Faster than speed of light

If a person, on a spaceship going at 1mph below the speed of light, were to jog forward about 5 mph, would that person be going faster than the speed of light? According to various laws, one can not travel faster than the speed of light. If so, what the heck is stopping you?

The theory of special relativity says: Object gain mass as they accelerate the more mass it gains according to the calculations if an object got to the speed of light it's mass would have to be infinite. Now as you can see this is impossible making the speed of light a physical limit to speed.

Light for instance emitted from a car driving 50km/hour will still travel at the speed of light and not at the speed of light + the speed of the car.

No really a discussion though, more like a question.

Future note to move thread

If you could reach within 1mph of light speed, you've probably already broke the technological barriers with reaching the speed of light and already would have had FTL capabilities.

The main thing is the person is jogging "5mph" so physically that person wouldn't go faster than the speed of light, however it would appear that person is going faster. So I would so yes that person would go faster than the speed of light.

No it wouldn't. Because something traveling faster than light would not be able to reflect light because light could not catch it. Humans can only see things because light reflects off of objects. So someone traveling faster than the speed of light would not reflect light and be invisible to our eyes.

That being said, faster than light travel is impossible by normal means of any momentum engine. The only way to travel faster than light is to use the multiverse as a transitional system. That is a rather large discussion.

Someone did not pay attention in school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula#Special_theory_of_relativity

Who even voted yes on this, ofcourse you would have to add the speed of the jogging man to the spaceship that would get it over the limit wich is impossible for reason stated above.

If you jog on a spaceship you are physically going with the speed of that spaceship + the speed of your jogging. Ofcourse this is all theoretical I think it would be hard to pull of.

You are not, check the link luinthoron provided for a deeper explanation, but the formula to use is the following:



As either objects velocity starts to approach the speed of light, then their observed total (or sum, hence "s") velocity will be less then their normal sum.

newt time please read my post instead of one sentence.

I said this "If you jog on a spaceship you are physically going with the speed of that spaceship + the speed of your jogging." this is true it's basic physics.

However I never said anything about being faster than the speed of light with this method that is impossible due to what you stated.

Hence why I pointed out, that no, you're wrong. It's not true. You're *not* going with the speed the spaceship + the speed of your jogging. That assumption only holds true if neither your or the spaceship's speed is any significant fraction of the speed of light.

Totally read your post wrong, don't know where I was with my mind you are absolutly right.

If I might try my hand at this, with the knowledge I do have (Im very sorry if I say something that is incorrect): the answer would be yes and no. Its not quite a superposition as its just that math is very beguiling.

Mathematically, based on mechanical physics, it would work; you would even surpass the speed of light, for that matter. But its only as right as saying that when something at -270 degrees Celcius gets five degrees colder, its now -275 degrees Celsius; the math its right (go ahead, check it), but its wrong because nothing in the universe can go below 273.15 degrees (Look up: Absolute Zero, if you don't know).

The physical actions are very much different from the reality once you go to Macro-(astological) or Micro-(quantum) Physics. In truth, by the Law of Relativity and various types of Black-Hole Theory, the "Ship" would supernova long before it even got close to near light speeds. Even after you supernova'd into a neutron star, the only part of you that could go as fast a light, would be light ('cause...you know....you'd be a STAR!~ :D).


TL;DR? Math lies about the reality when you get too large, too small, too slow, or too fast.

I'm sorry if I got anything wrong, and I hope this will answer questions, or at least spark discussion.

Thank you~