string). I noticed that when I cranked it really fast, not only did it perform as gyroscopes do to balance themselves, but if I tossed the gyro up, it appeared to pause at the apex of the ascent - demonstrating an anti-gravitational characteristic. This seemed different than the mere tossing of a ball into the air, which I would say demonstrates no delay of any kind in switching from ascending to descending. I then imagined that if the gyro could spin fast enough that it would become anti-gravitational. I likened the force of gravity and anti-gravity to different magnetic fields (like and unlike fields), which would instantly (at the speed of gravity) attract or repel each other. The result would be that the flying saucer would have the ability to be repelled from, or attracted to, a celestial body such as a planet at the speed of gravity. From this, I had to work out how a flying saucer would be able to hover (not be instantly repelled completely away from a planet), how it could move gradually up and down, move horizontally, what could possibly power the internal gyroscope to reach its anti-gravitational speed. I presumed then, and still maintain now, that a nuclear-powered engine would be used, and that a computer(s) would automatically and rather instantly adjust the speed of the spinning gyro to keep the ship steady to hover, increase to ascend, or decrease to descend. Moving horizontally or diagonally would be accomplished by slight tilts in the balance of the ship which would act somewhat similar to how a sailboat can move forward against a wind by tacking. The tacking actions would be so instantly controlled by the onboard computers that the minute zigzagging movements would appear to observers as being in a straight line. I imagined that space travel would be possible by using the ship's anti-gravitational forces to repel from one planet or star towards another, and then ricochet from one to another - similar to how a ball in a pinball machine picks up speed as it bounces from one bumper to another. I imagined that any onboard computer(s) could chart the cosmic path and make adjustments at the speed of electricity (the speed of light). Moreover, I imagined that cosmic knowledge and "charts" would be used to best determine when voyages could be made in order to use closely aligned bodies to bounce from one celestial body, thereby shortening the distances, and perhaps even multiplying the speed at which the ship could travel - twice the speed of gravity, three times the speed of gravity, etc., etc. In Star Trek vocabulary, Warp 1, Warp 2, Warp 3, and so on. Somebody get Elon Musk on the phone! Any thoughts or criticisms?
A very nice explanation, but now I have another question. Why is every object moving through spacetime at one and only one speeds? What determines this boundary?
Dr. Lincoln, thank you for that easy to understand explanation about the Speed of Light. Your example of North / East and the Vector the car is traveling makes sense. By substituting Space / Time, something that was hard to comprehend became much easier. I understand this new concept and will forever forget about increasing mass relative to speed as I was taught years ago.
Now I am thinking, the axis representing light makes sense if it goes from 0 to C and you can have it in m/s kph etc etc. But for time, what is the scale? What is the speed of time? Is the time we are experiencing when at zero velocity the maximum possible? Also, light can go in multiple directions, can time also do that? I like that graph but now I have more questions!
@@keithw4920 Makes you more appreciative of scientists. I need to watch again.
Ka-Chow!
@@reevus2558 Thanks. There are 2 kinds of science oriented videos on KZhead; PhD level geared to other PhD's. Then there are programs like this, he uses everyday words where possible to explain very technical and theoretical Physics. I was (still am) a Math, Physics, Chemistry, Space, and Science geek. Sometimes even his 'simple' examples push me harder to understand. I got straight A's in High School and College. I'm certainly not dumb. But compared to him, I am but a student still committed to life long learning.
@@keithw4920 The axis does not represent light. The vertical is time, and horizontal is space. The scale on each axis is the speed of light. The space axis ignores the three dimensions of space, they are all rolled up into a single dimension of space to simplify things. We travel through spacetime, the combination of space and time at one speed, c. If we travel faster through space, we have to trade off an equal speed through time and vice versa. So if we travel through space at the speed of light, our speed through time is zero, and again vice versa. So our speed through spacetime, the combination of space AND time is always c. Hope that helps.
After years of study... your geometric diagramme (x;y) has finally made me understand spacetime and the connection between the two 😭 cannot thank you enough, you have achieved in a few minutes what Hawkings' book did not 🌷! Mathematics rules!!!
The Big Bang is not fact. Also no one measured heat in space billions of years ago. The NWO is being locked in and Satan is coming as a man of peace. Big Bang and Macro evolution is nonsense.
Good point
Ka-Chow!
But when I am just sitting on my couch I am moving through space and not just through time.
@@davidmudry5622 and that's why you are not traveling at the speed of light... you are also moving through space so time has slowed for you... for us all on Earth... and you cannot stop Earth for if it stops, you are still locked in the Milky Way which is also moving.... nothing can stop moving as the Universe is always expanding, so time is always slow than what would be if there was not speed/movement at all.
What we learned way back in 1970 was that a small portion of our SPEED was converted to mass, and even with a slight portion of mass involved SOL was then unobtainable. Since I am just a biologist, musician and such and NOT a physicist, things may have gotten further since then?
Why was speed converted to mass ?
That was the first time I even thought I had any idea what "space-time" meant, amazing. Duly subscribed, thanks!
Even if we sit in place, aren't we moving with great speed across space, along with earth, sun and milky way?
Yes but time is relative. It's something that only has meaning when describing things that intersect in spacetime.
Yes we do ! :-)
Yes. So the alians are experiencing different time from you do.
Ye, but not in our own reference frames.
yes and that is why you are travelling through both space and time. Otherwise you would have become old and died the moment you were born if you were travelling only through time.
This video: "Why can't you go faster than light?" Up next: "How to travel faster than light" huh
notice the same here :)
When that new fangled contraption called the loco-motive went faster down the track than horses (more than 40 mph) it was believed that if anyone was inside the passenger car science said all the air would be sucked out and everyone in the car would suffocate. When airplanes began going faster and faster science said that at the speed of sound there is a barrier that couldn't be surpassed. Now, science says (mathematically, by the way) that nothing could not go faster than light. Because as the speed of light is approached the mass of the object increases preventing it from going any further. Science has been wrong before. Who knows what the actual future holds?
Alex Holub You´re being scientifically dishonest. "When that new fangled contraption called the loco-motive went faster down the track than horses (more than 40 mph) it was believed that if anyone was inside the passenger car science said all the air would be sucked out and everyone in the car would suffocate." Dispite what some stupid people may have believed, science never said that. Specially since it could be easily proven wrong. "When airplanes began going faster and faster science said that at the speed of sound there is a barrier that couldn't be surpassed." Science never said that either. I don´t know if you realize that, but at that time there were already objects travelling way faster than the speed of sound. Remember, you can´t make good arguments using wrong information.
Some of these guys have so much pride in their "knowledge" and "facts"... until a new form of mathematics is invented in a hundred years, or undiscovered forces are found, but til then, "embrace it.., trust me on this.., it's TRUE..." Here's one: "don't believe the man who CLAIMS to know the truth, follow the man who's SEARCHING for the truth."
Because it IS possible, however we don't have the technology for that (yet) nor is there any conceivable drive / propulsion system that creates an exhaust speed well beyond lightspeed.
Excellent. And for some good visualizations of this (without the math), I suggest "We all move at the Speed of Light" by ScienceClic English, also on the Tube. And for lots MORE math, there's "Do we travel through time at the speed of light?" by Sabine Hossenfelder.
In the beginning I thought this was going to be another video I would not understand but you explained it well.
This is the first explanation that has made sense to me. Awesome video!
I think that my car goes faster than the speed of light because when I turn on my headlights nothing happens.
Daniel Clark they would still turn on you just wouldn’t see the light projecting out in front of you
Lol
U funny as hell 😂
Steven Wright: "If you're driving at the speed of light and you turn on your headlights will anything happen?"
@@robertpatterson3321 Yes, the cops will notice you and pull you over!
I've never heard it explained this way before. Very thought-provoking.
Wow, you just clearly confirmed what I thought was only my vague suspicion- that we're all hurtling through space-time at the speed of light..
Thank you sir for remembering that not everyone is used to calculate in imperial system (SI is THE standard one...). You are very good in explaining difficult things for common people like us. I am a PE teacher with a passion for science and space exploration. Salutations from Italy, thank you.
Well, he IS a physicist. Even in the US, the norm is still for scientists to use the metric (SI) system. If you want to do physics, you have to know that system.
Here are some simple ways to cross-reference Standard to Imperial, and keep in mind that this will be close enough for watching any popular video. People panic about being over-precise, when most measurements talked about in videos are just to give you a basic idea of scale. A mile is about a kilometer and a half, so a kilometer is about 2/3 of a mile. For any really long distances, like in astronomy, you can just treat them as basically the same unless you are actually calculating some specific orbital equation. A pound is about half a kilogram, so a kilo is about 2 pounds. Tons are about the same in either system, so don't worry about it. You can probably do "half or double" in your head in a fraction of a second if you aren't being neurotically repressed about it. A meter is about 3 feet, and it is basically the same as a "yard", and an inch is about 3cm. If you think you are imagining things any more precisely than that, you are fooling yourself. If you are too stupid to do that in your head, you probably didn't understand the rest of the science video anyway. Temperature numbers are a bit trickier in what we experience in everyday life; but in science videos, they are often talking about stuff way outside everyday ranges, so you can just ignore the differences unless you are calculating daily weather or medical data. A degree Fahrenheit is about half a Celsius, but with a zero-point about 15 C lower. So a really hot day (or body temperature) is about 100 F or 40 C, and water boils at 200 F or 100 C, and water freezes at 30 F or 0 C. For extreme temperatures like stuff happening near absolute-zero, or metal melting, or the temperature of stars, it doesn't really matter which one you think in. The point is just "really really cold" or "really really hot." Someday, maybe we will all get sensible and learn to put everything in Kelvins. For any layman watching popular science videos, that's all good enough to get the basic ideas. Anyone who is a science enthusiast will find those simple enough to learn, or they are kidding themselves about how over-precise they need to be. I've been thinking in both since I was about 8 years old, and it's really not that hard. If you already learned a second actual language, this stuff is child's play.
If you want to do carpentry then you'd better know inches and feet.
yeah but when you are talking speed and horsepower a lot of times THOSE GUYS are NOT using metric at all!!! Heck NASCAR and NHRA Drag Racing in many places is still doing what science says is impossible using a 9/16 inch wrench here and a 1/2 inch bolt there and so on!!!!!! And you set forth a "basic prove of concept" to some of these guys and they will take what you design, modify it, tweak it, and squeeze ever last ounce of power out of it, more than even the most experienced engineer could have ever imagined possible out of it!!! I am not saying that the metric system doesn't have its place.....but when the United States started we didn't have anybody TELLING US what system we had to use, and we had the Imperial Measurement System IN PLACE from the start!! Heck it was the same with all the "toys" we sent over in World War I and World War II and those tanks had more than one bolt on them that was 5/8 inch or so on!! So NOT EVERYTHING is always metric, and honestly metric doesn't always work out to an "even number" either!!!! And in a lot of ways like with Volume, you get ripped off with metric because what you pay for a "liter" of fuel is a joke to what we get for a GALLON of say gasoline!!!!
Ilic Sorrentino Commend you on your English. However Imperial vs Metric is not the point. Your comment matches mine however. Viva Italia.
There was a scene in the original Cosmos that disturbed me very deeply. A teenager leaves on his scooter for a relativistic tour of the countryside. When he returns, just a short time after he left, there is an ald man sitting where his brother was. Then they explained that the old man WAS the brother. I was about 10 at the time, and for some reason this had a powerful effect on me. They had the same sort of thing in a movie, but not quite as dramatic. In the movie this kid is sent out to bring his little brother home. The kids end up separated. The older kid falls and is knocked out. He come to some time later and goes home. The door is locked and he finds some other people living in his house. The police are called and they find out the kid was reported missing years before. He is reunited with his family, but his mother is much older, and his little brother is now a teenager, older than HE is.
The second movie is “Flight of the Navigator”, from 1986, and it was the first time I heard of relativity.
Movie sounds like Disney's "Flight of the Navigator".
Eric Taylor That shit in the 1980s isn't original. Just a rehash of the material used in Rod Serling's original TZ stuff, and further back in the radio broadcasts of X-1 and Demension X episodes of the 1950s and further back in the Sci-fi short stories authored by obscure fantasy writers, the radio broadcasts were based on. So what else is new?
One of my favorite movies as a child! :)
SwarthySkinnedOne There are two Cosmos Series: the new one (deGrasse Tysson) and the original (Sagan). That is what Eric meant. With your logic, the only original story is Einstein's paper from 1905.
Nice explanation on the two directions of space and Time . I am still convinced that there is a density of space that keeps the speed of light (and Us) fixed. The M&M experiment seemed inadequate to explain it. I also have the crazy idea that some of the particles identified by physicists are just the peaks of combined waves in that density. Realizing that there were air particles that transmitted sound waves, that the waves in the ocean are energy waves (of many combined frequencies) transmitted by the water molecules (See Waves and Beaches - Bascom/Mcoy) are explained with simple experiments. Seems like there might be a simple experiment to show the density (material) of space. Sadly, I haven't thought of it yet. Thanks again Doc.
I think it's a truly convoluted explanation for something that should be simpler. Energy of a body is equal to its inertial mass (times c^2), aka, its energy content, plus its kinetic energy (1/2m*v^2, if v is small). Or in brief, it's its mass at rest times c^2 times gamma (the Lorentz function of the velocity), E=gamma*m*c^2. If v approaches c, the relativistic energy of the body approaches infinity, it grows unbounded. Meaning to accelerate a body to c you need infinite energy.
This is one of the most interesting shows you've done! I like it. Hermann Minkowski's intuition was so insightful and so very important to put Einstein's theory of relativity in an geometric context. I've viewed this show twice before and several months later I viewed it a third time. On the third visualization I got an idea. I would like to offer an answer to your question: "Why everything in our universe is travelling through space-time at at the speed of light?" I offer the answer: "It's a quantic property of our space-time". This is reminescent of atoms absorbing energy at specific energy levels. This my speculation here. If we think of our space-time as a bubble in a super-space containing our space-time universe and possibly many other things that are hard for us to imagine. The only way to enter our space-time bubble is to have a specific level of energy (like quantic behavior of atoms). Conversly, one way to exit our space-time is to diverge from that level of energy. Black-wholes may be one example of diverging from our space-time universe's level of energy. I am suggesting that whatever is in black-wholes is outside of our space-time universe because what's inside diverges from our universal level of energy to travel through space-time at speed c.
Hey I thought it was an assertion that we move through space time at a constant Speed, the speed of light. I was not able to make out what he meant.
Brilliant. That's the best and most understandable way I've ever heard that. Its the first time I have been able to explain it to my partner. Subscribed
There is a difference between "We move through spacetime at the speed of light" and "The velocity of an object". What he doesn't get into is every particle, like a photon of light, that has zero rest mass travels through space at the speed of light. They don't experience time. If you have mass and want to travel at high velocity and slow down time from your perspective, you have to introduce kinetic energy to gain that velocity. But it gets to the point where the energy cost to gain momentum is simply too great. You have to keep adding more and more energy for less and less velocity the closer you get to the speed of light. Until finally you can't go any faster. That's the real reason all objects that have a non-zero rest mass cannot exceed speed of light velocity. You cannot violate that energy limitation. Which is a geometrical property of spacetime itself. Hope this helped.
This is exactly the explanation I was looking for
In the year 2500, I went faster than light in an experimental machine. Turns out it made me go backwards in time and now I am stuck in the year 2021.
Sounds like you going back in time and being stuck was an unintended and unforseen occurance? So what then was the actual intended function of the 'experimental machine'? What was is supposed to do? What was it designed to do?
@@bradleymilton1720 Can't say. It will create a paradox and destroy the timeline. ;)
@@ashekshanto8537 It's ok, I'll keep it a secret. Just between you and me only.
@@petere1060 Well Argentina will win World Cup Football 2022. I can't say more to preserve the flow of the time space continumm. :D
Excellent video. The simple fact that everything moves through spacetime at one and only one speed brings it all into focus. Thanks for that. Cheers, Russ
Russell Cannon can u solve the equation E=MC^2
He did explain phenomenon wrongly, that's all. He did explain that for external observer (owner of clock), his clock slow down on its internal time as they move faster. That part is correct, but rest is bogus. If you are clock capable to measure your path, then you can measure your speed since speed is derivation of space through time. Now, You move at some relatively slow speed and it takes you certain amount of time. As you move very fast (for external observer at least -> which is actually tragedy of modern relativistic religion), your internal time slows down to almost complete stop. => But Hey, I am still that clock, I just traveled 200,000,000 m but it took me from my slowed down perspective only 0.15 seconds. For monkey man outside on dummy planet called Earth, I did travel at 200,000,000 m/s. But As traveling clock, I actually moved at 1,333,333,333 m/s which is 4.4 times speed of light. (That's if we accept speed of light as finite.) And then there is another look on statement: "You can't move faster than 300,000,000 m/s!" Proper answer is: "In what direction."
Tony Piano Good question. But consider, that the displacement, or the rate of displacement , speed is always measured in a frame. That is , with respect to some stationary object compared to the moving object. If you want to measure the displacement or the speed of this moving object, you have to compare it with the stationary reference frame. When you are sitting, you are stationary wrt to earth surface.
Even time slowing down is incorrect too. Time doesn't slow down, you're going from A to B faster.
How to measure the one way speed of light. Use two clocks that are synchronized by an external tick. Use a cosmic pulsar to synchronize the two clocks. Put the clocks together and synch-up with the pulsar pulses. Move the second clock some distance away(D). During the movement, the two clocks stay synched up via the pulses of the pulsar. This negates any relativistic induced error caused by the movement of the second clock. Fire a light pulse that will be detected by the second clock. Bring the second clock back to get the difference in time(T). The two clocks are still synchronized by the pulsar, and have remained synchronized during the entire experiment. C = D/T
it's possible I understand it better than I ever have from his simple example, good stuff
I like that I am travelling at the speed of light through space time, even when lying in bed watching this on my iPad.
So we move the fastest (through spacetime) when we do NOT move (in space).
but you are moving through space. i fact you are moving at quite a speed. you are on a rotating planet that is also hurling through space in an orbit around the sun. In a solar system that is also moving through space... etc
@@just2share As I understood it, according to the video, you are always moving through spacetime at the same speed. You are moving the fastest through TIME when you are not moving in space. :-)
Title: "Why can't you go faster than light?" Video: Ya just can't, trust me.
I know practically nothing about physics and I understood his explanation.
I agree. He didn’t explain why the speed of light is a limit or why it is the speed it is, but as he says I guess no-one knows.
The reason you can't go faster is that according to the lorentz factor equation, as you approach the speed of light, the lorentz factor approaches infinity. This has many implications, including that this would mean that in order to reach the speed of light, you would need to have infinite mass.
@@eddyecho That's what I was always led to believe but correct me of I'm wrong, but didn't the guy say that is incorrect?
@@PDizzleFoRizzle well, photons have zero mass. But i assumed you meant, yourself, and last i checked we all have mass
Thanks for a real cool explanation! Enjoyable video.
It's very possible that there are things that travel faster than light that we are not designed to perceive, similar to the wavelengths of light that our eyes can't see or sound beyond our capacity to hear,
“I’m so fast that when I turn off the bedroom light, I’m in bed before the room gets dark.” Mohammed Ali
Fear of the dark
His room was lined with mirrors
@@petersennello813 won't change much
@@jaswik2023 He used a light bulb with a thicker filament that slowly cools down
@@petersennello813 sure
Great explanation by Dr. Lincoln, as always. I am wondering if someone catched the funny touch of his inbox's message list (0:54). Very hilarious message subjects, including a nigerian scam prince letter! 😂
I was wondering what the Nigerian prince had to offer, unless he was also writing to say that Einstein got it very wrong.
Because of the related time dilation that occurs as matter and energy approach the speed of light, the forces under which matter and energy operate could no longer have enough of an effect, resulting in matter and energy literally coming apart at the seams, which is why nothing can exceed the speed of light.
In my opinion the velocity of light is relative to the fifth dimension so in fourth dimension and below, it remains constant when relative to anything.
Since I am on my bed listening to your lecture, I was thinking that even though I am stationary relative to earth I am technically moving through space and time on a determined vector relative to the sun.
And that sun is moving and the galaxy is moving. Your atoms are moving near the speed of light and yet we are made up of them experiencing time as if we were not moving at all. There is some more brain pain for you :)
Great simple visual explanation using an X/Y chart. Really cleared up my understanding of speed through time and space.
And why can aliens run faster than light? Could it not be that our conscience is a 💩?
Open to anybody ; How does gravity bend space ? How does gravity grasp a hold of space ? Physically . Explain further your thinking , in detail . On how this can actually happen .
Such a cool explanation. Is there a video about General Relativity?
The clearest analogy I have seen about moving through spacetime. Thank you!
Sorry, we dont serve fundamental particles A Tachyon walks into a bar...
Ha, ha! Didn't see that coming!
That made me laugh.
Keep working on that. There is a joke there... somewhere!
the order of the lines is backward, is it intentional, if so then it's a nice detail
@@hieudang1789 That's the punchline. Do some research on tachyons!
Hi Doc, I'm a bit late in the game to ask questions, but I totally understand the Time/Space Graph. Is the reason why light has a speed limit the same reason why a cloud cannot travel faster than the wind that carries it?
I guess its similar to a wave A wave like sound travels through air at the same speed no matter how loud the sound is... its a property of air ... not anything to do with the object making the sound Similarly speed of light is a property of Spacetime
My theory, I call “Shell Universe” theory is; It’s because our entire universe is a shell around a black hole in a parent universe. Nothing enters a black hole because as particles reach the event horizon they become stationary in time relative to their parent universe, forming a sphere of mass around the black hole. A formation of a black hole and creation of this shell we call the “Big Bang”. All particles to exist within this shell have a common energy level which results in either a velocity or spin. Particles with low spin we perceive as light, although light particles with marginally higher spin have fractionally lower velocity/inertia hence are diffracted to a greater angle in a glass prism. Particles with high spin and low velocity we perceive as mass and form atoms, dark matter is just the stuff in-between we can’t see. Might be totally wrong though, so far my only taker on my theory is Murphy my dog and even then it took a bribe of several treats.
Wow. Simplest, most straightforward, and practical explanation I’ve heard regarding this! Bravo! Why can’t physics be taught like this? 🤦🏾♂️
Diarrhea is faster than light... in fact, i didn't even had time to turn on the light.
OMF.. divinely funny... hats off sir!
Congrats. You somehow found a way to make a diarrhea joke that isn't funny.
Nice joke bro
Oh poop!
Soooo, it moved only through space? (for this discussion, the distance from butt to bowl)
Your explanation, both makes logical sense AND, fully addresses and counters the inuiitive thought that speed can always be increased, even if only minimally, by applying more power.
While I seem to be able to understand the connection between space and time on a fundamental level, I'm still not clear on limitations of time. Furthermore, I'm also not clear on how mass is used to determine whether or not we can move faster than light because it was mentioned but not explained in this video. Now, space is apparently infinite so I guess there's no limitations there, but the limitations of time seem to be directly linked to the limitations of speed through that unlimited space (to my understanding). And those very limitations, (again, to my understanding) are used as a basis to postulate theories of limits of speed through space since going faster than light would mean the time would start going in reverse. So far so good? Correct me if my comprehension failed me. My question is: why is it asserted that everything always moves at the speed of light? I suppose it's asserted in relation to time, but how do we know time has stopped for every single particle of light? Because that's what we would need to know to be absolutely sure.
Hey Brother much respect from Canada. Great stuff man.
please come listen to some of My sci fi you will love my a i video it will shock you
6:10 Einstein did the first discovery of time can be slow down
I went faster than light but nobody saw me.
Hahahahaha
My farts are faster than light.
that would be correct if you travelled faster than light
Well, thought is faster than the speed of light but not measurable. So, you're correct.
You is liar, you must be Trump supporter. Nobody can go faster dan de light
Any time there's a fixed propagation speed, there is a supporting medium, a carrier, of the wave. Whether air or water or solid, the medium is of a certain density which fixes the propagation speed of sound through it. So what is the carrier medium of light? What property of "space" fixes the permittivity/permeability value to what it is? Or is it just a fixed constant, a "law of nature" that we should never enquire about?
Elsewhere I've heard it said that the Speed of Light would more accurately be referred to as the Speed of Effect, as it is the speed at which an effect occurs. (Assuming I understood it correctly and am remembering correctly)