Cool Pic of the Day: Space Shuttle Going Supersonic

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

[E20]

I don't know if this was true, but didn't NASA or someone find a way to be faster than light?

[The sone]

neato burrito!

[Summers]

Cool!

[Marklar MM]

I don't know if this was true, but didn't NASA or someone find a way to be faster than light?

You would most likely end up dead. :/

[baseline bum]

I don't know if this was true, but didn't NASA or someone find a way to be faster than light?

Say you have a movie projector and a fly goes across it. If your screen is sufficient (incredibly far) distance from the projector, the fly's shadow will move accross the screen faster than light speed since the shadow's velocity is proportional to the distance from the projector (but it carries no energy).

[Spurminator]

Say you have a movie projector and a fly goes across it. If your screen is sufficient (incredibly far) distance from the projector, the fly's shadow will move accross the screen faster than light speed since the shadow's velocity is proportional to the distance from the projector (but it carries no energy).

Wouldn't the speed of the shadow's movement be proportional to the speed of the fly, not light?

[travis2]

Yes, and that's what he said.

If the fly crosses the light beam, the angular velocity of the resulting shadow will be constant at any distance. However, the radial velocity of that shadow will depend only on the distance from the light source (given a constant angular velocity). At some point the radial velocity of the shadow becomes greater than the speed of light.

However, because the shadow is massless and carries no information, it is not "bound" by the speed-of-light limit.

[Taco]

This kinda looks like me driving to Austin back in the 80's everyweekend to go and party