Why can't we travel at light speed?

Answer 1

There's no proof that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but according to Einstein's theory of relativity as an object moves more quickly it also gains mass. Accordingly accelerating an object up to the speed of light would require infinite energy because it gets harder and harder to push the faster it goes.

Answer 2

it can, we just dont know how yet, but when we do, i think that ther will be a great blinding light and then if we go faster than that speed, if you look backwords you will see the light trying to catch up with you It is not possible for an object to accelerate to the speed of light relative to its starting frame of inertial reference. At least, not in space as we understand it today. You may not believe this part: we are all traveling at light speed when we are at rest. Objects at rest travel through timeat light speed. Einstein said E=mc2 meaning that to reach light speed (c) an object must have infinite energy (no such thing) also as an object accelerates it gains mass until at c it becomes infinite in mass

Answer 3

We believe the speed of light to be the universal speed limit, so nothing can go as fast as this. Photons have no mass at all, so therefore in accordance to E=mc squared, all their possible mass is present as energy.

According to relativity, an object's mass at any speed is related to its speed; where this speed approaches that of light, its mass approaches infinity. And it'd take infinite energy to accelerate an infinite mass.

Even nearing it, we still reach two barriers: you can't get enough force to accelerate that kind of mass fast enough and you can't get enough space or time to accelerate it enough in total.

Answer 4

Several reasons, related to the Special Theory of Relativity.

1) If you add two speeds that are less than the speed of light, the result will also be less than the speed of light. For example, a rocket moving at 2/3 the speed of light fires a bullet, which goes at 2/3 the speed of light relative to the rocket; the speed of the bullet relative to Earth would still be less than the speed of light.

2) Speeding an object up to the speed of light would require an infinite energy.

3) If something moves faster than the speed of light according to one reference frame, it would move backwards in time according to some other reference frame. Moving backwards in time involves all sorts of potentially contradictory situations, as any science-fiction fan knows.

Answer 5

The famous equation E = mc2 tells us that mass (m) and energy (E) have an equivilence, i.e. As a body with mass accelerates towards the speed of light (c), its mass will also increase, so any additional energy input to increase the speed of the body will have an equivilent effect on its mass.

In effect, this means that any object with mass travelling at the speed of light will require so much energy input that the object will attain infinite mass. As of yet, there is no known way to accelerate an object with mass to the speed of light.

Answer 6

Because as you speed up, your mass increases. If you reached the speed of light,

your mass would be infinite, and it would take an infinite amount of energy to go

any faster.

Since you're moving slower than the speed of light right now, you would need to pass

through every speed between your speed right now and faster than light, without

skipping any speeds, and we know that you couldn't reach the speed of light because

your mass would become infinite there. Since you can't even reach the speed of light,

you definitely can't pass it and go faster.

Answer 7

As best we can tell, this is a fundamental property of the universe. For an object having mass to reach the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy (since the universe is not infinite, this is more energy than you could get even if you converted every other object in the universe into energy). Exceeding the speed of light would require an amount of energy greater than infinity; hopefully it's obvious why this is impossible.

Answer 8

According to Einstein's theories we cannot travel at the speed of light, only close to it. There are many theories on how we can travel near (or beyond) the speed of light.

Answer 9

because our bodies would basically disintegrate