Please answer

[ebkyosuke]

Please answer my question if you can. It's about the speed of light. You can find my question here

Comments

[anonymous]

You are mixing two different thought processes together. Speed is relative, velocity is not. The velocity of light, c, is constant at roughly 186,000 miles per second and nothing that is naturally moving slower than that velocity can reach that velocity - it also helps to think of it as a vector quantity as in it is speed with direction. Speed is more of a scalar quantity and as such is relative to the distance covered. The problem with velocity and speed near the speed of light is that it is such a vast quantity that many people have trouble wrapping their head around it - just like the size of the universe and the size of "voids" between galaxies

[ebkyosuke]

Thanks for the comment. But I'm still not clear on everything...

So, if something "appears" to be going faster than light speed in relation to something, why would that not mean "actually" going faster than light speed?

I'm starting to think I'll never understand this stuff...

[anonymous]

If something appears to be going faster than light speed in relation to something else you need to take in ALL factors of the relationship between the two objects and then you can calculate the "actual" speed or in this case, the velocity, of the object appearing to go faster than light speed.

[ebkyosuke]

Also, even though you would only perceive your speed as still less than light speed (in relation to maybe Earth), wouldn't you still get to your destination faster if you kept accelerating?

Isn't this all just based on perception anyway? So what if we can't trust the speedometer. As long as we can get somewhere really fast, isn't that all that would matter?

Am I wrong?