• Question: Why can't anything travel faster than the speed of light?

    Asked by larabrown1611 to Aled, Ellie, Fiona, Kev, Willem on 12 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Willem Heijltjes

      Willem Heijltjes answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Because Einstein!

      This is because E = mc^2! In this equation, (E) is your energy, (m) is your mass, and (c) is the speed of light – a constant.

      In general, the faster you go, the more energy (E) you have. Because (E) and (m) occur on opposite sides of the equals, if you have more (E) you must also have more (m) – if you go faster, you get heavier!

      At the start, you don’t notice it, but when you get near the speed of light, you become really, really heavy. And to make a heavier thing go faster, you need more energy!

      If you would actually reach the speed of light, your mass would be infinite! And this is impossible! So that’s why E=mc^2 means we will never go at the speed of light 😉

    • Photo: Aled Roberts

      Aled Roberts answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Hi Larabrown1611

      Spot on answer by Willem there! There isn’t much more to say, although if you could get your hands on a warp drive from the Star Trek universe then you might be able to travel faster!

      🙂

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