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From: minutephysics
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  • Wouldn't the laser beam bend and form a wave, much like a whip does when you flick your wrist? If this is the case, then you have not actually broken the speed of light, because the point on the moon would not instantly move with your hand, just like the tip of the whip doesn't instantly move with the handle.

  • Even something as simple as a laser pointer had a theoretical 'unlimited' range, although you can only (directly) observe so little.. that it doesn't really matter to most. Since you can't physically record light at that relativistic distance without electronic aid, this seems confusing. It's about the way energy dissipates though space over vast distances. Just because you cannot observe the 'event' directly, does not mean it didn't happen in some way/shape/form. Energy is a strange thing.

  • I break the speed of light in my backyard all the time. You should see how fast I can spin around.

  • My attention span is faster than 20x the speed of light

  • @thirstborne

    I didn't know that an attention span could be described in terms of speed.

  • I think the image he's reffering to is relativistic to our positions as observers.

  • I understand that he's saying it is only an image that's appearing to travel faster than light, but it's a completely pointless statement. It's only the way your brain works that makes it look like one moving point. You may aswell park two identical cars next to each other and say that you've made one car appear in two places at once. Or. Pan your eyes across the night sky and pretend there's only one star moving really quickly from place to place making it look like a sky full of stars.

  • I AM FASTER THEN SPEED OF LIGHT :DDD

  • @ProNo0by in bed.

  • @AlmightyThor90 No

    I am faster from light when im learning xD

  • This isn't right at all. This is like saying: if I shoot a paintball at a wall ahead of me at 80 mph, then shoot a second one at a wall behind me at 80 mph, then I made the paint splatter move at 160 mph!

    Obviously this is nonsense.

    It's not the same paint, much like it's not the same photons hitting different parts of the moon. There is no continuous object so there is no motion.

    (Never mind that the time it takes the new photons to travel to the moon > time for light to traverse the surface)

  • @Jinverde he meant flicking the laser pointer, which mover the beam of light.

  • @XaviersAccount Yes, but the individual photons that have already left the pointer are not going to shift from flicking his wrist because they aren't physically connected to the pointer. There will be a delay there which is the constant speed of light. He's usually so very good at his explanations that I'm wary of just saying, "Wrong!" But I will be checking with my physicist buddies at Ga Tech. (p.s. my PhD is not in relativistic physics)

  • A laser beam is not rigid. Flicking your wrist at one end does NOT move the other end.

  • i dont think this is correct think of it like this if you shot the laser at the moon and move it across it seems like its faster however you have to remember that the source of the light if from the laser not the moon. It is traveling from point A ( laser) to point B (moon), so every cm you move the laser on the moon point A to B is still the speed of light not A to B on the moon. The points on the moon technically have no speed because it have no source of light.

  • watched this twice now, still don't get it - can anyone explain this in a clearer way?

  • @eran5005

    Maybe I can simplyfy what he said.Imagine there are two light bulbs, which are 3000000000000000000000km apart from each other.When bulb A lights up, bulb B fades away and vice versa.All of these happened in one second.Apparently,an observer will see a light spot travells at a"image travelling speed" .

    This kind of "speed"(3000000000000000000000­km/s) is obviously faster than the speed of light.I know this is stupid but fun =p

  • Are you a physics major?

  • anyone who doesnt find this interesting or thinks he is lying obviously doesnt understand it.

  • neutrinos?

  • how can this actualy have so much likes? sounds like bullshit to me

  • @GamingCryptor but its fun to listen to lol

  • 300000!

  • Easiest way to travel faster than the speed of light.

    Go slowly backwards in time. Let's say you need to be 10 light-years away from here in less than a millisecond. The journey would take 200 centuries with conventional fuels. Well, simply start begin to go backward in time with the least energy-expensive fuel you've got. Suspend the crew in time, leave the computers running to allow dodging obstacles.

    When you leave, you are minus fuel, and arrive 1 millisecond after you left.

  • the light doesn't travel faster than light. it's a continuous stream of light that is all. it's not as if you turned it on then shut it off and turned it back on in a different spot. think about it.

  • DAMN! And i thought that all that "Millennium Falcon" hyper speed were just bullshit. Now i know it can be true. Thanks for the enlightenment. Please explain also that "light saber"...

    Thanks

  • all I can think of that's breaks the speed of light is warp space. Maybe teleportation but is that even consider a speed ?

  • Cosmic expansion is faster than light.

  • @0pteryx Well, "nothing" can travel faster than light, that nothing being... well... the cosmic expansion :D

  • @AdolfHitlerGaming Space itself is not an empty void, it has properties.

  • @0pteryx Yeah, but it doesn't have mass, so it doesn't KAPOW the rules of general relativity.

  • @0pteryx that's because it's not traveling. Space is expanding faster than light travels. Which means, you can expand faster than you travel ;)

  • Ever since this video was posted, I keep seeing red spots on the moon as thousands of YouTubers are flashing laser beams at the moon.

  • "Here's how you can make something travel faster than the speed of light" [blah blah blah] "No physical laws are broken because nothing is traveling faster than the speed of light"

  • @Siyko way to quote incorrectly. he said nothing PHYSICAL is traveling the speed of light

  • @CWizzleFashizzle I was just about to say the same thing. Left out the most important word; probably purposely.

  • honestly, this is how physics should be teach in schools.

  • He isn't misleading us,but this 1minute video can't explain it fully and therefore not as correct(some parts were badly explained so im not 100% clear of his point,therefore i can't assume it wrong).If you want to learn something about physics you can't watch a youtube video.This is just a verison made to bring the concept of it closer to everyday life,not to make us fully understand and comprehend the scientifically correct and accepted theroy.

  • @blameitonthelion Youtube contains a bunch of great videos about physics and some are far from beeing simplified like this minute physics thigny. You can see well known scientists giving conferences, university teachers (also well known) giving lessons to their students etc. Just look and you'll find them. As far as simplified physics goes, Michio Kaku is also very good at explaining things.

  • AND if i point my penis to the moon?

  • Help! I'm trapped in a liquid crystal! Very funny minutephysics...

  • one problem, the laser can only go the speed of light so it would in a sense lag, not breaking the speed of light DUH

  • Lol, I thought you were going to talk about holding a really long stick in between the earth and the moon so you could move information faster than the speed of light by poking with it. It's a joke I've seen in an image on the internet.

  • annnnnnnnnddddddddddddddd now i nead to find deadmeu's comment. :(

  • Capital letters - the ultimate weapon against logic and reason on the internet.

  • this is NOT BREAKING THE FUCKIN SPEED LIMIT U DUMB SHIT, WE ALREADY KNOW THAT SHIT I CAN FUCKIN AIM MY LASER AT ONE AND OF THE UNIVERSE THEN AIM IT AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE UNIVERS THAT DOESNT MEAN I FUCKIN BROKE ANY FUCKIN SPEED LIMIT,

    THIS VIDEO IS A FUCKIN LOADD OF BULL SHIT WITH A MISLEADING TITLE

  • @llparasitell

    Looks like someone missed their nap time. If you actually thought this video was going to explain to you how something physical can literally break the speed of light, then you're a moron.

  • @OneJanake your a dumbass he even fuckin states in the video e=mc2 is wrong when THIS SHIT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH E=MC2 THIS FUCKIN FAG DOESNT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK E=MC2 MEANS WHAT A DUMB ASS, IM FUCKIN LMAOO

    EVERYONE KNOWS THIS FUCKING DUMB ASS VIDEO IS MISLEAD JUST READ THE PAST COMMENTS

    FUCK THIS SHIT VIDEO WASTE OF EVERYONES TIME.

  • @llparasitell

    Actually, e=mc^2 is actually very relevant to the subject of the video.

    If you're so concerned about everyone's time not being wasted, then you shouldn't be typing out long, pathetic, angry, pointless, poorly grammatically structured comments.

  • @OneJanake E=mc2 has no relvance to this video, no matter can travel at the speed of light.

    Who ever the kid is that made this video does not know what he is talking about sadly >.>

    If you shine a laser at the moon and you flick, the photons still travel at 186k

    Its all about relativity, it matters not if you point your laser and flick it at amazing speeds because the photons emited from the laser still travel to the location at 186k m p/h its a constant speed that cannot be changed

  • @OneJanake YOU DUMB ASS , DID U EVEN FUKIN LISTEN? HES SAYING SHINING THE LAZER FROM ONE SIDE OF THE MOON TO THE OTHER IS AN

    I-L-L-U-S-I-O-N

    JUST LIKE FUCKIN PIXELS MOVING ON A SCREEN, ITS NOT REALLY MOVING ITS A DAM ILLUSION.

    WHAT ARENT YOU GETTING DUMB ASS, THIS TILE IS MISLEADING.

  • @llparasitell You need to calm down.

  • @llparasitell You didn't watch the video did you?

  • Okay this might sound like a bit of a weird question and I might be missing the obvious but...

    Suppose you have a solid rod that reached a light minute or so into space and then you flicked it so your hand moved about a foot but the other end of the pole/rod would have traveled maybe a couple of million metres in under a second. Would this hypothetical scenario allow the breaking of a universal speed limit?

    Thanks.

  • @Richardvnd you cant,.. remember, when an object moves closer to the speed limit time goes slower for the object.

    This means if someone is running and you are sitting, the running person's time goes slower, of course the slow down is so small that it is almost immesurable.

    now lets look at your question.

    if the end of the rod goes near lets say 96% light speed,

    time would be slowed down EMMENSELY.

    if you were standing on the tip of the pole 1 day for you would = 1 year for everyone else.

  • @Richardvnd No, the rod would simply bend. Even the information that the rod is being flicked travels only up to the speed of light (and in fact very much less for a solid object being moved, more like the speed of sound in the object).

    No part of the rod would ever move faster than the speed of light, regardless of what you did.

  • I made the moon go red! :D

  • @minutephysics By your definition I could break the land-speed record by emailing a photo of my car to my friend in Japan.

  • why dont other people im subscribed to make cool videos?

  • @KillaNinja0 Hit up Vsauce, yo. They have sweet videos

  • could there be a laser pointer with light that doesn't disperse

  • troll science the origins 

  • so why did everyone say we cant travel faster than speed of light this was before that particle acceleration did that thing

  • holy fuck this has got to be the most misleading shit ever.

  • @AlphaVinigre Then explain why, instead of commenting something stupid like that.

  • @XoReish why would he need to explain to u , unless you have no common sence of the most basic science..

  • @AlphaVinigre Truth

  • If you take 2 flashlights and point them in opposite directions of one another and turn them on, they will both shoot photons in opposite direction. The photons from both flashlights will be moving away from each other 2x the speed of light.

  • @zukodude487987 That's wrong. Speeds actually are contracted, though minute in low speeds, but noticeable in near-luminal velocities. It's special relativity.

  • @zukodude487987 its only relative to one another , both photons are still moving at light speed, the distance between them is increasing at more than light speed, nobody ever said that distance cant be faster than speed light, in fact we already know galaxies are doing the same thing.

  • whait...DUDE ! U SOOO WHRONGG!! if u use a lazer thats technically light..your tring to brake the speed of light WITH LIGHT!, its like a water hose.. if you move it the water in slow motion ill bend, the lazer light will bend so ill go the same speed... thumbs up so he can see...

  • @25Mexx Just watch the video again. It is not the light itself that travels faster then the speed of light. But it the spot of light that moves faster.

  • @25Mexx this vids misleading lets all report this shit hole.

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  • this tutorial sucks

  • One day all of mankind should point lasers at the moon to make it red

  • @EZTrippin u cant see the moon during the day +  not all of the planet earth can see the moon at one time ;)

  • But surely once we have displaced the point of light, the light beam will then take the time it would normally take the light rays to reach this new point on the moon. Therefore it would still take the light a certain amount of time to reach this new point even tho you have changed the spot the beam will land on at a much faster rate. You are presuming that the light will reach the moon instantaneously which it will not.

  • If you could travel the speed of light, you could time travel to the past only. This is because when you see things with your eyes, it takes light deflecting of the object and shining into your eyes, therefore seeing the object. Now if you traveled faster than that light you would rip the vision of the human eye making a black streak in the universe as your time traveling machine. So if you traveled faster than the light, you could see light particles from another time period. Or, see the past.

  • @Stingler23 That isn't what people mean when they say you can travel into the past by going faster than light. It's down the relativity. As you speed up, time slows for you. If you're standing still rather than driving at 80mph, you're aging faster than the person in the car. Granted, you age about a millionth of a nanosecond faster each year or so, but it happens.

  • @Stingler23

    ... Now imagine that car is traveling at the speed of light. It's estimated that moving at the speed of light would effectively stop time, so any faster would reverse time.

    In theory, that it.

  • Only the image moves on the moon, not the actual light beam... This is just the matter of distance over time and the laser beam is practically the speed of light therefore it is just traveling at the speed of the theory as if a wall is 10 ft. away you can move your finger pass that wall in about a second if you stand far away enough.

  • no information can travel faster than the speed of light. Your argument makes no sense. The spot of light on the moon will not move instantly as you flick your list.

  • ok, how does this help us build FTL drives?

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  • this is like saying you've got a 1 lightyear long stick, and 2 people at each end of the stick. one of the guys poke the other guy with the stick, and then the poke will reach him 1 year before light hits him..

  • @elma179 nope, doesn't work that way, the thrust used on the stick would take atleast one year to reach across, like a shockwave of sorts

  • @andfol1 kay.. its like saying its trollscience

  • @elma179

    When you push on a stick the force is not felt instantaneously on the other side. The force travels at the speed of sound in the stick, which is a hell of a lot slower than the speed of light.

  • @Arfalarf i know.. lol..

  • So this video explains how to break speed of light without breaking speed of light..?

  • @SteamFox Yes

  • there ar no astronauts at the moon duh

  • So basically, I didn't break the speed of light... I created an illusion that made me think I did :(

  • So this means I can jerk off faster than 300,000,000 ms (Micro Slaps) a second!?

  • i wonder if i look stupid wearing a t shirt and shorts out in the cold at night, waving around a laser pointer...

  • besides, if this actually worked, then you (or whoever thought of it) would be EXTREMELY famous, it would be all over the news that someone proved Einstein wrong and we would all know

  • ok there is so much wrong with this theory, first off when you move the laser they are different photons, you can't count it as a continuous beam, also, photons arent matter so they don't count, they travel at the speed light anyway

  • @TheREALBennyChrist He says that in the video lol

  • @TheREALBennyChrist That's the joke.. :P

  • Misleading title. Nothing broke the speed of light.

  • einstien also said that only objects with mass could go faster than light.the end of a lazer beam has know mass haha.

  • So this is all in theory right? BECAUSE I TRIED THIS ALREADY WHEN I WAS A KID AND DIDN'T EFFIN SEE A GOD DAMN RED DOT ON IT!!!

  • @deadmeu i thoghtnme have freedom

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  • Isn't it illegal to shine a laser in the sky :3

  • @deadmeu In Some Countries It Illegal To Lick Door Knobs XD

  • there's a cat on the moon

  • I've got a doubt: Picture a 100 light-year long round stick...

    If I spin that stick in one point of it, the other point will instantly spin too, so I'd be breaking the speed of light... right ?

  • @lucasbudega Wrong : ) Even if this was physically possible(let's assume it is), the forces that are required for the other end of the stick to actually move, work at the speed of light as well. What I mean is, that gravity, for example, doesn't instantly "work". If a new planet suddenly appear a light year away from earth, we would start feeling it's gravitational effect after a year from it's appearance. Concluding: the other point would start moving after about 100 years.

  • @Bulasz appeared* the Earth*

  • @Bulasz so what would happen ? it would bend like a rubber ?

  • @lucasbudega Uhh, I only just read your previous comment carefully. Not that it changes much, but that's pretty stupid of me. I thought you meant a straight 100 l-y long stick, not a round one. In this case, I'd say that it's a fun question and I have no idea :P although that forces move at the speed of light is a fact, as far as I know, so you have to take this into consideration while thinking about this.

  • @Bulasz No ! but I did mean a straight stick hahahah; like here, see this drawing: 9gag.com/gag/2108428

  • @lucasbudega Ok, then, yes, it would bend somewhat like rubber. Either way, the information would travel at more less(or actually exactly or less:P) the speed of light.

  • @lucasbudega but it wouldn't instantly spin, your force to cause it to move travels down the stick at or slower than the speed of light.

  • the music at the end reminds me of blues clues

  • Challenge accepted.

  • So lets go to the extremes: Imagine a sphere on the sky that has the radius of one lightyear. You point parallel to earths surface and turn around 360 degrees. Lets say you turn around in one second. The first photon will reach the sphere after one year and the last photon will reach the same spot on the sphere at one year and one second. All the other photons are distributed along the circle you've drawn. So "you've traveled" 2*pi*1ly = 6*10^16 m per second = 2*10^8*c >> c. It's troll science!

  • @Bersling Time dilates, remember?

  • @Bersling I just don't get how you have a sphere "on" the sky....

  • @Bersling i understood this to the point where you put all the numbers and symbols. speak in terms where a normal person can read please.

  • @Bersling what you said? say again plz :P

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  • This is incorrect. The light traveling from the laser would have to get to the moon first before a dot could appear. It's like shooting a machine gun and spinning in a circle. The bullets are limited by their velocity. If you took a picture from above and connected the bullets the line would be a curved pattern. The same thing would happen with the photons.

  • ...the same thing would happen with the photons. You couldn't move the beam faster than the speed of light because the end point of the beam would be delayed until the light arrived from the laser.

    Swinging a long pole wouldn't work either. Einstein's E=mc2 proves that it takes too much energy to accelerate a mass up to light speeds. Try it sometime. Take a large pole and a short one and compare how easy they are to wave around in front of you. Now imagine one that goes to the moon.

  • I've known about this trick and knew that it didn't really break relativity because information isn't traveling faster then light, but I'm still confused about the following hypothetical example.

    What if instead of a laser pointer you are holding a 239,000mile long pole with a message on the end of it, and swing the pole from one side of the moon to the other is the same amount of time as the laser pointer. Would this not be information traveling faster then light?

  • @V1per41 lol you gotta have the message at the end of it

  • until 0:55 i thought you where wrong :P

  • I didn't get this one... but I still think that Chuck Norris can travel faster of your laser too

  • Chuck Norris is the fastest thing in the universe and he can travel faster than Chuck itself

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  • Didn't Einstein say that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light? But it would be possible that something was "born" or created that had a speed faster than the speed of light from the beginning.

  • I can teleport. Just saying.

  • I love the drawings. :)

  • its a dawg!!

  • @TheOfficialParado in actuality lasers can and do hit the moon from the earth, one of the roles of the first few Apollo missions was to put mirrors on the moon to test with higher accuracy the speed of light.

  • did u noticed that there's a dog on the moon? lol

  • really don't understand how he separates "physical" from "image"

    why would the image of the photon travel faster than the photon itself?

  • @eljhm Because there isn't 1 photon that creates an image. The image is the "dot", which is the reflection of a lot of photons reflecting off the moon's surface and back to your measuring device (eyeball).

  • so you mean to say is that image is formed faster than the speed of light??

  • does not compute

  • Actually, you can't break the speed of light using a laser pointer. Think of it as spraying a garden hose in one direction, and suddenly swinging it in a different direction. The water doesn't reach the new destination until a short amount of time has passed. Light acts in a similar fashion; it does not appear on whatever surface it is being pointed at instantaneously. Please correct me if I am wrong. :) Love your videos by the way.

  • although neutrinos can travel a fraction of a second faster than light, in this scenario in the video, the beam of light from the laser never actually traveled faster than its own speed, (the speed of light), the direction in which it moved may have traveled faster, but the beam itself never did

  • This is so fundamentally wrong. When you flick your wrist, the photons that are already emitted and on their way to the moon don't change their path and all of a sudden hit the other side of the moon. Basically, the first photon that would hit the other side of the moon is the one emitted AFTER you flicked your wrist. I don't see why you first said that what Einstein postulated was wrong, and then say "So no physical laws are broken", you're contradicting yourself. Nothing can go faster than c.

  • @RasmusLastname It takes light about one second to get to the moon. It takes the same amount of time to get to the other side of the moon from the same point. so you use the diffference between the times to calculate the speed. Instead of taking 1.00069 seconds, it really takes 0.00069 seconds for the dot of light to move across 3,474.8 kilometers, which is roughly five million km/s. The speed of light is around 300 thousand. Nothing means no "real" objects, dot isn't an object.

  • Warning: Don't try this experiment near an airport.

  • Lol we can teleport now, sorta. Quantum Entanglement!

  • You're saying we're pixelized????

  • Sounds like the guy from Zombieland, thumbs up if you agree :P

  • finally! The smart part of YouTube!

  • 1. A laser pointer can't hit the moon from Earth.

    2. If it could, it wouldn't be 500 kilometers across, it would still be the same size. We wouldn't be able to see it.

  • Since we are talking about the angular velocity of the spot, at that height, there is dilation of time and contraction of space and the speed of light would remain constant

  • Or you could record a lightbulb. Then play it back. And fast forward it.

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  • Holy shit this guy is a genius.

  • @AlertAce You obviously have never taken a physics course.

  • Oh wow I just understood the illusion. I'm an idiot xD

  • @thecheesedude1 how is it an illusion?

  • @woohoojazelyn The photons themselves aren't actually moving, the dot you see is. His pixel analogy explained it pretty well. :P

  • Holy shit he's joking guys wow. It's just an illusion/trick.

  • I guarantee that anyone who does this experiment will see it fail!

  • this video is stupid, for it to be true, light would have to travel to the moon instantly. :/

  • @CakesnakeFilms correct!

    MinutePhysics is a big fat FAIL!

    Worse than creationists because MP sounds vaguely plausible.

    I challenge MP to consult a scientist.

    Even better... do the actual experiment you pretend to have done.

    Complete fucking liars!

    (Sorry CakeSnake... this kind of rubbish burns me up... cheers to you.)