h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sodium chloride is normal table salt, you fool

Actually, time seems to stand still for the light. Therefore to the light, we're not moving (as if we would seem to when you're past in a fraction of a second) but the light still seems to move compared to us.

But the light can't really see, and anyway, another question for here might be "what is the speed of dark?"? Is it actually the same as the speed of light, or is it much, much faster? Dark being an absence and all that...

Yeah, but you can't spell.
If you're going to travel at the speed of light you can only travel at precisely that speed and must have precisely no mass. If you're going to travel at slightly above c you can only travel at slightly (or, for that matter, a lot) above c, never at it. Were you thinking of lights to see where you were going or to warn people that you were approaching? Even if you were travelling at slightly sub-light speeds anything you illuminated would be on top of you by the time the light had moved a very small distance away from the headlights towards that which you wished to see. How fast are your reactions? I recommend that you find yourself a theoretical physicist at your local university. Ask them the question then run away before they try and explain it. Pop back in a week or so's time with some food and water for them. After ten days, come back and ask them to repeat what they've said in less than fifty words to get the simple and comprehensible answer.

If time stands still when moving at light speed then how come light takes time to get places (suns light takes 8 min to reach earth or 4 and a 1/3 years to reach or nearest star) then when traveling at light speed you would not notice the 4 1/3 years it would take to get to our nearest star?? I'm sorry it doesn't make sense. I know time is not a constent but is that only as how we precieve it. If a second is the takes a different amount of time for every thing then wouldn't schedules be useless I'm mean if say joe precieves a second like say it took a minute and bob precieved it as a second if time wasn't constent they would not be able to say meet at the park at 5:00 o'clock because joe would be a minute behind bob. That is why I think time is constant but it is not a constant how we precieve it

Time stands still in the sense that nothing is happening around you. Nothing can seem to be moving or happening because all the light reflecting off the stuff that enables you to see it is stationary relative to you. So it's not really that "time" stops, it's that everything stops going on and thus you percieve "time" as having stopped.

Thus, if you travel faster than light, you catch up with and overtake the light that came from the stuff earlier on and so you percieve time as going backwards.

I think...

God, this makes my head hurt! It's bloody 10.20am and I'm in work and I'm typing this! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....

That page has some cool videos, one if which deals with the original question in this thread. I think...maybe...something about headlight effects anyway. But that Might be just the speed that does that...

At least three quarters of an hour, given the impossibility of parking within 100 yards of any Tesco store and the time taken standing in a checkout line. OK, so you'd be home before the freezer stuff starts to melt, so that's a plus.

If time stops, or appears to stop, what happens to the clock on your dashboard? Also, I'd like to see a speedometer that could cope with all of this. 20mph, 30, 60, 90..........Warp 1, 2,......

*waves ploppy aboard the Enterprise*

C'mon... I'll show it to ya.

It's astounding
Time is fleeting
Madness takes control...

Oh, sorry, that's time warps isn't it?

They are pretty cool aren't they? I downloaded all of the MPEGs a while back, but I noticed recently that there are now a couple of RealPlayer videos available. Looks like quite a hefty download but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Anonymous. Is that Captain, Ensign or Crewman Anonymous? You really should get an identity, even if it's as pointless as mine. Besides, starships don't have headlights......"Mr Sulu, engage left indicators"

Thanks for that, I enjoyed it greatly!

As long as it isn't Counsellor Anonymouse... How about Ship's Priest? You could wear white shoulderpads on your uniform...

Glad to be of service

You're just jealous cause you can only -wish- to be a mouse in the corner during certain conversations!

Oh.. and you didn't say you wanted to see headlights, you asked to see our speedometer.

maybe, but still, I think that it's a little bit relevant anyway.

So...listen closely,
not for very much longer,
I've got to...keep control!

*twitch* *twitch*

i doubt it.

Ooooooooh, touchy!!
I only wanted to bring the conversation back around to the original question about Rover cars. I used to work for one of Rover's subcontractors, and I can tell you that any speedometer they produced wouldn't work best out of three anyway.

As far as I can make out, it has been suggested that the passage of time is a perception dependant on how you are receiving light reflected from a given location. Ergo, if you could travel faster than light you would travel back in time. Er... I think. If that is the case, is it being suggested that the passage of time is not an absolute? If time is not an absolute, and just a matter of perception, then altering one's perception is a form of time travel. There is a scientific basis for mind-altering drugs. Hallelujah!

Has the mouse squeaked loud enough yet?