No One May Travel Faster Than Light

No One May Travel Faster Than Light

If the world is to be understood, if we are to avoid many logical paradoxes when traveling at high speeds, there are some rules, commandments of Nature, that must be obeyed. Einstein codified these rules in the special theory of relativity. Light (reflected or emitted) from an object travels at the same velocity whether the object is moving or stationary: Thou shalt not add thy speed to the speed of light.

Also, no material object may move faster than light: Thou shalt not travel at or beyond the speed of light. Nothing in physics prevents you from traveling as close to the speed of light as you like; 99, 9% percent of the speed of light would be just fine. But no matter how hard you try, you can never gain that last decimal point. For the world to be logically consistent, there must be a cosmic speed limit. Otherwise, you could get to any speed you wanted by adding velocities on a moving platform.

Thou shalt not add thy speed to the speed of light. Image: © Meg Jorgensen (Elena)

The social and political application of the ideas of Aristarchus and Copernicus was rejected or ignored around the turn of the XIXth Century. The young Einstein rebelled against the notion of privileged frames of reference in physics as much as he did in politics. In a universe filled with stars rushing helter-skelter in all directions, there was no place that was “at rest”, no framework from which to view the universe that was superior to any other framework.

This is what the word relativity means. The idea is very simple, despite its magical trapping: in viewing the universe, every place is as good as every other place.

The laws of Nature must be identical no matter who is describing the, If this is to be true – and it would be stunning if there if there were something special about our significant location in the Cosmos – then it follows that no one may travel faster than light.