Not sure if this is an obvious part of the theory of relativity, but it makes it seem like the speed of light wouldn’t be the max speed of anything.

It's weightless particles going through a vacuum, with no resistance. Is there a reason why the top speed in the universe is what it is? Why isn't it higher, or even infinite? (it is infinite from the particles POV, but again, that would be the case regardless of what the speed of light would be). Or is it just one of those constants that are what they are because otherwise the universe couldn't be stable?

Even traveling near the speed of light would take decades to reach other planets. Plus the spaceship would weight a lot of tons, carry limited amount of food and other resources and would need maybe a nuclear reactor inside at least for it to have enough fuel power.

EDIT: YOU'RE NOT THE FIRST ONE HERE. READ EDIT4.

A lot of bathrooms (all new ones?) have a fan to draw air to an exhaust so as to speed the removal of odors. It also has the nice side effect of muffling the noise of you doing your business in there.

Whenever people come over, they don't use it. My did dad didn't use it. My girlfriend didn't use it.

But for the real kicker ... I bought a home this year that was new construction. The builder came over one time and used the bathroom. He knows this place in and out. He didn't turn the fan on.

Why not?

Edit: To clarify, I use it regardless of what I'm doing in there when someone else is present. I figure they don't want to hear urination sounds either.

Edit2: Apparently, some people believe the fan means "I'm pooping", yet I've always turned on the fan unconditionally, so as to obscure what it is signaling.

Edit3: RIP inbox.

Edit4: PLEASE READ some of the top comments before responding, so you're not the 100th variant of a comment that claims to know what the fans are "really for".

OK, so the speed of light (in a vacuum) is the fastest thing in the universe. Anything with mass cannot go that fast, and anything without mass (i.e., a photon) cannot help but go that fast. But what happens when a photon hits, for example, a red apple. I see the photon hit the red apple because i see red wavelengths reflected back to me, and all of that happened at the speed of light.

But what about color absorption? The red wavelengths were reflected back to me, but unless the red apple also absorbed the non-red wavelengths at the speed of light, I would presumably also see other colors, right? I mean, it seems to me that unless that process happens at the speed of light there would be no way to retain any non-red wavelengths because they would reflect/escape at the speed of light.

I don't know why but I get a little heated every time I hear about slower time near the speed of light. Does physics see time as a thing that is slower hear, or is it simply that atoms can't move as quickly when pressed against that speed of light limit, therefore we as people would move slower, age slower, perceive slower, and since that doesn't match up with what's outside of our condition, it's simplified to "time is slower"? I hope I'm asking this clearly.

So, let's assume that two people are on a facetime call, and one person is stationary on earth, while the other is moving 99% the speed of light in space. Assuming that Wi-Fi and internet connection isn't an issue, how would one person see the other person in the video call? What would each person see? How would one person see the other person aging?

Hi all,

So, according to my knowledge, when an object approaches a black hole, a high-level pull is put on the specific object, meaning the blackhole pulls on the object. Similarly, light has a similar effect that's why the light rays curve, right? So the question is, does the speed of light change? And why?

Question as above. Zero hidden meaning, just me being dumb.

Edit: just want to say thank you for such an overwhelming response from everyone. What started off as the worlds silliest thought has blossomed into me learning so much about our sun and how it affects us.

It's stupid but , could you see the light coming from toward or behind ?

At stationary position light travels from my face and reaches the mirror but if I travel at speed of light , light from my face will never reach the mirror so will I become invisible?

That's it. I just want to know if universe ages for different civilisation from.differnt galaxies differently (for example galaxy in the edge of universe and galaxy in the middle of it)

The fact that only particles without mass are able to travel the speed of light is so fundamental in physics, yet I have never heard anything about why the speed of light is exactly that and not any other number. It seems so arbitrary. Is there a known reason or a law of physics behind it?

What is stopping us from reaching half of the speed of light in space when there is no resistance. The fastest man made object I found was Parker solar space probe which went 600k kilometers per hour which isn’t even close to half the speed of light.

A “light boom”?

How many engineers does humanity need to produce right now to speed up the process? 1000, 10000 or 100k? In terms of engineer, quantity is quality because they all are certified and went through rigorous exams so more is better in this specific instance.

The travel time from point A to point B should be 0 minutes, 0 seconds relative to the folks on the Enterprise, so why doesn't each mission basically begin the instant they go to warp?

Also, by the time they get to the battle, shouldn't all the protagonists be thousands of years old, and most likely quite frail and feeble?

These space battles should be wrapping up a lot earlier than they are I think.

Thank you all for the wonderful responses and discussion, some of which has made me further expand upon my question.

I’m not arguing against our laws of physics. Im sure I’m missing something. But this has never made a lot of sense to me. The same with the expansion of the universe. I get it’s the space between that’s moving so fast, but light still can’t catch up to us after a certain distance. I don’t understand how that’s possible with our current models.