They Just Can't Help It, Can They -...
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I don't see any reason at all why you wouldn't be able to observe the light wave and see what had been happening in the past. The eyes will work as they just detect light energy regardless of its speed of travel. The hard part is to figure out a way to travel faster than the speed of light and survive the journey!
When we look at starlight then this is light that has not only been travelling for a long distance through space, but its been travelling for an incredibly long time too. So for those galaxies that we can see, we are already looking quite literally into their dim and distant past! Quite sad really.
When we look at starlight then this is light that has not only been travelling for a long distance through space, but its been travelling for an incredibly long time too. So for those galaxies that we can see, we are already looking quite literally into their dim and distant past! Quite sad really.
Whoa horsy, slow down a bit!
First consider what happens when traveling at even the impossible speed of light. As you near the velocity of light, time and distance undergo a peculiar phenomenon. The faster you go the slower time passes and you soon discover that you are traveling the distance that it normally takes light, years to travel in months, then weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds until finally, at reaching the velocity of light, your are traversing the expanse of the universe in an instant! This is relativity in a nut-shell.
Now for the bad news.
If you were able to even approach the velocity of light what your eye, and all of the rest of your parts, would experience is a journey of many light years in distance in a very brief period of time. You would be bombarded by an immense concentration of all the light traveling in your direction in that vast region of space you had traversed and you, and your eye, would be briskly fried to a crisp.
Wait, there's more!
First consider what happens when traveling at even the impossible speed of light. As you near the velocity of light, time and distance undergo a peculiar phenomenon. The faster you go the slower time passes and you soon discover that you are traveling the distance that it normally takes light, years to travel in months, then weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds until finally, at reaching the velocity of light, your are traversing the expanse of the universe in an instant! This is relativity in a nut-shell.
Now for the bad news.
If you were able to even approach the velocity of light what your eye, and all of the rest of your parts, would experience is a journey of many light years in distance in a very brief period of time. You would be bombarded by an immense concentration of all the light traveling in your direction in that vast region of space you had traversed and you, and your eye, would be briskly fried to a crisp.
Wait, there's more!
Continued . . .
The energies of each and every photon headed your way would be shifted to much shorter wavelengths and higher energy levels. All the innocuous infrared light your body absorbs each day would be bunched together and shifted through the visible to microwave, X-ray, on to gamma and cosmic ray energies.
Ouch! Aren't you glad you checked on this before embarking on the ultimate trip?
For a more Earthly analogy of what this would be like, imagine if you will, rushing through a blizzard at a comparatively leisurely one km/s. Instead of each snowflake lightly touching down on your head it would feel like a swarm of stinging bees quickly pileing up on your face.
And this would be child�s play compared to what you would face traveling at anywhere near the velocity of light. As for seeing things that have already happened, you yourself would be history, or if you prefer, toast. If this all sounds cruel, remember that I just saved your bacon . . . oink, oink!
Sorry, I didn�t answer your question as stated but thanks for asking all the same.
The energies of each and every photon headed your way would be shifted to much shorter wavelengths and higher energy levels. All the innocuous infrared light your body absorbs each day would be bunched together and shifted through the visible to microwave, X-ray, on to gamma and cosmic ray energies.
Ouch! Aren't you glad you checked on this before embarking on the ultimate trip?
For a more Earthly analogy of what this would be like, imagine if you will, rushing through a blizzard at a comparatively leisurely one km/s. Instead of each snowflake lightly touching down on your head it would feel like a swarm of stinging bees quickly pileing up on your face.
And this would be child�s play compared to what you would face traveling at anywhere near the velocity of light. As for seeing things that have already happened, you yourself would be history, or if you prefer, toast. If this all sounds cruel, remember that I just saved your bacon . . . oink, oink!
Sorry, I didn�t answer your question as stated but thanks for asking all the same.
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