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Unit 7: Astrophysics Page 44

So we have a band of 22 minutes Attempting to travel faster than

where nothing we do on Earth can light by ‘leap-frogging’ from one
possibly affect the Rover on Mars, rapidly moving reference frame to
and nothing that happens on mars another doesn’t work because
can affect the Earth simply because measures of time and space differ
there’s no way for the information in different reference frames.
to get to us (or the Rover) in time.

Past events are those that can
influence the present. Your birth is
now the reason you are reading
this sentence.

The future consists of all the
events that the present can
influence. The flower will bloom
tomorrow because you planted a
Another way to say it is that no
seed today.
information can travel faster than
So where does this window of 22 the speed of light.
minutes fit in where the present
There isn’t anything special about
actions do not influence the future?
light… it’s really about time.
It turns out that the events that
Sonic Boom for Light
are neither in the past nor the
future are in the elsewhere. No
One important note: it’s impossible
kidding. It’s just a name given to
to go faster than the speed of light
events that cannot be influenced
in a vacuum. Just like sound, light
by present actions.
can change speeds depending on

Why is it impossible to go what it’s going through. When you
pass light through glass, it changes
faster than light?
speed and angle (which allows you
to focus the light in a pair of
What happens if you launch a
eyeglasses). You can actually slow
rocketship at 0.8c that was piggy-
light down to a crawl by passing it
backed on another rocketship
from the fifth state of matter
going at 0.8c? Can you go 1.6c?
(BEC).

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