If you move the pointer to a different point on the moon wouldn't it be like moving the nozzle of a garden hose to point to a different spot on the lawn? Water would not hit the new point of aim until the water leaving the hose at the time you moved it had traveled the distance from the nozzle to the new aiming point. So how is the water traveling faster than SoW (speed of water)? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I don't get what you're saying.
I keep getting back to this video for the same question! Here is a comment that kinda explains it, "+Doctor DeathDefying As soon as the laser is rotated, emitting photons have a 1.3 second journey to reach the Moon surface... AH I get it !! Yes of course : just before the twist, a last photon leaves the laser and just after the twist a new one leaves... they will arrive quite at the same moment on the moon (having travelled 1,3s) but will be miles appart ! Ok Thats's convincing. but need an update for slow thinkers like myself." the comment is from Yan G, hope it helped!
Motaz Bukhari Ok, so they're talking about the point of impact traveling faster than the speed of light. My thanks to you and Yan G. for the explanation.
Jim Fortune yes the point on the moon, travels the 3,500,00 meters across the surface of the moon, faster than the speed of light.....but then this still doesnt fix the problem you mentioned, relating this idea to the water hose! in order for that point on the moon to be able to travel the 3,500,000 meters across the moon surface in the 0.005 seconds, that means the light photons leaving the laser, after initiating the wrist flick, need to reach the moon's surface, (and technically back to your eyes) in less than 0.005s! so if this wrist flick, causing the dot on the moon to move across surface rlly does happen, then that means the photons emitted from the laser are traveling waaaay faster than speed of light!!
There is a delay from when your wrist starts to move to when the point on the moon starts to move, and that is what corresponds to the speed of light. However the time from when the point on the moon starts and stops is the same as with your wrist, because the starting and stopping points are delayed.
Dan Albl yes thats also true, so therefore the the point on the moon will still appear to move across the surface faster than the speed of light. I was just wondering if the movement of the point is instantaneous with your wrist flick or not. and yes it is a good argument. So does the movement of the point on the moon get delayed by about 1.3 seconds?
Reading the comments, I sometimes wonder if people bother to watch the videos. The photons don't break the speed limit. All that happens is you get an image that appears to travel faster than light moving across the surface of the moon, because the object that created them was set up to do it. Nothing has travelled faster than light, because the photons that create the dot are not the same photons that created it in the previous time-frame. Nothing is moving across the surface, just the illusion of something.
That is true, but it is quite a misleading title since it clearly states that you break the speed of light, not that you appear to do so. Of course, if you actually watch the video you would know what they mean, but I still think it is a bad title.
Pika Chu I think it's a decent title. It makes you think harder about the concepts actually presented in Einstein's Special Relativity paper. It's all about *Relativity*. The idea that, depending on your frame of reference, light can absolutely break the speed it's supposed to be able to move at. If someone doesn't get the play on words, it pretty handily proves they weren't paying attention to the video and listening between the lines.
I'm so glad i found this video. I posed this exact same question to my physics teacher in leaving cert and we eventually after some debating came to this also. it was nice to see another physicist mentioning the exact same problem i had
+TZPokemonz Go to school, dumbass. Recording a light doesn't mean it is travelling across your screen faster than anything, as mentioned in the video, pixels have no speed. They just flick on and off to give off the illusion of movement.
I think it was Vsauce who elaborated it. He mentioned that the dot doesn't travel from Point A on the Moon to Point B on the Moon, but rather from Point C, the source, to Point A on the moon or to point B on the moon.
he says the same thing in this video, "the photons of your laser travel" (from point A, your laser, to point B on the moon, and after you've moved it from point A to point C, the other point on the moon)
@@jbdragonfire Jesus can someone right a comment that means something in English. Not like this is too science, there just is no sentence structure to parse to figure out what the hell you’re saying
I'm a brain woman myself. But yeah, I wouldn't date a guy that was long-term unemployed. I don't really give a crap about money, but lack of career ambition is a turn off.
dosduros Mmmm... Probably still no. MAYBE if they're a professional stock trader with a degree in economics that spends all day researching the best investments. But then that's pretty much a job. Like if I asked him "What do you do?" he would probably answer that instead of "nothing". But the point is I want a man with hustle, and preferably some desire to be the best at whatever he does. If my avatar didn't give it away, I like the dominant type (and yeah, a sense of humor is pretty important too). Money is only tangential to that factor, but I'd rather a guy who plans to be rich but isn't yet than a guy who is a trust fund kid or something and has money but doesn't care.
Darn it. I would have felt pretty powerful knowing that every time I point a laser at the moon, I would have a chance of screwing up an entire important space mission. An astronaut should point a laser at the earth and see who saw it :P
Shooting a laser at the moon and flicking your wrist does not mean you'll break the speed of light barrier. The light particles from the laser will still hit/fall onto the moon at the speed of the flick. The speed of light cannot be beat.. it is the absolute speed limit of our universe as we [so far] know of.
Yes the laser travels the same speed as your wrist is moving, but the distance that dot moves is so great that for it to move that far in a milisecond is way faster than the speed of light. For instance, you can make that dot move across the entire surface of the moon in a milisecond. Yes the speed at which you move your wrist is less than that of light obviously, but the image of the dot that we see moves faster than that because it covers more distance in the same time.
blizzard0508 The photons from the laser are still traveling at C and the still take 1.5 seconds to reach the moon. There is no physical connection with your wrist there will still be a delay of 1.5 seconds un light spreads in the direction of wrist flick. The video is horrendously wrong.
saquist this is a half joke video. he knows you cant break the speed of light. but as he explained with the pixels, you can make it LOOK like you can... soo, yeah
saquist You missed the point. It has nothing to do with how long it takes the photons to move. If you flick your wrist to make the dot move from one side of the moon to the other, yes it would take 1.5 seconds because they have to travel the distance again, but the image of the dot that we see on the other side appears to have moved faster than light because it would take longer than 1.5 seconds for the light to travel like that. The point is that we can make an imagine move faster than light only because it's not the same one. Imagine this. You look to your right and you see a rock, you look to your left and you see another rock. The rock moved faster than light since it's the same image, just a different object. That's what the video is suggesting.
I assure you I understand...but that is an illusion since nothing is actually moving across the moon's surface. I had someone mention this at work and believed it because they saw it here. Let's call it what it is. A lie.
You can sort of think of it like a stream of water. It looks consistent, but you know that the water molecules are actually moving, and the water that splashes on a surface is immediately replaced with more water from the stream. And when you move the stream, the water that's already there doesn't move, but the position of the new water changes. It's easier to observe, though, since water moves much slower than light.
Actually it's true, because the light that would still be on the way the moment you start moving the laser will still be travelling towards the same point, while the light that appears when you're moving it will just travel along with the movement of your hand. So standing on the moon, you would just be able to see the light moving slightly later... Because light can't travel faster than light
Actually it does. For the image, not the photons. I can even send a snapshot of the same image with a small delay to two different stars in two different directions. Assuming the distance to the stars is the same, because of the delay the image will seem to jump instantly from one star to the other breaking all possible speed limits, however of course it is not the actual physical photons jumping from one star to the other, the images are made of different sets of photons.
A lot of people here have no idea what is being explained. The phenomenon has nothing to do with the speed of light really. Try this example: You point a powerful flashlight at the moon so that it is illuminating the full face of the moon. You run your hand between the moon and the light source. the speed of light stays constant. The shadow won't appear on the moon instantaneously. BUT BUT BUT, the shadow WILL move from one side of the moon to the other FASTER than a beam of light emitted from one side to the other. This is because the image (shadow) must take the same amount of time to cross the moon as it did for your hand to pass in front of the light, but over a much longer distance.
I got a Question...... we know that even light cannot escape from a black hole......and also if we are near black hole it will suck our body by ripping up the atom in our body......So can light's speed get faster or acceralated due to strong gravitational force of the black hole?Can the light speed be broken near black hole?
I have thougth so myself. The acceleration will become greater than the speed of light, but only theoretical.The same thing would happen if I tried running faster than t he speed of light, my mass would become infinint and so on.
+So Sorry Light is elecrtomagnetic radiation, and photons composing it are massless. Massless things cannot be accelerated. Light always travel at the same speed, the speed of massless particles, it cannot be accelerated because it has no mass. It does have momentum and energy thoguh, this is why it interacts with gravitational fields (even if very weakly). +impagic1 Acceleration cannot "become greater than speed", speed and acceleration are two different quantities and cannot be compared in temrs of absolute value with each other. Light that crosses the event horizon of a black hole gets sucked in at the same speed without being accelerated
Banter King Yes, that is the definition of momentum in classical mechanics. However, the momentum of a photon is a quantum physical quantity, and does not fall into the definition we learn in classical mechanics. The momentum of a photon only depends on it's frequency (or on it's wavelength, it's the same) and it is p = h/λ λ being the photon's wavelength and h being Planck's constant
Yes, this is just the *illusion* of going faster than light, but he has mentioned this in the video and given a very thorough explanation as to why this is simply an illusion. So no need to get out your ten cartons of salt and start dumping it all over the place >.>
How to create something faster than the light: Turn on a flashlight and record it. Then watch the record and turn on fast forward on the video. You´ve now created something faster than the speed of light. Problem? :)
That's kind of tricky but I think there's a problem here. To observe something you have to reflect light off the object which your eye can then pick up. For instance to observe a cat, you would have to flash light on the cat so that the electrons on the surface of the cat can excite and de-excite to remit/ reflect part of the light which your eye (or in this case the camera) can pick up for observation. If you flash light on light, the beam you fired won't reflect back rather it would simply superimpose with the other beam of light. So in a way you ca never observe light. You can use light to observe different objects but you can't observe light itself.
Why is everyone here in the comments trying to sound smart by saying the laser dot moving across the moon's surface isn't really breaking the speed of light? He literally says that in the video. You're just repeating shit he already explained. Do you people not pay attention?
Gianluca Perzan "The laser pointer on the moon is basically the same [as pixels]. Each photon travels to the moon at the speed of light, but the image of a dot that they form on the surface moves twenty times faster. No physical laws are broken because nothing physical is actually traveling faster than light. It's just an image." That is an exact quote that is accurate and coherent. If you can't understand that description, you need to go back to school.
Can you do a video on measuring/defining the speed of light and why it varied outside its error bars during 1928 and 1945? I dunno how reliable that claim (by Rupert Sheldrake) is, but a video on the history of its definition would be interesting anyway.
The changing of pixels in a screen is called Frequency. Not speed. Same way with that laser pointer you point at the moon. The light will bend as you move it, and your illusion of "speed" is limited by the frequency of how often the beams hit the surface of the moon.
Doesn't sound right to me, the moon isn't gonna know that you waved the laser until 1.2 seconds after you do it. So wouldn't the spot created on the moon by the laser move much slower that the speed of light?
its not the laser breaking the speed of light, its the red dot, the image that moves faster then the speed of light and that movement is cause by your wrist. And because of the distance the movement gets amplifed
Hey minutephysics! I have a question: why is the speed of light constant? I did some researches and asked my teacher but i still can't understand. So I wonder if you could make a video explaining it in a simple way? I would be grateful if u did! Thanks!
In my opinion what you said about the laser is wrong. Because when you turn the laser on small packs with photons are constantly traveling with the speed of light to the moon. So when you flick your wrist it won’t go instantly to the other side of the moon. Instead the beam from the laser will curve and it would take some time for light to pass the information. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying but the light beam won’t travel instant from the one side to the other thus breaking the speed of light
I saw many comments talking about the video being inaccurate.. Please look at 1:01 again.. He already said that the lazer is not traveling faster the speed of light.. It's still travelling in the speed of light.. It's just that the picture/illusion for that particular photons to form is faster.. that's all.
So. I'm not a physicist. So someone correct me if I am wrong. But basically, mass (and energy+information) cannot move faster than light. But events can. The dot on the moon is not a physical object. It's an event where a photon from the laser hits the moon and causes more photons to be released. Further though...the laser still breaks down. Even assuming a super-focused laser thar is a dot at that distance, the movement of the dot would be noticeably less bright than the standstill dot as the photon density would go down. Thereby not even really making it the same event in another location. Just a thing that happens.
I don't understand...If the laser was shining with a light that was instantaneous, then this would make sense, but it takes time for the light to travel to the moon too. Just as if the sun were actually a giant flashlight, if the sun swept across the Earth, the light wouldn't sweep across the Earth instantaneously, but it would take 8 minutes to see it, and we would see it for d/c, where d=diameter of the flashlight's "circle of light" and c=light speed. Am I wrong?
We are only measuring the image of the light formed on the surface. Like here is an example: Let's say that the sun was a flashlight like you said, and the solar system is floating in a giant box that is a light-year across. Let's also assume that the sun is stationary, looking at the same spot in that box. Now we grab that flash light and spin it 360º in only a second. At first, nothing happens to the image of the light inside that box, because it is going to take half a year for the light that we made to reach the walls of the box. We aren't measuring the speed of those photons, though, we only care about how quick the picture on the wall is. Half a year passes, and the light from us spinning the sun has just started to move on the wall. At this point, we begin to time our stopwatch. We spun the sun in only a second, so the light sweeps across the entire box and comes back to where it started in only one second. Yet each side of the box is a light-year across, making the total distance of that image 4 whole light-years. This works because we excluded the huge wait time that it took for the image to start moving, and only focused on the image against the wall.
Kanade Tachibana I don't think I will ever completely understand, though your explanation sounds...well, "sound". It is probably the fact that light is composed of photons, and the fact that photons are mass-less and behave differently than atoms is messing with me. If the example was water shooting out of a hose, would this still work?
Chris Osborne If they were going in a perfectly straight line, yes. Think of it as you have a water hose and are spraying at walls in your house. If you turn around and spay at a different wall, you are moving what looks like a wet spot on the wall, even though we know that the water isn't moving across it. Tis would be easier if I could show you a video, but I can't find one that actually explains it well. This one just uses pictures.
Kanade Tachibana I am starting to get it now...I am focusing on the example of the pixels he used. If we have a screen a light-year in length and have a bunch of pixels turn off from left to right at intervals where the lights turn off in half the time it would take the light to travel from one side to the other, the image on the screen would technically be swept by the darkness (lack of light) at twice the speed of light. Of course, no physical atom (or photon) would actually break the speed of light.
You can do the same with big scisors. When you close them, the point where the blades cross knows no speed limit. With scisors big enough, you can make this (virtual) point go faster than light.
@@tahamuhammad1814 My source is Etienne Klein, physicist and philosopher quite famous in France and in Academia. He even suggested that some ingeneering university should calculate and make such a (big) pair of scisors. And yes, the point where the blades cross is virtual and not physical.
The spot doesn't actually move at all, it is just "recreated" across the moon as you flick your wrist, the light still travels at usual speed, the image just appears to move
We still can't beat the speed of light. When you flick it, the laser pulse will travel as a wave (like a string, when we flick it up and down), and that wave travels in the speed of light. Therefore the image would not move instantly. So, no, you can't break the speed of light. And, yes, Laser light is physical, they are photons!
***** imagine the laser pointer as a machine gun which constantly shooting bullets(photons). When you flick the machine gun(laser pointer) up and down, the bullet(photons) will travel like a wave(up and down). So, when you flick the laser pointer, the image on the moon would not move at the very exact moment you flick your wrist. it will wait for the wave of photons to reach the moon first. Until then, it will not move.
the image itself is travelling faster than the speed of light not the photons making up the image that you see. the point is that the image can travel faster because it is merely an image that you can see.
Aiken Sujana Yea but it will still move at the same speed. The delay between the last photon to leave the laser before you started to move your wrist and the first photon after you completed the flick will be the same when they hit the moon. Just like your machine gun. If you fire a bullet, turn your gun and fire another bullet 1ms later at another target at the same distance. The delay between the 2 impacts will be 1ms, regardless of the distance between the targets and the speed of the bullets.
You contradicted yourself, at first you said the laser pulse will travel as a wave and then ended saying the laser light was physical, if its physical then the speed of light can be broken.
***** Probably not, but never point lasers at the sky unless 1) You are educated & know what you are doing 2) You want to try to bring down a plane Usually only 5mw< lasers can be imported into the US through customs (there are loopholes and laws though)
***** Never point them at drivers. Police officers can shoot you if they see you point a laser and if they think you are using the laser to aid a sniper or to help with sights on a gun.
I didn't get it. Here's why, correct me if I'm wrong : I'm ok with the pixel thing : there's no light movement, it's just an visual illusion created by the fact that you turn on and off all the pixels of the same line one by one : they don't move at all, but you think they do, because the light turned on is just next to the one that have just been turned off, and so on. To my mind, that trick would also work if someone turned on lights put in a line directly ON the moon between 2 points (A and B) : then, no light would actually move, it's would be the same illusion. On the opposite, when you point your laser at the moon, the photons travel the distance between your wrist and A, and then, when you flick your wrist, the photons travel from your wrist to B. So, nothing travels from directly from A to B : The photons still need the time to travel from Earth to the Moon to reach B, which is the reason why I don't understand how they are supposed to travel faster than light (which is a great game, you should give it a try). (don't mind my English, I'm not native)
Vsauce Theory: Say if you wanted to press a button 1 light year away. So you build a board that is 1 light year long that reaches from you, to the button. If you pushed that board, it would instantly hit the button, which was 1 light year away. You just broke the speed of light, which would normally take ONE YEAR to reach that button. Instead, it took under a second. *Mind explosion*
Actually Veritasium said in a video that if you tried to push a board that long, all the atoms in it would have to bounce of each other toake the board move. The board would actually not move at all.
It would travel at the speed of sound because the atoms in the board moves on a wave similar to knocking over dominoes. I also think he started that you would need an infinite amount of energy for the waves to travel that far.
it's amazing how many people still don't get it in the comment section. You need to make some of these 5 minutes and title them exactly right like "how to make it look like you are breaking the speed of light". Then maybe a handful would follow along better.
It looks very grim for the future of space travel (thx Einstein lol); unless your name is Han Solo and you can do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
+Sith Smasher You can't travel faster than the speed of light THROUGH space-time, but space-time can be bent, folded, stretched, compressed and otherwise manipulated. You just have to know how. Kinda like warp drive.
laurauraura I know about einstein-rosen bridges and Alcubierre and EM drives. But none of that stuff has been proven to work. It's just maths on a piece of paper. So unless someone is willing to throw an insane amount of money at experimenting with those drives and doing heavy research on producing antimatter I don't see it happening in our lifetime.
@@sithsmasher7685 I know this was 4 years ago but im still gonna comment... Hopefully ur awake by now or waking up like lots of other ppl in the world, but the U.S government has had the technology to travel space for decades. Who knows if they'll ever release it to the public?! Prob not until the oil runs out or their hand is forced in some other way but its real. Do some research on your own and not by googling main steam science. Main stream science is full of shit!
Really you aren't breaking the speed of light but simple creating an illusion that appears as if it's breaking the speed of light, so that title is a bit misleading.
What if you constantly accelerate in space until you reach the speed of light and accelerate even more? Would you travel faster than the speed of light?
you cannot accelerate faster than the speed of light. according to relativity, F = ma(1-(v^2)/(c^2)) so at normal speeds, v^2 ~ 0 and so (1 - 0/c^2) ~ 1, so you'd have F ~ ma. as v increases to c, (1-(v^2)/(c^2)) decreases to 0, so at c, you'd have F = ma*0 = 0 if you try to set F to be greater than 0, maths breaks, so you can only go upto c.
Veritasium made a video about this (well sort off it about multiple ways to pass the speed of light and none of the worked, including this one) I don't care if you believe what this guy said but it is wrong because he is then saying that light is traveling faster than the speed of light.
"he is then saying that light is traveling faster than the speed of light." No he isn't, he's saying the dot is moving faster than light. It works because the dot isn't an object: it's a pattern. It's not a physical thing.
Peter Mirtitsch It works. Draw a picture, then maybe you'll get it. It's not special, it's barely even interesting, but it works. The dot moves faster than light. It doesn't matter, because you can't stick anything to the dot and send a message from one side of the moon to the other, faster than light. The dot itself - the only thing going FTL - isn't a physical thing, it's just a pattern that humans point to and give a name. Imagine pointing the laser at a wall 1 light year in front of you, then spinning around to point at a wall 1 light year behind. It won't be long after the light finally hits the first wall that the dot moves round to the second wall. It covered 2 light years in barely any time at all!
Here's how things work. To break the speed of light, get a very light, unbreakable stick more than 300,000 km (the speed of light in a second) across. Give it a swing at a normal spinning pace. The close end (the one facing you) might go very slow, but if the stick is long enough, the other end will travel the speed of light and possibly faster! Confused? If you turn the stick 90 degrees (sorry I don't have that sign on my keyboard), then the end of the stick has to stay with all the other bits of it down to you. Think of a circle with a smaller one inside the exact core. Now draw a line between the two circles, and another one at another angle. Measure the ends further away from the radius of the smaller circle, and then the two closer to the radius. The ones further away will show a bigger measurement on the ruler. Back to the stick. If you think about it it's EASY. But since I cannot show pictures in comments, it's hard to explain. Also, as you may have read on my channel about, I won't upload ANY videos. Here's my new theorem: "The circle that has a line from the centre to the edge can swing the line faster away from the centre and slower closer to the centre." Try drawing a circle with a compass, then join two lines to the centre and measure them... Anyways, when you swing the stick, the bit of ultra force that swings it (you) will power the other end to go at an angle faster. Don't let go (I really HATE the Frozen Let it Go song anyway) of the stick or centipetral force will fly it away like a bolas. Think of it easier this way: Draw an angle and measure the in-between the two lines away from the corner and the in-between closer to the corner and the one away from the corner will be longer. (Just don't draw a reflex/180 degree angle or it won't work!) If you swing the stick, then if it's longer than the distance light goes in a second, it's very likely the end can go faster than light because the end goes your angle of spinning in a second times the length of the stick in a second! I bet Microsoft Windows Sam, Microsoft Windows Anna, Microsoft Windows David AND Apple Macintosh Alex can never figure that out! Smart, eh?
Ultra Super This would violate the special theory of relativity and at no time is any part of the stick moving faster than the speed of light due to constraints of the physical properties of the stick (Such as compression and deformation..even if there was such a thing as "unbreakable"). Nothing with mass can travel faster than (or at) the speed of light in a vacuum. :)
This seems like a simple explanation but you forgot something substantial. The atoms which form the sticks can travel at a maximum speed, the speed of sound, which is about 340 m/s. That means, if you have a floating stick 340 m long and you push on one end of it, the other end needs 1 second to be pushed as well. In your theory, the stick is 300,000,000 m long. If you start spinning the inner end, it will take 245 hours (10 days) for the outer end to even begin spinning. Since you said the stick is very light, I'm leaving inertia out of here. The stress on the stick would naturally break it and here's the next problem. You stated the stick shall be unbreakable and with that in mind, if you spin the inner end 360° in 1 hour, after 5 revolutions, the outer end would be lagging behind by a few weeks. Therefore the stick would have to be longer to accommodate the lagging. It would violate the laws of physics. Conclusion: There is only one thing which is truly unbreakable, the speed of light itself :)
So, what if we take a rod made from a super hard high tech material, that is ultra light... so light that you can extend it from your backyard to the moon.. What if we flick our wrist then, the edge of the rod should travel faster than light isn't it? Or we somehow we contract the space in order to compensate with the speed of light?
Nope. Kinetic energy moves like a wave, so while it may not seem like it, the long tube would just wave like a rope. This video itself is 100% wrong as well because of the same concept. Light travels like a wave. Light closer to the laser pointer when you flick your wrist will move first and then move down the long 'laser string' to the end.
The Timelords I can understand your concept, but still, if this rod is made from a hypothetical material that it does not have elasticity, viscosity and cannot create internal forces, meaning that the rod it cannot behave like a medium to transfer energy through it. In simple words, it cannot bend, is hypothetically absolutely rigid. What happens then? Since that material does not allow the propagation of a wave and thus energy, what happens in that case?
Panos La It might move faster then light in violation of the laws of physics. Remember, in order for something with any mass to travel the speed of light, it requires infinite energy, so you'll probably not have the literal infinite strength to flick your wrist while holding it
+Panos La In order to make that kind of speed, you would need an incredibly strong base. If we had that technology with the super high tech material thing, it would probably be possible. Its just like a whip cracking- the tip of the whip is breaking the speed of light. However, you cannot eliminate an object of physics. Like time lord said, " the long tube would just wave like a rope" and break. Even if the material is possible you would also need a lot of energy. We don't have that material and energy right now. Even using carbon-fiber nano tubes, the strongest man made material on earth right now, you would need a base as wide as the visible universe. The energy that is needed to move that is also extreme. So, it is not possible. But, using the warp drive,bending space fabric, it can be done.
If a laser beam is swept quickly across a distant object, the spot of light can move faster than c, although the initial movement of the spot is delayed because of the time it takes light to get to the distant object at the speed c. However, the only physical entities that are moving are the laser and its emitted light, which travels at the speed c from the laser to the various positions of the spot. Similarly, a shadow projected onto a distant object can be made to move faster than c, after a delay in time. In neither case does any matter, energy, or information travel faster than light.
+Daniela Stefan actually this idea won't work cause if you search " how to break the speed of light" and search for vsauces video , you can see that the beam of the laser would bend and still "run" at the speed of light. But what you would see is that the light went straight and not curved.
it refers to the speed of the light (of the laser) that goes though the surface of the moon, not the speed of the laser going though space and traveling... however Vsause explains this in one of his videos :3
You would first have to get a gear to the speed of light, which scientists currently think is impossible. I can't remember the exact reason why, but there is a tonne of information on the topic
By that logic, it's possible to accelerate anything to the speed of light, thereby making it possible to break the speed of light with almost any of the current means we use to accelerate objects.
breezebro Kind of. The thing is that the two gears depend on it's other's speed. In the example you mentioned, the two speeds are not relative. But I see your point.
you're a very good con-man you create fraud everytime you put up a video... the title says that you know how to break the speed of light, and yet you go into explaining that it's just an illusion of speed faster than light.
if there is a speed below light speed, it's possible to break above. there is no limit of speed in its both directions. the speed below "zero" will switch forward and the "limit" of forward will switch to backwards.
But this doesn't break the speed of light at all, it creates the appearance that the light travels across the moon faster than the speed of light, however at each point across the surface it is a different photon of light and so that spot of light you see on one end of the moon isn't the same as the spot of light on the other side, they are different photons. Technically the only thing travelling is the photons of light from their source to the moon, at the speed of light, the light that appears to travel across the moon is simply different photons of light projected to different points on the moon and not something travelling faster than the speed of light other than the false assumption that it is the same light that travels across the moon. It's an interesting concept though.
This video reminds of when I was still a child and I would urge my dad to pass the car ahead of us. Of course my dad wasn't a reckless driver, but when the car turned to a side road and we continued onwards he would then tell me that we had finally passed them by.
The light from the laser pointer is not a solid beam. It's an uncountable number of light particles firing in one direction. Each particle takes somewhere around 1.25 seconds to go from your pointer, to the moon. No matter how fast you flick your wrist, those particles will still be moving at the same speed. I'll try my hand at a simple visual. Before you flick: -------- During the flick - - - - -. The light particles don't hit every single area of the moon you flick over, there are gaps, relative to the distance covered, and the speed of light.
You have omitted latency from your assertion. Laser light travels at C from your device to the moon, however. while the flick of your wrist does move the beam from moon edge to moon edge from the perspective of the transmission point, the emitted beam doesn't instantly travel across the face of the moon. It takes time to arrive. The result is akin to what is seen in nighttime anti-aircraft tracer gunfire. The tracer rounds look like water from a garden hose being waved back and forth.
guys, ive read the comments and filtered through the debates but while he isn't saying that that truly moves faster than light, there IS a technicality. Ill make really easy. Think of it like this: When you look up at the night sky you can see the milky way galaxy (most of it). It is 100000 light years across which means that light would need 100000 years at its own speed to cross the entire thing. Want to 'cross' it in less than a second? simple, look at one edge of it from earth, where you stand, and quickly look across to the other end. Voila! you just spanned 100000 light years in less than a second. and it takes light to 'see' one end to the other so there's the technicality. It's the same principle as what he described in the video.
The photons don't change with you if you move the flashlight. Those will continue along. It's like moving a rubber pipe rather than a beam of light, in that the effect out there is a bit delayed, at least more than you think.
The information that your hand is displaced have to move there and it won't be possible unless the light from the new position gets there. So the light will flick after the light reaches there and therefore flick will be travelling at a little lower the speed of light.
I initially though this was wrong, but after a bit of thinking he is right the "image" moves faster than light and that is the key to understand this riddle...the image moves faster than light not its individual components
This is really debatable. Saying that you can break the speed of light is still not a fact in most fields of physics, it would have been a little bit wiser to say the words 'possibly' or 'opinionated'.
When you point a laser at the moon and flick it, the light doesn't go faster than the speed of light, when you do that the laser on the moon is still moving at the same speed. It's like the same effect when you have a hose with water coming out, when you flick the hose the water has to catch up with hose, it doesn't go any faster. I know my explanation is weird but look it up for a better one
I don't guess that this is true. When you move that laser pointer across the moon its image will not break the speed of light because the light out of your pointer is still moving at the speed of light. If you draw an imaginary straight line from you laser pointer and the move it, it will work. But since our pointer's light is still moving at the speed of light the image of the final point at the moon will not appear until the light from your laser pointer hit it. Right?
The thing about pointing a laser at the moon is it wouldn't get to the moon immediately, there is a delay since light speed isn't instantaneous, same thing for when you move the laser.
I think : Mechanics( quantum) of light : The light is the limit(the border,of things,the edge of the matter) Over the limit are no more things,( there is no matter anymore ) If you want to pass( break) the limit, you should use : not matter anymore, ( not particles anymore) (Light speed ) It can't be reached with mechanical movement( mechanical particles movement). Mechanical movement( motion) is for things under the light's limit,( things with mass, volume etc... For matter,)light is the "wall"( limit) between matter and " No matter " . Don't waste time to break the light's limit with particles ( like neutrino, tachyon etc..) In this state( situation) you don't have to do with particles , because you want to go over( beyond ) the light ( over the particles) therefore is wasting of time . Another parallel thought : The possible outcome : C= constant means : The light doesn't move,( doesn't travel ) The photons doesn't move, therefore ( speed of) light is constant, because they don't move , is just as to turn the page, light just display it( unveils it) , but doesn't move ( doesn't travel) The book 91:3 This is a new point of view So you should make another math system, another physical system ( over{ beyond} the matter) , should find new sources . If you will approach to the limit( to the border), the limit doesn't have sense anymore, if you pass the limit, the things will change, the system doesn't work anymore, a new system will be applied( will be working) , for example : if you want to become smaller and smaller and smaller , until you become a string, that is the edge, there is nothing beyond it, if you want to go beyond it, you should leave the entire system, and take a new( different) system . It is like to travel with a car, you can travel with the car until in front of you there is the sea, now you should leave the car and take a new vehicle ( a ship) , because the car doesn't work beyond the edge ( beyond the limit ,the land ), there is different environment beyond the land, the car doesn't work there, same is your system, you want to go there but your system doesn't work there, need a new system, new variables, "new tools "... 🦩
The point where the light photons hits the moon's surface isn't an actual physical object, but merely a artificial point in space and time that would simply create the illusion of the excursion of the speed of light rather than a physical object with mass exceeding it. In the same way that if you closed a pair of scissors really fast, the point where the blades meet would be appear to be traveling at a velocity however it wouldn't ACTUALLY be a real point in a sense because it's simply the constantly changing location of where two things meet, rather than one thing moving.
A demonstration to analyze the speed of push. A thought experiment is to stretch a rod to the moon and give the earth end a nudge to see if it touches the moon before a laser beam reaches the moon. You are welcome to show mathematically how long the rod would take to bump the moon but be sure you understand that the rod is being lightly pushed at a speed of 1 inch per second so as not to cause a shock wave. Light takes about 1.3 seconds.
Not true. a laser pointer is actually light flashing on and off really fast, so it looks like it's not flashing at all. So The light is not actually traveling across the moon. It's just making lined up dots on the moon.
GUYS... For all of you say it's wrong, it's not! The image formed on the moon appears to move across the face 20x the speed of light, but the photons arrive at the moon at the speed of light. Watch Veritasium for a double explanation. What minutephysics was saying about the computer pixels, that was what Derek was saying too (just more vaguely). Jeez, it hurts a lot when people don't understand it...
Well, but the point isn't moving, it's more like teleporting, because it only apperars when a photon hits the moon and the photons are moving with the speed of light
For something slightly more complicated, let's take a very long stick and flick it in some random direction. How fast does the end of the stick move? What happens in the middle of the stick?
what if i thew a ball like really fast
unless you have an arm that can throw things at light speed i doubt it's faster
+Austin Spurlock plus your arm will rip off
+The Potato Rocket, If the arm can throw something at the speed of light - it could as well be resistant to such forces, but might be not.
but guys, he means like, really really fast
Janesprutget lol
How to break the speed of light:
Step 1: Name a vase "Speed of Light"
Step 2: Break it.
Step 1: name someone "Light"
Step 2: name his vase "speed"
Step 3: break it.
Done! :D
Jbdragonfire then that would become "Light's speed broke." lmao
Crymane Frantora yes but still, you've broke "the speed" (vase) of Light (your friend)
👏👏👏👏
Funny
If you move the pointer to a different point on the moon wouldn't it be like moving the nozzle of a garden hose to point to a different spot on the lawn? Water would not hit the new point of aim until the water leaving the hose at the time you moved it had traveled the distance from the nozzle to the new aiming point. So how is the water traveling faster than SoW (speed of water)?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying I don't get what you're saying.
I keep getting back to this video for the same question! Here is a comment that kinda explains it,
"+Doctor DeathDefying
As soon as the laser is rotated, emitting photons have a 1.3 second journey to reach the Moon surface... AH I get it !! Yes of course : just before the twist, a last photon leaves the laser and just after the twist a new one leaves... they will arrive quite at the same moment on the moon (having travelled 1,3s) but will be miles appart !
Ok Thats's convincing. but need an update for slow thinkers like myself."
the comment is from Yan G, hope it helped!
Motaz Bukhari Ok, so they're talking about the point of impact traveling faster than the speed of light. My thanks to you and Yan G. for the explanation.
Jim Fortune yes the point on the moon, travels the 3,500,00 meters across the surface of the moon, faster than the speed of light.....but then this still doesnt fix the problem you mentioned, relating this idea to the water hose! in order for that point on the moon to be able to travel the 3,500,000 meters across the moon surface in the 0.005 seconds, that means the light photons leaving the laser, after initiating the wrist flick, need to reach the moon's surface, (and technically back to your eyes) in less than 0.005s! so if this wrist flick, causing the dot on the moon to move across surface rlly does happen, then that means the photons emitted from the laser are traveling waaaay faster than speed of light!!
There is a delay from when your wrist starts to move to when the point on the moon starts to move, and that is what corresponds to the speed of light. However the time from when the point on the moon starts and stops is the same as with your wrist, because the starting and stopping points are delayed.
Dan Albl yes thats also true, so therefore the the point on the moon will still appear to move across the surface faster than the speed of light. I was just wondering if the movement of the point is instantaneous with your wrist flick or not. and yes it is a good argument. So does the movement of the point on the moon get delayed by about 1.3 seconds?
Reading the comments, I sometimes wonder if people bother to watch the videos. The photons don't break the speed limit. All that happens is you get an image that appears to travel faster than light moving across the surface of the moon, because the object that created them was set up to do it. Nothing has travelled faster than light, because the photons that create the dot are not the same photons that created it in the previous time-frame. Nothing is moving across the surface, just the illusion of something.
... or shall I really dumb it down?...
It's _magic_
That is true, but it is quite a misleading title since it clearly states that you break the speed of light, not that you appear to do so. Of course, if you actually watch the video you would know what they mean, but I still think it is a bad title.
You are correct.
Pika Chu I think it's a decent title. It makes you think harder about the concepts actually presented in Einstein's Special Relativity paper.
It's all about *Relativity*. The idea that, depending on your frame of reference, light can absolutely break the speed it's supposed to be able to move at.
If someone doesn't get the play on words, it pretty handily proves they weren't paying attention to the video and listening between the lines.
Exactly what i was gonna say. This is just trickery! Nothing is moving faster than light! In this example at least.
I'm so glad i found this video. I posed this exact same question to my physics teacher in leaving cert and we eventually after some debating came to this also. it was nice to see another physicist mentioning the exact same problem i had
Pixles can move' just throw your computer out the window and boom moving pixles
+Nina Thérèse Rosenørn Boom
+Gabriel Bonfim Boom
+紅 レッドヴァミリオン秋葉 boom
ikr
Nina Thérèse Rosenørn and some flying shoes from your mother too. xD
IF YOU RECORD LIGHT, PUT IN FAST FORWARD, THEIR YOU GO. PROBLEM EINSTEIN?
+TZPokemonz THAT IS HOW YOU MAKE LIGHT FASTER
+TZPokemonz Go to school, dumbass. Recording a light doesn't mean it is travelling across your screen faster than anything, as mentioned in the video, pixels have no speed. They just flick on and off to give off the illusion of movement.
+TZPokemonz but....but 60 fps
+Professor_Smiley You must be fun at parties.
lel i dont care
I'm going to annoy some NASA scientists now ... >:)
WHY IS THERE A GIANT RED DOT ON THE MOON?
lol next day they see random lights on the moon
+Ishika Jha
+Flavio Toledo
I think they are having a disco party there now.
+Ishika Jha i think we should have an event called "The everyone pointing their lazer pointer in the moon" day... lol!! That would be great!
+Ishika Jha lel
+william97able November 27, 8:00CST to 8:30CST
I think it was Vsauce who elaborated it. He mentioned that the dot doesn't travel from Point A on the Moon to Point B on the Moon, but rather from Point C, the source, to Point A on the moon or to point B on the moon.
he says the same thing in this video, "the photons of your laser travel" (from point A, your laser, to point B on the moon, and after you've moved it from point A to point C, the other point on the moon)
@@jbdragonfire Jesus can someone right a comment that means something in English. Not like this is too science, there just is no sentence structure to parse to figure out what the hell you’re saying
@@Alphabunsquad "not like this is too science" okay Mr sentence structure
@@Alphabunsquad the light is going from the laser to the moon at the speed of light, not moving across the moon at all
@@Alphabunsquad write
Tell a girl on your first date that you are unemployed and she will leave you faster than the speed of light.
Yeah. Girls always go for the money. Not just dick
I'm a brain woman myself. But yeah, I wouldn't date a guy that was long-term unemployed. I don't really give a crap about money, but lack of career ambition is a turn off.
+Annie Trinity And a guy who was making money on the stock markets but was unemployed long term? :).
dosduros Mmmm... Probably still no. MAYBE if they're a professional stock trader with a degree in economics that spends all day researching the best investments. But then that's pretty much a job. Like if I asked him "What do you do?" he would probably answer that instead of "nothing". But the point is I want a man with hustle, and preferably some desire to be the best at whatever he does. If my avatar didn't give it away, I like the dominant type (and yeah, a sense of humor is pretty important too). Money is only tangential to that factor, but I'd rather a guy who plans to be rich but isn't yet than a guy who is a trust fund kid or something and has money but doesn't care.
+Annie Trinity, Suppose that this unemployed guy could still be a good stay at home dad, would that still be a turn off for you?
Darn it. I would have felt pretty powerful knowing that every time I point a laser at the moon, I would have a chance of screwing up an entire important space mission.
An astronaut should point a laser at the earth and see who saw it :P
I can see it now; "Man blinded by light from the sky, scientists suggest aliens!".
I feel so good, having gotten 20 pluses.
Shooting a laser at the moon and flicking your wrist does not mean you'll break the speed of light barrier. The light particles from the laser will still hit/fall onto the moon at the speed of the flick. The speed of light cannot be beat.. it is the absolute speed limit of our universe as we [so far] know of.
Yes the laser travels the same speed as your wrist is moving, but the distance that dot moves is so great that for it to move that far in a milisecond is way faster than the speed of light. For instance, you can make that dot move across the entire surface of the moon in a milisecond. Yes the speed at which you move your wrist is less than that of light obviously, but the image of the dot that we see moves faster than that because it covers more distance in the same time.
blizzard0508 The photons from the laser are still traveling at C and the still take 1.5 seconds to reach the moon. There is no physical connection with your wrist there will still be a delay of 1.5 seconds un light spreads in the direction of wrist flick. The video is horrendously wrong.
saquist this is a half joke video. he knows you cant break the speed of light. but as he explained with the pixels, you can make it LOOK like you can... soo, yeah
saquist You missed the point. It has nothing to do with how long it takes the photons to move. If you flick your wrist to make the dot move from one side of the moon to the other, yes it would take 1.5 seconds because they have to travel the distance again, but the image of the dot that we see on the other side appears to have moved faster than light because it would take longer than 1.5 seconds for the light to travel like that. The point is that we can make an imagine move faster than light only because it's not the same one. Imagine this. You look to your right and you see a rock, you look to your left and you see another rock. The rock moved faster than light since it's the same image, just a different object. That's what the video is suggesting.
I assure you I understand...but that is an illusion since nothing is actually moving across the moon's surface. I had someone mention this at work and believed it because they saw it here. Let's call it what it is. A lie.
You can sort of think of it like a stream of water. It looks consistent, but you know that the water molecules are actually moving, and the water that splashes on a surface is immediately replaced with more water from the stream. And when you move the stream, the water that's already there doesn't move, but the position of the new water changes. It's easier to observe, though, since water moves much slower than light.
light has no speed son, its a rate of induction
Theoria Apophasis Verified but not a single like. Interesting...
son
You make videos on how the government is Keeping conspiracies and shit
This does not break the speed of light
Such a well put arguement
Astute assessment, Manganese.
Actually it's true, because the light that would still be on the way the moment you start moving the laser will still be travelling towards the same point, while the light that appears when you're moving it will just travel along with the movement of your hand. So standing on the moon, you would just be able to see the light moving slightly later... Because light can't travel faster than light
+neverAskMeWhy07 it's like moving a hose while water is coming out, that is exactly what it looks like
Actually it does. For the image, not the photons. I can even send a snapshot of the same image with a small delay to two different stars in two different directions. Assuming the distance to the stars is the same, because of the delay the image will seem to jump instantly from one star to the other breaking all possible speed limits, however of course it is not the actual physical photons jumping from one star to the other, the images are made of different sets of photons.
A lot of people here have no idea what is being explained. The phenomenon has nothing to do with the speed of light really. Try this example: You point a powerful flashlight at the moon so that it is illuminating the full face of the moon. You run your hand between the moon and the light source. the speed of light stays constant. The shadow won't appear on the moon instantaneously. BUT BUT BUT, the shadow WILL move from one side of the moon to the other FASTER than a beam of light emitted from one side to the other. This is because the image (shadow) must take the same amount of time to cross the moon as it did for your hand to pass in front of the light, but over a much longer distance.
This title is completely misleading
I got a Question......
we know that even light cannot escape from a black hole......and also if we are near black hole it will suck our body by ripping up the atom in our body......So can light's speed get faster or acceralated due to strong gravitational force of the black hole?Can the light speed be broken near black hole?
I have thougth so myself. The acceleration will become greater than the speed of light, but only theoretical.The same thing would happen if I tried running faster than t he speed of light, my mass would become infinint and so on.
+So Sorry Light is elecrtomagnetic radiation, and photons composing it are massless. Massless things cannot be accelerated. Light always travel at the same speed, the speed of massless particles, it cannot be accelerated because it has no mass.
It does have momentum and energy thoguh, this is why it interacts with gravitational fields (even if very weakly).
+impagic1 Acceleration cannot "become greater than speed", speed and acceleration are two different quantities and cannot be compared in temrs of absolute value with each other. Light that crosses the event horizon of a black hole gets sucked in at the same speed without being accelerated
thanks both of you for spending your precious......
+UnCavi but momentum= mass x velocity
Banter King Yes, that is the definition of momentum in classical mechanics.
However, the momentum of a photon is a quantum physical quantity, and does not fall into the definition we learn in classical mechanics. The momentum of a photon only depends on it's frequency (or on it's wavelength, it's the same) and it is
p = h/λ
λ being the photon's wavelength and h being Planck's constant
Yes, this is just the *illusion* of going faster than light, but he has mentioned this in the video and given a very thorough explanation as to why this is simply an illusion. So no need to get out your ten cartons of salt and start dumping it all over the place >.>
+_Ins3rt You know of Veritasium too?
salman sufi Yup, I've watched that video :D
i agree too
How to create something faster than the light:
Turn on a flashlight and record it. Then watch the record and turn on fast forward on the video. You´ve now created something faster than the speed of light.
Problem? :)
***** Someone does not understand troll physics.
That's kind of tricky but I think there's a problem here. To observe something you have to reflect light off the object which your eye can then pick up. For instance to observe a cat, you would have to flash light on the cat so that the electrons on the surface of the cat can excite and de-excite to remit/ reflect part of the light which your eye (or in this case the camera) can pick up for observation. If you flash light on light, the beam you fired won't reflect back rather it would simply superimpose with the other beam of light. So in a way you ca never observe light. You can use light to observe different objects but you can't observe light itself.
Gustav Mårdby Lol now you're just saying you were joking because of how idiotic you realized you are lololol
Koear haha sure if you want to think so go ahead. XD
Koear it was definitely a joke.
Why is everyone here in the comments trying to sound smart by saying the laser dot moving across the moon's surface isn't really breaking the speed of light? He literally says that in the video. You're just repeating shit he already explained. Do you people not pay attention?
"How to break the speed of light" So thats wrong.
Gianluca Perzan "The laser pointer on the moon is basically the same [as pixels]. Each photon travels to the moon at the speed of light, but the image of a dot that they form on the surface moves twenty times faster. No physical laws are broken because nothing physical is actually traveling faster than light. It's just an image." That is an exact quote that is accurate and coherent. If you can't understand that description, you need to go back to school.
Armaros He does? but I didn't finished the video as I already tought that the information he gave is misleading and wrong so yeah..
How to break the speed of light:
Step 1: Point a laser pointer at the moon
Step 2: Get fucking arrested for pointing a laser into the night sky
Can you do a video on measuring/defining the speed of light and why it varied outside its error bars during 1928 and 1945? I dunno how reliable that claim (by Rupert Sheldrake) is, but a video on the history of its definition would be interesting anyway.
The changing of pixels in a screen is called Frequency. Not speed.
Same way with that laser pointer you point at the moon. The light will bend as you move it, and your illusion of "speed" is limited by the frequency of how often the beams hit the surface of the moon.
Doesn't sound right to me, the moon isn't gonna know that you waved the laser until 1.2 seconds after you do it. So wouldn't the spot created on the moon by the laser move much slower that the speed of light?
its not the laser breaking the speed of light, its the red dot, the image that moves faster then the speed of light and that movement is cause by your wrist. And because of the distance the movement gets amplifed
Yeah, because when I shine a laser to the freaking moon I can see it perfectly from my back yard...
Lol
Hey minutephysics! I have a question: why is the speed of light constant? I did some researches and asked my teacher but i still can't understand. So I wonder if you could make a video explaining it in a simple way? I would be grateful if u did!
Thanks!
th-cam.com/video/ACUuFg9Y9dY/w-d-xo.html
I’m only about 7 years late
It is constant in vaccum, but the speed of light has speed variations in solid liquid amd gases . It's very simple one
In my opinion what you said about the laser is wrong. Because when you turn the laser on small packs with photons are constantly traveling with the speed of light to the moon. So when you flick your wrist it won’t go instantly to the other side of the moon. Instead the beam from the laser will curve and it would take some time for light to pass the information. I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying but the light beam won’t travel instant from the one side to the other thus breaking the speed of light
I will ask the cops to watch this video when i get arrested for pointing laser at the sky...
Come to Ukraine, the only truly free country in the world where you won't be arrested for pointing a laser beam anywhere :)
VioletGiraffe Or Come to India !
***** Or come to Egypt! which is in africa!!! ( i come from there)
You do realize nobody will know you did it unless you go snitch on your self right?
That sounds suspiciously like the blues clues music playing in the background
I saw many comments talking about the video being inaccurate.. Please look at 1:01 again.. He already said that the lazer is not traveling faster the speed of light.. It's still travelling in the speed of light.. It's just that the picture/illusion for that particular photons to form is faster.. that's all.
+william97able the title is misleading
So. I'm not a physicist. So someone correct me if I am wrong. But basically, mass (and energy+information) cannot move faster than light. But events can. The dot on the moon is not a physical object. It's an event where a photon from the laser hits the moon and causes more photons to be released.
Further though...the laser still breaks down. Even assuming a super-focused laser thar is a dot at that distance, the movement of the dot would be noticeably less bright than the standstill dot as the photon density would go down. Thereby not even really making it the same event in another location. Just a thing that happens.
Im going to break the speed of light with quantum entanglement in my pants.. Just think about it...
I wanna be on the international space station and point my laser towards earth. and play with the people as if they were cats! ^_^
Lol that sounds hilarious!
I don't understand...If the laser was shining with a light that was instantaneous, then this would make sense, but it takes time for the light to travel to the moon too. Just as if the sun were actually a giant flashlight, if the sun swept across the Earth, the light wouldn't sweep across the Earth instantaneously, but it would take 8 minutes to see it, and we would see it for d/c, where d=diameter of the flashlight's "circle of light" and c=light speed. Am I wrong?
We are only measuring the image of the light formed on the surface. Like here is an example:
Let's say that the sun was a flashlight like you said, and the solar system is floating in a giant box that is a light-year across. Let's also assume that the sun is stationary, looking at the same spot in that box. Now we grab that flash light and spin it 360º in only a second. At first, nothing happens to the image of the light inside that box, because it is going to take half a year for the light that we made to reach the walls of the box. We aren't measuring the speed of those photons, though, we only care about how quick the picture on the wall is.
Half a year passes, and the light from us spinning the sun has just started to move on the wall. At this point, we begin to time our stopwatch. We spun the sun in only a second, so the light sweeps across the entire box and comes back to where it started in only one second. Yet each side of the box is a light-year across, making the total distance of that image 4 whole light-years. This works because we excluded the huge wait time that it took for the image to start moving, and only focused on the image against the wall.
Kanade Tachibana I don't think I will ever completely understand, though your explanation sounds...well, "sound". It is probably the fact that light is composed of photons, and the fact that photons are mass-less and behave differently than atoms is messing with me. If the example was water shooting out of a hose, would this still work?
Chris Osborne If they were going in a perfectly straight line, yes. Think of it as you have a water hose and are spraying at walls in your house. If you turn around and spay at a different wall, you are moving what looks like a wet spot on the wall, even though we know that the water isn't moving across it.
Tis would be easier if I could show you a video, but I can't find one that actually explains it well. This one just uses pictures.
Kanade Tachibana I am starting to get it now...I am focusing on the example of the pixels he used. If we have a screen a light-year in length and have a bunch of pixels turn off from left to right at intervals where the lights turn off in half the time it would take the light to travel from one side to the other, the image on the screen would technically be swept by the darkness (lack of light) at twice the speed of light. Of course, no physical atom (or photon) would actually break the speed of light.
Chris Osborne Correct, our brains would visualize the sweeping image, but no physical thing would break the speed of light.
You can do the same with big scisors. When you close them, the point where the blades cross knows no speed limit. With scisors big enough, you can make this (virtual) point go faster than light.
No, that won't be virtual at all!! It's just that such long siccors won't behave rigidly meaning it would bend in some way.
@@tahamuhammad1814 My source is Etienne Klein, physicist and philosopher quite famous in France and in Academia. He even suggested that some ingeneering university should calculate and make such a (big) pair of scisors.
And yes, the point where the blades cross is virtual and not physical.
Just, Y'know, it might not be a good idea to randomly point lasers into the sky, cuz planes and stuff...
+TotallyTorchic you would see the plane unless there is a cloud blocking it
Don't point it at a plane doe
Except... anyone who has read "What if?" will know that no one will see the laser.
"Let’s mount a megawatt laser on every square meter of the surface of Asia"
+Mucho Chen to do what? vaporize the moon?
To see the laser pointer on the moon! Vaporisation is an acceptable side effect.
Mucho Chen the thing is, you will probably be vaporized too. Like two seconds before you can see the lasers
@@mikea2363 lol!
Wouldn't the beam of the laser move like wave if you were to flick your wrist?
The spot doesn't actually move at all, it is just "recreated" across the moon as you flick your wrist, the light still travels at usual speed, the image just appears to move
We still can't beat the speed of light. When you flick it, the laser pulse will travel as a wave (like a string, when we flick it up and down), and that wave travels in the speed of light. Therefore the image would not move instantly. So, no, you can't break the speed of light. And, yes, Laser light is physical, they are photons!
***** imagine the laser pointer as a machine gun which constantly shooting bullets(photons). When you flick the machine gun(laser pointer) up and down, the bullet(photons) will travel like a wave(up and down). So, when you flick the laser pointer, the image on the moon would not move at the very exact moment you flick your wrist. it will wait for the wave of photons to reach the moon first. Until then, it will not move.
the image itself is travelling faster than the speed of light not the photons making up the image that you see. the point is that the image can travel faster because it is merely an image that you can see.
Aiken Sujana Well said
Aiken Sujana Yea but it will still move at the same speed. The delay between the last photon to leave the laser before you started to move your wrist and the first photon after you completed the flick will be the same when they hit the moon. Just like your machine gun. If you fire a bullet, turn your gun and fire another bullet 1ms later at another target at the same distance. The delay between the 2 impacts will be 1ms, regardless of the distance between the targets and the speed of the bullets.
You contradicted yourself, at first you said the laser pulse will travel as a wave and then ended saying the laser light was physical, if its physical then the speed of light can be broken.
Note that pilots can be blinded by lasers
***** What do you think? Everyone can be blinded by lasers >5mw
But 5mw lasers can still blind people, they may not be safe
***** Probably not, but never point lasers at the sky unless
1) You are educated & know what you are doing
2) You want to try to bring down a plane
Usually only 5mw< lasers can be imported into the US through customs (there are loopholes and laws though)
***** Never point them at drivers. Police officers can shoot you if they see you point a laser and if they think you are using the laser to aid a sniper or to help with sights on a gun.
***** Never point lasers at anything except objects that you are sure are not alive or mirrors/lenses/refracting objects.
1: apply kim kardashian to speed of light
2: profit
I didn't get it. Here's why, correct me if I'm wrong :
I'm ok with the pixel thing : there's no light movement, it's just an visual illusion created by the fact that you turn on and off all the pixels of the same line one by one : they don't move at all, but you think they do, because the light turned on is just next to the one that have just been turned off, and so on.
To my mind, that trick would also work if someone turned on lights put in a line directly ON the moon between 2 points (A and B) : then, no light would actually move, it's would be the same illusion.
On the opposite, when you point your laser at the moon, the photons travel the distance between your wrist and A, and then, when you flick your wrist, the photons travel from your wrist to B. So, nothing travels from directly from A to B : The photons still need the time to travel from Earth to the Moon to reach B, which is the reason why I don't understand how they are supposed to travel faster than light (which is a great game, you should give it a try).
(don't mind my English, I'm not native)
I thought pointing laser pointers at the sky was banned or something because it affected pilots...i dunno
Depends where you are.
Pilots are only 6 miles or so up: the moon is about 240,000 miles up.
That doesn't mean the police can find you
+DNAunion and your point is? the pilot can pass through the path of the light beam
Lol.. One single beam of lazer will go in a pilots retina? Flying 5-6miles high? Can someone calculate chances of happening that
Yeah you blew my mind, this makes no fucking sense
Vsauce Theory:
Say if you wanted to press a button 1 light year away.
So you build a board that is 1 light year long that reaches from you, to the button.
If you pushed that board, it would instantly hit the button, which was 1 light year away.
You just broke the speed of light, which would normally take ONE YEAR to reach that button. Instead, it took under a second.
*Mind explosion*
He later explained that the speed of "push" is as fast as sound. So slower than light.
Actually Veritasium said in a video that if you tried to push a board that long, all the atoms in it would have to bounce of each other toake the board move. The board would actually not move at all.
It would travel at the speed of sound because the atoms in the board moves on a wave similar to knocking over dominoes. I also think he started that you would need an infinite amount of energy for the waves to travel that far.
it's amazing how many people still don't get it in the comment section. You need to make some of these 5 minutes and title them exactly right like "how to make it look like you are breaking the speed of light". Then maybe a handful would follow along better.
So wait, it actually reaches the moon?
Light doesn't just disappear, so of course it will.
oh
It looks very grim for the future of space travel (thx Einstein lol); unless your name is Han Solo and you can do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
That's why there's something called warp drive...
+Sith Smasher You can't travel faster than the speed of light THROUGH space-time, but space-time can be bent, folded, stretched, compressed and otherwise manipulated. You just have to know how. Kinda like warp drive.
laurauraura
I know about einstein-rosen bridges and Alcubierre and EM drives. But none of that stuff has been proven to work. It's just maths on a piece of paper. So unless someone is willing to throw an insane amount of money at experimenting with those drives and doing heavy research on producing antimatter I don't see it happening in our lifetime.
+Sith Smasher I say the glass is half full. If it's possible, then it will happen... eventually.
@@sithsmasher7685 I know this was 4 years ago but im still gonna comment... Hopefully ur awake by now or waking up like lots of other ppl in the world, but the U.S government has had the technology to travel space for decades. Who knows if they'll ever release it to the public?! Prob not until the oil runs out or their hand is forced in some other way but its real. Do some research on your own and not by googling main steam science. Main stream science is full of shit!
Really you aren't breaking the speed of light but simple creating an illusion that appears as if it's breaking the speed of light, so that title is a bit misleading.
What if you constantly accelerate in space until you reach the speed of light and accelerate even more? Would you travel faster than the speed of light?
you cannot accelerate faster than the speed of light.
according to relativity,
F = ma(1-(v^2)/(c^2))
so at normal speeds, v^2 ~ 0 and so (1 - 0/c^2) ~ 1, so you'd have F ~ ma.
as v increases to c, (1-(v^2)/(c^2)) decreases to 0, so at c, you'd have
F = ma*0 = 0
if you try to set F to be greater than 0, maths breaks, so you can only go upto c.
Thank god for these comments. I was confused. I dont like being confused >_>
Same here
Veritasium made a video about this (well sort off it about multiple ways to pass the speed of light and none of the worked, including this one) I don't care if you believe what this guy said but it is wrong because he is then saying that light is traveling faster than the speed of light.
"he is then saying that light is traveling faster than the speed of light."
No he isn't, he's saying the dot is moving faster than light.
It works because the dot isn't an object: it's a pattern. It's not a physical thing.
Schp Wuette Ok. Sorry. I was thinking way differently then but thanks.
Schp Wuette
It only works if the light beam doesn't bend...like it will.
Peter Mirtitsch It works. Draw a picture, then maybe you'll get it. It's not special, it's barely even interesting, but it works. The dot moves faster than light. It doesn't matter, because you can't stick anything to the dot and send a message from one side of the moon to the other, faster than light. The dot itself - the only thing going FTL - isn't a physical thing, it's just a pattern that humans point to and give a name.
Imagine pointing the laser at a wall 1 light year in front of you, then spinning around to point at a wall 1 light year behind. It won't be long after the light finally hits the first wall that the dot moves round to the second wall. It covered 2 light years in barely any time at all!
I know how to break the speed of light another way! A wall.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Here's how things work.
To break the speed of light, get a very light, unbreakable stick more than 300,000 km (the speed of light in a second) across. Give it a swing at a normal spinning pace. The close end (the one facing you) might go very slow, but if the stick is long enough, the other end will travel the speed of light and possibly faster! Confused? If you turn the stick 90 degrees (sorry I don't have that sign on my keyboard), then the end of the stick has to stay with all the other bits of it down to you. Think of a circle with a smaller one inside the exact core. Now draw a line between the two circles, and another one at another angle. Measure the ends further away from the radius of the smaller circle, and then the two closer to the radius. The ones further away will show a bigger measurement on the ruler. Back to the stick. If you think about it it's EASY. But since I cannot show pictures in comments, it's hard to explain. Also, as you may have read on my channel about, I won't upload ANY videos. Here's my new theorem: "The circle that has a line from the centre to the edge can swing the line faster away from the centre and slower closer to the centre." Try drawing a circle with a compass, then join two lines to the centre and measure them...
Anyways, when you swing the stick, the bit of ultra force that swings it (you) will power the other end to go at an angle faster. Don't let go (I really HATE the Frozen Let it Go song anyway) of the stick or centipetral force will fly it away like a bolas. Think of it easier this way: Draw an angle and measure the in-between the two lines away from the corner and the in-between closer to the corner and the one away from the corner will be longer. (Just don't draw a reflex/180 degree angle or it won't work!) If you swing the stick, then if it's longer than the distance light goes in a second, it's very likely the end can go faster than light because the end goes your angle of spinning in a second times the length of the stick in a second!
I bet Microsoft Windows Sam, Microsoft Windows Anna, Microsoft Windows David AND Apple Macintosh Alex can never figure that out! Smart, eh?
Ultra Super This would violate the special theory of relativity and at no time is any part of the stick moving faster than the speed of light due to constraints of the physical properties of the stick (Such as compression and deformation..even if there was such a thing as "unbreakable"). Nothing with mass can travel faster than (or at) the speed of light in a vacuum. :)
This seems like a simple explanation but you forgot something substantial. The atoms which form the sticks can travel at a maximum speed, the speed of sound, which is about 340 m/s. That means, if you have a floating stick 340 m long and you push on one end of it, the other end needs 1 second to be pushed as well.
In your theory, the stick is 300,000,000 m long. If you start spinning the inner end, it will take 245 hours (10 days) for the outer end to even begin spinning. Since you said the stick is very light, I'm leaving inertia out of here. The stress on the stick would naturally break it and here's the next problem.
You stated the stick shall be unbreakable and with that in mind, if you spin the inner end 360° in 1 hour, after 5 revolutions, the outer end would be lagging behind by a few weeks. Therefore the stick would have to be longer to accommodate the lagging. It would violate the laws of physics.
Conclusion: There is only one thing which is truly unbreakable, the speed of light itself :)
So, what if we take a rod made from a super hard high tech material, that is ultra light... so light that you can extend it from your backyard to the moon.. What if we flick our wrist then, the edge of the rod should travel faster than light isn't it? Or we somehow we contract the space in order to compensate with the speed of light?
Nope. Kinetic energy moves like a wave, so while it may not seem like it, the long tube would just wave like a rope. This video itself is 100% wrong as well because of the same concept. Light travels like a wave. Light closer to the laser pointer when you flick your wrist will move first and then move down the long 'laser string' to the end.
The Timelords I can understand your concept, but still, if this rod is made from a hypothetical material that it does not have elasticity, viscosity and cannot create internal forces, meaning that the rod it cannot behave like a medium to transfer energy through it. In simple words, it cannot bend, is hypothetically absolutely rigid. What happens then? Since that material does not allow the propagation of a wave and thus energy, what happens in that case?
Panos La It might move faster then light in violation of the laws of physics. Remember, in order for something with any mass to travel the speed of light, it requires infinite energy, so you'll probably not have the literal infinite strength to flick your wrist while holding it
+Panos La In order to make that kind of speed, you would need an incredibly strong base. If we had that technology with the super high tech material thing, it would probably be possible. Its just like a whip cracking- the tip of the whip is breaking the speed of light. However, you cannot eliminate an object of physics. Like time lord said, " the long tube would just wave like a rope" and break. Even if the material is possible you would also need a lot of energy. We don't have that material and energy right now. Even using carbon-fiber nano tubes, the strongest man made material on earth right now, you would need a base as wide as the visible universe. The energy that is needed to move that is also extreme. So, it is not possible. But, using the warp drive,bending space fabric, it can be done.
+The Timelords I have prepared since puberty to be able to reach that amount of strenght with the flick of my hand if you know what I mean.
its just a bug, God will release patch soon
Will this patch also include a fix for Justin Beiber?
now come on.. that's cheating!!
I've always liked the calm bass in the background.
so telepoting is imposible...god please update the game "LIFE"
I can't see the laser light in the moon.
So if I point my laser at a plane will I blind the pilot?
Depends on your pointer, your accuracy, and distance between you and the pilot.
Don't do it!!
If a laser beam is swept quickly across a distant object, the spot of light can move faster than c, although the initial movement of the spot is delayed because of the time it takes light to get to the distant object at the speed c. However, the only physical entities that are moving are the laser and its emitted light, which travels at the speed c from the laser to the various positions of the spot. Similarly, a shadow projected onto a distant object can be made to move faster than c, after a delay in time. In neither case does any matter, energy, or information travel faster than light.
But... Isn't the laser a light...? ಠ_ಠ (What you're doing is breaking the speed of light using a light)
-self-mind blown- I have no idea how I came up with that o-o
+Daniela Stefan actually this idea won't work cause if you search " how to break the speed of light" and search for vsauces video , you can see that the beam of the laser would bend and still "run" at the speed of light. But what you would see is that the light went straight and not curved.
Oh, thanks for explaining!
+Daniela Stefan you're welcome
it refers to the speed of the light (of the laser) that goes though the surface of the moon, not the speed of the laser going though space and traveling... however Vsause explains this in one of his videos :3
What about two gears with 20 and 50 teeth with the second one moving at the speed of light?
You would first have to get a gear to the speed of light, which scientists currently think is impossible. I can't remember the exact reason why, but there is a tonne of information on the topic
Of course it's impossible. Any object that has mass can't reach the speed of light.
The question is theoritical.
By that logic, it's possible to accelerate anything to the speed of light, thereby making it possible to break the speed of light with almost any of the current means we use to accelerate objects.
Patrick O'Connell Yeah. I just mentioned one of these ways.
breezebro Kind of. The thing is that the two gears depend on it's other's speed. In the example you mentioned, the two speeds are not relative. But I see your point.
you're a very good con-man you create fraud everytime you put up a video... the title says that you know how to break the speed of light, and yet you go into explaining that it's just an illusion of speed faster than light.
its to draw viewers
1:03 I don’t think so. Lasers aren’t like normal light. All the photons in the beam travel in one direction, so the dot wouldn’t expand with distance.
atmospheric scattering
this video is incorrect. I'm a theoretical physicists. the view of the laser is an illusion. the photons will still travel speed of light.
+Sam Spinda nononono magic
Are You dumb?
+ED I.N.C Hey all im saying is, he was wrong.
Haakon Johansen on a scale of 1 to hitler, you're about a 7
+ED I.N.C says the guy with shit grammar...
This guy has a great sense of humour, and that makes the comments worth going through.
if there is a speed below light speed, it's possible to break above. there is no limit of speed in its both directions. the speed below "zero" will switch forward and the "limit" of forward will switch to backwards.
But this doesn't break the speed of light at all, it creates the appearance that the light travels across the moon faster than the speed of light, however at each point across the surface it is a different photon of light and so that spot of light you see on one end of the moon isn't the same as the spot of light on the other side, they are different photons. Technically the only thing travelling is the photons of light from their source to the moon, at the speed of light, the light that appears to travel across the moon is simply different photons of light projected to different points on the moon and not something travelling faster than the speed of light other than the false assumption that it is the same light that travels across the moon. It's an interesting concept though.
This video reminds of when I was still a child and I would urge my dad to pass the car ahead of us. Of course my dad wasn't a reckless driver, but when the car turned to a side road and we continued onwards he would then tell me that we had finally passed them by.
The light from the laser pointer is not a solid beam. It's an uncountable number of light particles firing in one direction. Each particle takes somewhere around 1.25 seconds to go from your pointer, to the moon. No matter how fast you flick your wrist, those particles will still be moving at the same speed. I'll try my hand at a simple visual. Before you flick: -------- During the flick - - - - -. The light particles don't hit every single area of the moon you flick over, there are gaps, relative to the distance covered, and the speed of light.
You have omitted latency from your assertion. Laser light travels at C from your device to the moon, however. while the flick of your wrist does move the beam from moon edge to moon edge from the perspective of the transmission point, the emitted beam doesn't instantly travel across the face of the moon. It takes time to arrive.
The result is akin to what is seen in nighttime anti-aircraft tracer gunfire. The tracer rounds look like water from a garden hose being waved back and forth.
guys, ive read the comments and filtered through the debates but while he isn't saying that that truly moves faster than light, there IS a technicality. Ill make really easy. Think of it like this:
When you look up at the night sky you can see the milky way galaxy (most of it). It is 100000 light years across which means that light would need 100000 years at its own speed to cross the entire thing. Want to 'cross' it in less than a second? simple, look at one edge of it from earth, where you stand, and quickly look across to the other end. Voila! you just spanned 100000 light years in less than a second. and it takes light to 'see' one end to the other so there's the technicality. It's the same principle as what he described in the video.
The photons don't change with you if you move the flashlight. Those will continue along. It's like moving a rubber pipe rather than a beam of light, in that the effect out there is a bit delayed, at least more than you think.
Albert einstein: no you can't break the speed of light
minute physics: haha laser pointer go flick
The information that your hand is displaced have to move there and it won't be possible unless the light from the new position gets there. So the light will flick after the light reaches there and therefore flick will be travelling at a little lower the speed of light.
I initially though this was wrong, but after a bit of thinking he is right the "image" moves faster than light and that is the key to understand this riddle...the image moves faster than light not its individual components
This is really debatable. Saying that you can break the speed of light is still not a fact in most fields of physics, it would have been a little bit wiser to say the words 'possibly' or 'opinionated'.
When you point a laser at the moon and flick it, the light doesn't go faster than the speed of light, when you do that the laser on the moon is still moving at the same speed. It's like the same effect when you have a hose with water coming out, when you flick the hose the water has to catch up with hose, it doesn't go any faster. I know my explanation is weird but look it up for a better one
I don't guess that this is true. When you move that laser pointer across the moon its image will not break the speed of light because the light out of your pointer is still moving at the speed of light. If you draw an imaginary straight line from you laser pointer and the move it, it will work. But since our pointer's light is still moving at the speed of light the image of the final point at the moon will not appear until the light from your laser pointer hit it. Right?
The thing about pointing a laser at the moon is it wouldn't get to the moon immediately, there is a delay since light speed isn't instantaneous, same thing for when you move the laser.
i can break the speed of life :pulls out a sledge hammer and breaks the speed limit sign: there now the physics police will never know
I think : Mechanics( quantum) of light :
The light is the limit(the border,of things,the edge of the matter)
Over the limit are no more things,( there is no matter anymore )
If you want to pass( break) the limit, you should use : not matter anymore, ( not particles anymore)
(Light speed ) It can't be reached with mechanical movement( mechanical particles movement). Mechanical movement( motion) is for things under the light's limit,( things with mass, volume etc... For matter,)light is the "wall"( limit) between matter and " No matter " . Don't waste time to break the light's limit with particles ( like neutrino, tachyon etc..) In this state( situation) you don't have to do with particles , because you want to go over( beyond ) the light ( over the particles) therefore is wasting of time
.
Another parallel thought :
The possible outcome :
C= constant means :
The light doesn't move,( doesn't travel )
The photons doesn't move, therefore ( speed of) light is constant, because they don't move , is just as to turn the page, light just display it( unveils it) , but doesn't move ( doesn't travel)
The book 91:3
This is a new point of view
So you should make another math system, another physical system ( over{ beyond} the matter) , should find new sources .
If you will approach to the limit( to the border), the limit doesn't have sense anymore, if you pass the limit, the things will change, the system doesn't work anymore, a new system will be applied( will be working) , for example : if you want to become smaller and smaller and smaller , until you become a string, that is the edge, there is nothing beyond it, if you want to go beyond it, you should leave the entire system, and take a new( different) system .
It is like to travel with a car, you can travel with the car until in front of you there is the sea, now you should leave the car and take a new vehicle ( a ship) , because the car doesn't work beyond the edge ( beyond the limit ,the land ), there is different environment beyond the land, the car doesn't work there, same is your system, you want to go there but your system doesn't work there, need a new system, new variables, "new tools "... 🦩
The point where the light photons hits the moon's surface isn't an actual physical object, but merely a artificial point in space and time that would simply create the illusion of the excursion of the speed of light rather than a physical object with mass exceeding it. In the same way that if you closed a pair of scissors really fast, the point where the blades meet would be appear to be traveling at a velocity however it wouldn't ACTUALLY be a real point in a sense because it's simply the constantly changing location of where two things meet, rather than one thing moving.
A demonstration to analyze the speed of push. A thought experiment is to stretch a rod to the moon and give the earth end a nudge to see if it touches the moon before a laser beam reaches the moon. You are welcome to show mathematically how long the rod would take to bump the moon but be sure you understand that the rod is being lightly pushed at a speed of 1 inch per second so as not to cause a shock wave. Light takes about 1.3 seconds.
Cats on the moon must go crazy when they see laser points moving that fast.
which book you use to give us such really good explanations. ..sir plz reply ☺☺😊
Lol, "Help! I'm trapped in a liquid crystal!"
Thanks for the video. Will you please explain is it possible to increase the speed of sound to speed of light
how to beat the speed of light
my uncultured brain: d a r k n e s s
i was expecting the cat from the start and at the end i saw an alien cat
Not true. a laser pointer is actually light flashing on and off really fast, so it looks like it's not flashing at all. So The light is not actually traveling across the moon. It's just making lined up dots on the moon.
GUYS... For all of you say it's wrong, it's not! The image formed on the moon appears to move across the face 20x the speed of light, but the photons arrive at the moon at the speed of light. Watch Veritasium for a double explanation.
What minutephysics was saying about the computer pixels, that was what Derek was saying too (just more vaguely). Jeez, it hurts a lot when people don't understand it...
Well, but the point isn't moving, it's more like teleporting, because it only apperars when a photon hits the moon and the photons are moving with the speed of light
For something slightly more complicated, let's take a very long stick and flick it in some random direction. How fast does the end of the stick move? What happens in the middle of the stick?
Maybe astronauts wouldn't be blinded, but maybe a passing pilot wouldn't be all too happy about your laser beam :p
vsauce slapped you in the face with "how fast does darkness travel"