tennis ball theory

H

Hodgstar

New member
Ok me and a friend got into a theoretical discussion a while ago about light and sound and speed. We ended up trying to decide what you would see / hear if a tennis ball traveled towards you at a speed faster than the speed of light.

I think that as the ball overtakes its own image of the first part of its journey, that assuming your brain could process images that quickly you would see the ball closest to you first then the images of the balls journey would catch up in reverse order making it appear the ball traveled away from you.

All and any thoughts welcome!

What do you guys think?
 
name='doomie22' said:
i think a ball traveling that fast, would go streight through your head...
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Amen

And no you wouldn't see it. Prob wouldn't really feel it either... Just god bye head.
 
I don't think you would be able to see the ball at all considering that if it was faster than light you're eyes wouldn't be able to capture the image of the ball, let alone give your brain enough time to process it.

I don't know lol it makes sense it my mind
 
No that makes 100% sense

You process approx 30million (if I remember my numbers right) things a second and of those you only are able to actually take in 134 (apparently). As the ball is travelling faster than the speed the light is getting to your eyes and then as said it would take milliseconds again to process that information once it arrives - you basically wouldn't see it before it was gone
 
As we have no idea what happens if something goes faster than the speed of light then anything could happen. The ball could go back in time.
 
I imagine that it would be the same scenario as a bullet travelling faster than sound. You're hit before you hear it coming ;)
 
Yep, you wouldn't see it, but I believe it is possible to have something going faster than the speed of light.

Edit: Actually I have no idea what would happen since the speed of light is supposed to be constant.
 
name='Doddsy' said:
As we have no idea what happens if something goes faster than the speed of light then anything could happen. The ball could go back in time.
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Einstein's famous theory of relativity - E=mc² basically equates to the theory that as you approach the speed of light (300,000,000 meters per second), time itself starts to slow down. So again, theoretically if you could get anywhere near the speed of light, it would stop at the speed of light and possibly go backwards if faster...in relativity.
 
actually his theory of "if you could see it" matches up with you seeing it go backwards in a strange way however you would have to account for the fact that each frame in time (so to speak) would have travelled a distance at the speed of light already so would they catch up with themselves? i think this is how the idea of going back in time works? you overtake your own existence blah blah stopping now before my head implodes or something :S
 
well for the average human being it takes round 50milliseconds for an image to transfer from the retina to the brain so base your theory around that

my thinking is you'd be wiping your bleeding nose before you realised what had hit you, considering the speed of sound is around 760mph and the speed of light is much faster at about 300,000,000 m/second, infact I think the tennis ball would explode !
 
Physics aside..

Would u get the same experience if u had a tennis ball travelling faster than the speed of sound at a blind person ?
 
doesnt E=mc2 imply that it's relative mass would increase? As c is a constant and (as c cannot be exceeded by an object) the acceleration brings the object closer to the speed of light, the object stops following the main law of kinetics, meaning any work done to it is expressed as mass.

Unfortunately for you, you are touching on an area of physics with several unanswered questions. For example, the current model for light (one of the biggest factors here), is particles known as Photons, which, SHOULD have mass (especially considering they are susceptible to gravity - which is what makes black holes black - light particles not being able to escape). However, surely if they did have ANY mass whatsoever, even similar to an electron, at the speed of light, its mass and momentum would be pretty impressive. And objects with mass would have a hard time getting through glass in such massive amounts......

Infact some dudes just won the Nobel prize in physics for getting closer to a working model of the photon.

Large amounts of physics are not actually proven. There is no evidence or proof. Just theories that make so much sense that they must be true.

anyway, that's all to serious so:

A tennis ball weighs 57g so:

E = 0.057 x (299,792,458 m/s)2 = 5122904518799860.548 J..... think by the time you see that thing coming your head will have been vaporized lol
 
name='Llwyd' said:
doesnt E=mc2 imply that it's relative mass would increase? As c is a constant and (as c cannot be exceeded by an object) the acceleration brings the object closer to the speed of light, the object stops following the main law of kinetics, meaning any work done to it is expressed as mass.
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Yes you are mostly right mate. A fast-moving object moving at near to the speed of light cannot be accelerated to, or faster than, the speed of light, regardless of how much energy is put into the system. Especially when the mass is a rest mass.

Objects gain mass as they accelerate to greater and greater speeds. Now, to get an object to move faster, you need to give it some sort of push. An object that has more mass needs a bigger push than an object with less mass. If an object reached the speed of light, it would have an infinite amount of mass and need an infinite amount of push, or acceleration, to keep it moving. Which is where you went with your answer.

Einstein’s 'Theory of Relativity' also suggests that 'time' is relative to ones motion and also to the amount of gravity exerted on one. It theorises that the faster you travel, the more time slows for the traveller, which is what I alluded to earlier (well the tennis ball anyway). This is true but only a part of the story. Have you read anything on time dilation theory, have a look about on the net for it. Heavy reading, but interesting none-the-less.

Unfortunately for you, you are touching on an area of physics with several unanswered questions.
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Yes I am, which is why I have never stated it as fact. There are actually more than several....

Large amounts of physics are not actually proven. There is no evidence or proof. Just theories that make so much sense that they must be true.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more.

A tennis ball weighs 57g so:

E = 0.057 x (299,792,458 m/s)2 = 5122904518799860.548 J..... think by the time you see that thing coming your head will have been vaporized lol
Click to expand...
Yes you are correct, but like AydST said previously and I agreed - you wouldn't get a tennis ball anywhere near the speed of light before it was reduced to nothing.

Sorry for rambling, it's late rofl - 1.15am here.
 
name='PV5150' said:
Yes I am, which is why I have never stated it as fact. There are actually more than several....
Click to expand...

I was actually talking to the OP :p I remember having a discussion once about if an object reached the speed of light and time slowed / stopped, whether we would be able to see anything. Considering motion requires time, and photons require motion to cause retinal stimulation...
 
Did you ever hear about the odd happenings at CERN when fragments of colided particles came near / hit the speed of light (as far as the chambers monitoring equipment could tell) ?
 
No I hadn't mate, was it a press release from the CERN labs? I'd be really interested to read about it if you had a link or journal that I could check it out in when I get back to work on Monday.
 
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