What is most likely to happen to an object as it travels at the speed of light?

Question

if possible, please state the reason why =p

thanks!

Answer 1

Assuming a hypothetical situation where an object is moving at the speed of light (which is impossible to achieve, but let's pretend...)

With respect to the stationary observer, the object moving at the speed of light will experience time dilation (the clocks on board will appear to slow down, so at the speed of light, time will have stopped on board relative to the observer) and also length contraction will take place. This means the object will contract in length, and at the speed of light its length will be zero. The object would effectively disappear until it slows to below the speed of light, when its length becomes greater than zero, and no time will have appeared to pass whilst the object was moving at that speed.

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Noting the thumbs down...

Let me clarify. When I say it will effectively disappear, I actually mean it will become a two dimensional object, rather than 3 dimensional due to the loss of its length. It would still have mass, obviously, and every part of it would still exist (as much as it can do in 2 dimensions) and would revert to normal if its speed reduced.

Answer 2

If that were to happen then, the object would most likely shatter.

Answer 3

Here's just my opinion and thoughts on the matter. If a single particle anywhere in the universe should exceed the speed of light by only a small fraction, it would create a significant rip in space-time fabric. Such a tear would result in the "Big-Crunch" singularity.  The whole universe would sort of implode upon itself.  I suspect that if it ever happened, it would, relatively speaking, be rather quickly.

Our universe would be no more.

Now, if the object just reached the speed of light, exactly, and did not exceed it, it would then be in a state very similar to the initial conditions similar to that at the exact moment of the Big-Bang origin of our universe.  It's matter would be infinite, its energy would be infinite, its entropy would be zero; gravity, strong, weak forces, and electromagnetic force would all be infinite; I'm not too sure about temperature.  But it would be, in my opinion, the same conditions as that of the singularity just before the Big-Bang.

Answer 4

most likely what would happen is nothing. An object should never be able to travel at the speed of light because as it approaches that speed it's mass and the energy required to keep it accelerating quickly approach infinite proportions. Since there is no such thing as infinite energy and an object of infinite mass would encompass the entire universe, the object can never acheive the speed of light. Light itself can because its particles are massless.

One mistake, the mass doesn't become infinite but the energy required does.

Answer 5

From the limited knowledge i have, if an object does travel at the speed of light there would be significant time dilation which could be calculated using Einstein's Field Equations. However, this is very highly conditional and there are a lot of other factors which could come into play.

Answer 6

first of all it will never happen ... and even if thats the case .. object will get heavier and heavier  it will keep adding mass ...

Answer 7

according to einstein if an object travels with the speed of light then its mass changes( decreases)

Answer 8

the universe contracts upon itself at speeds very very near the speed of light. which in turn accelerates the contraction even more because everything gets more massive.

basically, as something accelerates its gets more massive. we dont notice this in everyday life because it takes a lot of energy to create a tiny amount of mass. if you were in a car, and the entire energy of both the atomic bombs dropped on japan was accelerating your car, the mass of the car would increase by about 1.5 grams.

but that increase is exponential. so the closer you get to the speed of light, the faster it increases. if you were to reach the speed of light your mass would become infinite, and therefore so you would your gravity. so the universe would begin to contract extremely fast as the infinite gravity of that object pulled everything towards it. the mass of the objects being pulled towards it would increase, because they are being accelerated towards the speed of light.

but thats impossible. for something to reach the speed of light it would require an infinite amount of energy, which we dont have, and an infinite amount of time, which we dont have.