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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Can we communicate faster than light speed?
« on: 31/05/2008 10:45:50 »
JAMES WOLZ asked the Naked Scientists:
Chris,
I love the show and listen to it every week on my runs! This week's show on Mars, even though astronomy is not my favourite subject, got me thinking about two things that I hope you can answer for me.
First of all, someone mentioned on the show that if the sun went out today we would still have a few million years before we would actually run out of light. I understand this phenomenon, but what about if we looked directly at the sun? Would there still be a burning bright orb that was brighter that the rest of the sky, would we not see it as a concentrated light source anymore, or would it just be a big black hole in the sky?
Next, as I was listening to another science show for here in the states, the host said what I thought was a terribly wrong statement. He first talked about hos it takes something like 17 minutes for our communications signals to reach Mars and vice versa. This is true and makes perfect sense, based on the speed of light.
Then, however, he went on to say, in a hopeful kind of tone, that we would eventually be able to cut down this time to the point where there would be almost no time delay and we could control robots simultaneously with their actions.
Now, I'm pretty sure this would mean that these signals would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light, which is definitely impossible. Am I right?
Thanks for any help you can give me, and thanks for the show!
Kevin
17 y.o.
Chicago, Illinois
What do you think?
Chris,
I love the show and listen to it every week on my runs! This week's show on Mars, even though astronomy is not my favourite subject, got me thinking about two things that I hope you can answer for me.
First of all, someone mentioned on the show that if the sun went out today we would still have a few million years before we would actually run out of light. I understand this phenomenon, but what about if we looked directly at the sun? Would there still be a burning bright orb that was brighter that the rest of the sky, would we not see it as a concentrated light source anymore, or would it just be a big black hole in the sky?
Next, as I was listening to another science show for here in the states, the host said what I thought was a terribly wrong statement. He first talked about hos it takes something like 17 minutes for our communications signals to reach Mars and vice versa. This is true and makes perfect sense, based on the speed of light.
Then, however, he went on to say, in a hopeful kind of tone, that we would eventually be able to cut down this time to the point where there would be almost no time delay and we could control robots simultaneously with their actions.
Now, I'm pretty sure this would mean that these signals would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light, which is definitely impossible. Am I right?
Thanks for any help you can give me, and thanks for the show!
Kevin
17 y.o.
Chicago, Illinois
What do you think?