Re: Speed limit at C a misconception?

Timo Nieminen <timo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
Pine.LNX.4.50.0508230756420.30989-100000@localhost:">news:Pine.LNX.4.50.0508230756420.30989-100000@localhost:

> On Mon, 22 Aug 2005, Skywise wrote:
>
>> Thanks everyone. I'm getting some great explanations for how
>> group and phase volocities work.
>>
>> Now, about that phrase that started all this fuss, that it
>> is a "popular misconception" that Einstein's Special Theory
>> of Relativity says nothing can go faster than light.
>>
>> Is it a "popular misconception"? Because this is the first
>> I've heard of it. I hardly think group and phase velocites
>> going faster than C is reason to start calling Einstein's
>> theories "popular misconceptions".
>
> It's the idea that "nothing can go faster than c", even non-material
> things such a envelopes of wave packets, that is the "popular
> misconception." The laser-pointer dot on a sufficiently distant screen is
> sufficient disproof of the misconception; no need to even resort to
> technicalities of waves.

Yeah, I know about that trick. But there still isn't anything
going faster than light. It's an illusion.

I fear I'm not expressing my thoughts clearly. It seems to me
that all the things expressed so far that can go faster than
light are not material objects.

What I'm getting at are tangible items like spaceships, baseballs,
protons, etc... Can they go faster than c or not?



> AFAICT, the most popular misconception is the observers see moving clocks
> running slow and moving rods shortened. This is the fault of a lot of
> presentations of special relativity wherein "observer" is written, but
> "coordinate system" is what is meant. What is measured by a set of clocks
> and rules filling space is not what the eyeball sees, for sure.
>



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