Breaking the Speed of Light


(YouTube link)

One-Minute Physics explains how to break the speed of light by pointing a laser at the moon. I think this boils down to appearance vs. reality, but I may be mistaken. Anyway, it sounds fun to try! -via The Daily What Geek


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When I was a kid and I first started to study physics and maths I would occasionally think I'd spotted huge holes in accepted mathmatical and physical theory. However I was smart enough to realise that what I needed to do was work through my thinking and find the flaw in that. I always found the flaw in my thinking before I found the flaw in the accepted thinking.

This guy isn't that smart.
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So, if I hold up a model train and then someone in Japan holds up a model train a split second later, by this video's definition, the train has broken the speed of light. This video is really just trying to confuse rather than clarify..
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There is a serious problem with the author's thought processes. The spot never moves, because the spot is constantly renewing. You see the impact of the light on the moon, but as it moves what you are saying is effectively a very large number of different spots. Just like those pixels on your computer monitor.
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The usual description is to look at a wave hitting a beach. If the wave is at a slight angle to the beach, the apparent speed of the wave traversing the beach far exceeds the speed of the wave's approach. Given a sufficiently straight bit of beach, and a shallow enough angle, it's possible to exceed the speed of light.
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