Lead
An astronaut wants to take on a challenge where he will enable the spacecraft to leave Earth at the speed of light, fly for a minute, and then return to Earth at the speed of light, and upon returning to Earth, he will ask scientists on the ground, "What happened in the last minute?"
However, the scientists on the ground told him with an embarrassed face that millions of years had passed from the time the spacecraft took off to the time he returned to Earth, and there were no humans on Earth for a long time.
1. Leave the earth.
In 2019, scientists achieved some breakthrough experimental results, one of the most important of which was the first experimental data to observe a black hole.
In the course of the experiment, scientists have also discovered mysterious quantum phenomena that contradict the existing laws of physics and seem to uncover some unknown physical laws.
Therefore, scientists sorted out and compared the data of these phenomena, and finally found that these phenomena are in line with Einstein's theory of relativity, that is, the time dilation effect and the size shrinkage effect.
The so-called time dilation effect is that when an object gets faster and faster, its time becomes slower and slower until it finally stops.
The shrinkage effect means that as an object becomes faster and faster, its volume becomes smaller and smaller until it finally shrinks to a point.
But after careful analysis, scientists have found that both effects only occur in the world of relativity, and they do not change the real world we live in.
However, at that time, some people found that these two effects were really interesting, and so there was the challenge that the aforementioned "astronauts" had to make.
But I didn't expect that this kind of challenge would not be realized at all, because when traveling at the speed of light, individuals would be freed from the shackles of four-dimensional space-time, and even the entire universe would be freed.
Therefore, at the speed of light, the individual will be completely disoriented, unable to move relative to the matter around him, let alone return to Earth.
So why is this the case, and what does it feel like to be flying at the speed of light?
2. Time dilation effect.
Through experiments and calculations, scientists have found that when the speed of light is flying, the time dilation effect and the shrinkage effect will become extremely obvious.
The time dilation effect and the shrinkage effect were initially merely relativistic effects of the motion of objects, and did not violate any laws of physics.
But as the speed of the object gets faster and faster, these two effects become more and more obvious, until finally the speed of light is contradictory.
In this case, it will become extremely bizarre and even inconsistent with the logic of human thinking, so a new scientific theory - quantum mechanics has been developed, which not only solves the above contradictions, but also explores the unknown laws of physics.
However, when the speed reaches the speed of light, the quantum theory still cannot be explained, and the quantum theory and the theory of relativity continue to contradict each other, so scientists decided to develop a theory that combines the advantages of the two theories - string theory.
String theory is an interesting theory that holds that in the smallest unit of the universe, there is an indivisible string, from which all matter is produced by the constant vibration.
And the vibration of this string will produce sound, and when this sound is transmitted at the speed of light, it will be found that its frequency changes with the speed and produces an effect relative to the change in the surroundings.
And matter is made up of this effect, just as we know in our daily life, when a string vibrates to produce sound, the sound will produce a shape, and this shape is the object we see.
In the framework of relativity, string theory can explain the above contradictions very well, but without the calculation of relativity, string theory cannot calculate any answer.
Flying at the speed of light becomes extremely interesting in this way, and mathematical calculations have shown that when an object travels at the speed of light, it consumes an almost infinite amount of energy to reach this speed.
At such speeds, the object will be subjected to an infinite amount of mass, as well as an infinite time expansion, and for ordinary matter, under this thrust and gravity, the object will become heavier and heavier, and eventually it will not even be able to resist, so that it can no longer accelerate.
And for a photon particle with a mass of 0, since its gravity is 0, it is not affected by time dilation, once the photon is in a vacuum, its speed will reach the speed of light, no longer accelerate, no longer decelerate, and will always move at the speed of light.
And when a person flies at the speed of light, what kind of effects does he receive?
Third, the shrinkage effect.
Flying at the speed of light for a minute and returning to Earth, the individual does not feel any changes, and the impact on the individual cannot be described with common sense.
Because when traveling at the speed of light, the individual will break away from the four-dimensional space-time, like an infinite point, if there is a vacuum, the ship will become like a single point, with a mass of 0.
Therefore, the individual will never be able to return to the earth, and even the entire universe will be detached, because there is no vacuum in the universe, and there are some gases in space, and these gases not only affect the space itself, but also the objects moving at the speed of light, the gases will also be pulled by a strong attraction and come into contact with the object.
Flying at the speed of light, the object becomes so huge that no matter how much it resists, it cannot escape the attraction of the gas, so the object is pulled out of orbit and hits other objects.
And when two objects collide, it is difficult to tell how they are moving because of their high speed, and once such an object hits the Earth or another planet, it will tear it to pieces, thus reducing its mass and returning to its unaffected state again.
At this time, the spacecraft has become an infinite point, which not only has almost no mass, but also no volume, and even no energy, because the speed of light itself is the limit of matter.
Therefore, no matter how much energy the spacecraft accelerates, it cannot exceed the speed of light, so it will become even larger because of its contact with energy, and eventually become an infinite point, and it will no longer feel the existence of anything.
And this point will also be out of the four-dimensional space-time, because in this state of motion, this point produces negative mass, and this negative mass will produce anti-energy, and anti-energy will produce anti-gravity, and anti-gravity will resist the gravitational force of the universe, so the spacecraft will be out of gravity, and with the gradual accumulation of time, its energy will accumulate more and more, but because there is no energy to produce counter-energy, it can only break away from the universe and create a new universe.
epilogue
The story behind the speed of light is extremely interesting, but mathematically speaking, it is not possible.
But the exploration of the speed of light has only just begun, and perhaps in the future, scientists will come up with a theory or method of faster-than-light to break through the speed of light barrier and open the door to a new world.