relitivity and the speed of light - HELP ME!!!!!

string theory would have us beleive that matter is energy

matter and energy is interchangeable.

Matter can be converted to energy, and vice versa. The most common (if common is the correct word) examples of this is matter anti-matter anihilation and nuclear reactions (both fission and fusion). This is not merely theory.

e=mc^2

when you convert matter into energy, the amount of energy produced is equal to the mass of the energy multiplied by the speed of light (in a vacuum) squared. That is what the famous equation means.

whats the deal?...
when did ozzu turn into a place full of scientisits...you lost me

Ozzu is a community populated by the wise and learnéd people of the world
Or maybe just a place full of geeks

second that lol

best theory i have heard yet lol

OK tell your friends this. Electrons which have a near negligable mass so light that they are pushed near the speed of light by a Photon of light are still to heavy to reach the speed of light only come close to it. When ever an electron comes closer to the speed of light he travels more like a wave and less like mass. the slower he become the straighter his path becomes.

Now this is were it gets a little freaky and i don't understand this my self and even after discussing with with my phsysics teacher i still don't understand. according to him we do not contain materials that can take the stress of traveling that speed even in when in space. So it is impossible to travel the speed of light unless you want strip yourself of all mass.

Then again you can belive in the string theory. The string theory states that all mass is made of small doughnut like strings of energy that vibrate and create smallest form of mass. Then the small particles make electrons atoms molecules etc. more info on string theory here

Mass is NOT energy though, if it was, the equation would look like this e=m.

And it doesn't. As you kindly stated and disproved your own statement. If you have an equation, say F=MA, you can't replace M with E and get the same results, you would have to have an equation with MC^2 or E/C^2 in order to substitute mass for energy.

Furthermore, if you WERE to say mass equals energy (mass is the same as energy) then you could say:


While the speed of light squared is not one, that is what you would get IF mass EQUALED energy, which it does not. This IS NOT a theory, this is all based on mathematical processes and current physics facts. Check it yourself.

Yes some people have some doubts about string theory, it is after all a theory. But so is relativity.

I don't think any of this matters right now because we aren't even close to approaching those speeds. But we can slow the speed of light down. Perhaps that is where we can find the answer. Slowing the speed of light may bend time/space making the distance actually shorter.

I don't think light has a speed. I think we can only perceive the speed, and the speed is actually infinite. But I am no physics proffesor. just throwing it out there.

Infity bothers me with relation to velocity. I can understand it with mass, things getting infinitly smaller (black holes), and acceleration, things moving infinitly faster (till they break up and burn ). But I can't see how something can have an infinite velocity. Even with light waves, the reason we can slow them down is because they have some sort of given velocity in a vacuum, and as soon as it enters our atmosphere it slows down because of the difference in matter (addition rather) from the vacuum of space to our atmosphere.

While theoretically light could be moving infinitely fast, it would completely destroy current well known facts, persay distances of stars, and other things which are measured by the speed of light.

It could throw off our whole system as we know it

By interchangeable I meant you could convert between one and the other, like (bad analogy) mm and inches. Didn't make myself too clear there.

Ok that makes more sense.