speed of light

April 29th, 2005 by modD | Filed under Old Blog

on the previous post, one of the interesting comments i got was this:

‘perhaps, the girl did not stop time per se, but instead move in a ultra-high speed which creates the appearance of time-stop. So, basically when she moves, the air-molecule is just pushed aside as the usual newton laws still apply (equal action = equal opposite reaction).’ - ngising

i have always thought that if you could move at the speed of light, one of two things will happen when you touch an object. either the object would disintegrate into pieces upon contact, or your hand will. now why is this so?

imagine yourself riding a motorbike at 140kph. in front of you is a car driving at an equal speed. suddenly, a little girl’s hand comes out from the car’s window and she throws a piece of KFC drumstick outside. when the drumstick hits you in the face, you’d feel like you’ve been hit by a piece of brick. when an object moves at a high velocity, its momentum will be far greater compared to when it’s moving at a slower speed. however, this is just an opinion from a person who almost failed his SPM Physics. that’s me lah hehehe…

let’s say you can move at the speed of light. when you touch another person, it’s akin to an extremely high speed object hitting that person. actually i’m not sure what will disintegrate first, your hand or your friend’s face. maybe both.

so putting this idea into ngising’s comment above, i guess your body will still be ripped to shreds, because it’s like shooting air towards your body at light speed.

lesson for today: if you can move at light speed, do not touch anyone or anything!

anyways, can those of you with a great knowledge on physics shed some light on this? i don’t know why, but the things in this post and the previous one has been bugging me a lot for a long time.


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