Weird physics question

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Nothing can accelerate faster than light. Objects already moving faster than light can exist.

Granted, I'm no expert on physics, but I disagree - at least until you can explain it.

The way it was explained to me is that objects travelling at relativistic speeds undergo corresponding shifts in mass (as gargamel states), as well as relative time and dimension. Even if you somehow had two particles of anything approaching each other at the speed of light, their speed, in any frame of reference, even when added together, is still c.

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As far as the string question goes, the answer is, quite definitevely, that the light would reach its destination long before the molecules in the string resonated from one end to the other. Atoms have mass, and the distance atoms in anything must travel before repelling each other (once energy is imparted) is quite far in terms of scale.

The effect of plucking a string, no matter how taut, would still require the acceleration of every atom, and the force transmitted would decrease with distance travelled, so the light would get there first.