Sunday 17 July 2016

special relativity - Would time freeze if you could travel at the speed of light?


I read with interest about Einstein's Theory of Relativity and his proposition about the speed of light being the universal speed limit.




  1. So, if I were to travel in a spacecraft at (practically) the speed of light, would I freeze and stop moving?




  2. Would the universe around me freeze and stop moving?





  3. Who would the time stop for?





Answer



Yes, I agree with David. If somehow, you were able to travel at the speed of light, it would seem that 'your time' would not have progressed in comparison to your reference time once you returned to 'normal' speeds. This can be modeled by the Lorentz time dilation equation:


$$T=\frac{T_0}{\sqrt{1 - (v^2 / c^2)}}$$


When traveling at the speed of light ($v=c$), left under the radical you would have 0. This answer would be undefined or infinity if you will (let's go with infinity). The reference time ($T_0$) divided by zero would be infinity; therefore, you could infer that time is 'frozen' to an object traveling at the speed of light.


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