Can anything with mass go the speed of light?

Yes, money out of congress – sorry just had to say it!

No.That’s why the LHC works.

@pdworkin I really hope they start getting some useful information out of that thing soon. Seems like it’s taking forever with all the problems it’s had.

I’m not a physics expert by any means, so I’m most likely wrong. I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that no, anything with mass cannot go the speed of light. E=MC² says that the faster you go the more energy you need and thus, your mass would increase until the object collapsed on itself because of the infinite mass and inability to sustain itself.

Again, take that with a grain of salt because I’m 95% sure I’m wrong.

It takes a long time to build a universe.

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch

you first have to invent the universe.

@pdworkin Touche`.

Regarding electrons, according to this from the Argonne Laboratory:

“If you calculate the instantaneous speed of electron using the theoretical models, it comes out to be the velocity of light. However, we cannot measure instantaneous speeds, but only speed averaged over some time scale by measuring position at two instants of time. When we do this, the speed is always less than the velocity of light. Theoretical models also predict average velocity less than speed of light. The above discussion only applies to speed of light in vacuum. Electrons can , and do, travel at speeds faster than speed of light in some media.”

Two things, A fart in church (F=V2/pew) and bad news – theory has yet to be recorded as nobody wants to deliver the bad news

Because the universe is expanding, the space between objects grows at greater than the speed of light, and has done so since the Universe was formed. Therefore these objects have effectively moved apart at greater than the current speed of light continuously for billions of years, and you are along for the ride. Yes, you are moving away from the universe’s most distant objects at greater than light speed, and you have mass, so clearly the answer is yes.

@MarthaStewart
That is not correct. Using the equations of special relativity we correct for that with the Lorentz factor

This ensures nothing travels faster than the speed of light. Anything going the speed of light is going the speed of light in all reference frames. This means anything not going the speed of light in your reference frame can not be going the speed of light in any other reference frame.

@jackm GA .@MarthaStewart left Einstein out of the equation.

Photons go at the speed of light. They define the speed of light itself. So yes, some particles do move at the speed of light.

@Bugabear The question was whether a particle with mass could reach the speed of light. I think we know that light travels at the speed of light; that’s where it got the name. Speed Of Light! Get it?

No. Nothing with a mass can go faster than the speed of light. According to Newton, as an object accelerates it gets heavier, which will slow it down.

Mass is slowed down light.

And maybe, more specifically, something caused by the Higgs boson.

@Parrappa – That’s a very good explanation for not knowing much about physics, you’re actually exactly right.

@Parrappa @LeopardGecko The relevant equation is actually…

Kinetic energy = (m ⋅ c^2) (1 – γ)

Where m is the rest mass of the object, c the velocity of light, γ = [1 – (v^2/c^2)]^(-½), and v is the velocity of the object.

@Qingu… sung to the tune of “Mack the Knife”...

“Und Herr Jordan
Nimmt Neutrinos
Und daraus baut
Er das Licht
Und sie fahren
Stets in Paaren
Ein Neutrino
Sieht man nicht.”

No, but spacetime itself can even go faster than the speed of light. Dark energy seems to be driving the universe apart.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop – I don’t believe anybody requested the formula. But yes, I am familiar with it, thank you.

the energy required to accelerate mass, not of negligible size, to the speed of light is greater than currently contained in the universe. This is not to say that, as mattbrowne said above, spacetime itself can go faster than the speed of light. There is also the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory, which does not allow matter to attain speeds faster than light within (i.e. light will still be the fastest thing in the Bridge) however, when compared to the speed of light outside the Bridge, any object can have velocity greater than that of light, provided one of these Bridges, which are so far theoretical, can be kept open long enough to use.

@jackm and @dpworkin,
I certainly didn’t leave Einstein out of the picture, and I carefully qualified my statement with words like “effectively.” My statement is absolutely correct relative to a present day earth frame of reference and speed of light. According to everything that is known currently about astrophysics, the inescapable fact is that we are further from some things, measured in light years, than is possible in the number of years that have passed and the current speed of light. The explanation of course is that space expanded, which I did indeed note, and that effectively changes the speed of light, and sure you can correct for this and keep everything within our laws of physics, but that’s just another frame of reference for the same thing. We do indeed find ourselves further from some objects in space than we could be if we had traveled apart from them at the current speed of light since the formation of the universe, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

@MarthaStewart I put it in my pipe and it still didn’t mean anything. All you did was de-define “to travel”.

Quite to the contrary, @dpworkin, any useful definition of “to travel” or its many equivalents would include the myriad of ways in which one might move from point A to point B. You discount those means by which anyone arrived at point B faster than you think they should have. Time to come out of the 19th century.

Go argue with a cosmologist. You are just too damned sophisticated for me. However, I hope someone else knowledgeable comes by, because I think you are full of a certain kind of shit, but I am insufficiently educated to take you on properly.

@MarthaStewart
It is impossible for anything with mass to move the speed of light. What you are describing is distances between objects increasing greater than the speed of light. Its a subtle difference, but it is still a difference.

@jackm, your argument is hollow. That’s like saying that humans can’t travel faster than the speed of sound. And when I point out that in airplanes they can and do, you simply respond that it is the plane that is traveling while the human is stationary on the plane? Utter nonsense. In the final analysis it’s a question of distance over time, nothing else, and as I’ve stated, and as you can find out for yourself if you open your mind, that ratio can exceed the speed of light in this expanding universe.

Nothing with mass can ever approach the speed of Light.

or that to happen it must shed all mass, thus its entire nature must change and become as light itself.

Then it will have attained the speed of light which is actually instantaneous.