Approaching the Speed of Light

I am not too familiar with the rules of the forum so moderators please feel free to move this thread....

I was going through another thread on ATS on speed of light when I had this doubt (probably stupid, so don't judge me)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Ok so your in a car travelling at the speed of light, what will happen if you turn your headlights on? Will you see the light?

My Question:

You have "n" no. of hollow cylinderical each of slightly different sizes that can be placed inside one another like Russian nesting dolls. Supposing, each cylinder has an engine and can reach speeds of 100m/s. Now, the largest cylinder (no.1) is fired with 100 m/s. After some time, cylinder no. 2 is fired from inside cylinder 1 at 100m/s. So its speed in absolute frame of reference will be 100+100=200m/s. Now you fire the 3rd cylinder and so on. Theoretically, if "n" is sufficiently large can the nth cylinder approach the speed of light?

Theoretically, yes.

Relative to a stationary observer, it would, but relative to the cylinders, they would only be going 100m/s faster than each other. Then again, there's the recoil, so it would eventually slow down in a real scenario.

Another way of thinking of it would be a huge carousel, or even simple gears. If the carousel (or gear ratio) is high enough, the outside (or the smaller gear) would approach the speed of light, assuming there was enough energy to make it go that fast.

Since you seem to be a science person, may I ask how the "speed of light"
can be a fact when CME's travel at millions of miles per second?
Been wondering this for a bit..

What you have is the Riemann Sum of




where the function is i squared.

So in theory yes it will reach the speed of light in theory as n approaches infinity. The only problem is that as the number of tubes approach infinity the amount of energy to fire them reaches infinity as well so you can't ever reach it.

Originally posted by siriuslyone
Since you seem to be a science person, may I ask how the "speed of light"
can be a fact when CME's travel at millions of miles per second?
Been wondering this for a bit..

If you're talking about a Coronal Mass Ejection, I would have to say it can't happen that fast. It's just a blast of plasma. If it emits any electro-magnetic radiation as well, then that's possible, as light is just an electro-magnetic wave, but the matter itself can't go that fast.

What do you mean by "speed of light" as a fact? *scratches head*

Edit: Where does it say they travel that fast?

[edit on 18/4/05 by Xar Ke Zeth]

Originally posted by Xar Ke Zeth

Originally posted by siriuslyone
Since you seem to be a science person, may I ask how the "speed of light"
can be a fact when CME's travel at millions of miles per second?
Been wondering this for a bit..

If you're talking about a Coronal Mass Ejection, I would have to say it can't happen that fast. It's just a blast of plasma. If it emits any electro-magnetic radiation as well, then that's possible, as light is just an electro-magnetic wave, but the matter itself can't go that fast.

What do you mean by "speed of light" as a fact? *scratches head*

Edit: Where does it say they travel that fast?

[edit on 18/4/05 by Xar Ke Zeth]

Sorry, perhaps I saw km and interpreted it as mph..???

sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...

Yeah, 300km/s is only approximately 0.001c.

Thanks guys..

Originally posted by BlackJackal
What you have is the Riemann Sum of




where the function is i squared.

BlackJackal I am a bit rusty with Riemann integrals, a question:

you said f(xi)=i^2 ........(1)

so f(x1)=1
f(x2)=4 , f(x3)=9 and so on

so integral f(1,n)= integral [ 1.dx + 4.dx + 9. dx ....+ n^2.dx]

what does this signify?

I dont know if you meant i=iota in eqn (1) as in [i^2=-1]
even then i dont understand how it would yield the velocity of the nth cylinder... Can you explain that please..Thanks