What would happen - Hijacked into Science of FL thread

[Tenacity]

so we're talking about quantum theory now eh? :P

Technically speaking, faster-than-light travel, or even just exactly-lightspeed travel, isnt possible. Once matter accelerates to the speed of light, it breaks apart at a subatomic level and becomes energy - changing from molecules into EM radiation (aka light, sometimes visible, sometimes not).

So yes, you could make an object go as fast as (or maybe fasterthan) the speed of light - but once it reaches that speed it ceases to exist as physical matter. The issue isnt going that fast, it's slowing back down; matter can converto to energy, but energy cannot convert back to matter. Not sure about you but I dont want to be stuck as a beam of light for all eternity =P

That also goes into pulsars/quasars and nuetron stars, which all are degrading at a molecular level and emitting extremely high amounts of EM radiation as the matter they're made of decays. Theoretically, the Universe could - aeons from now - 'cease to exist in a material state, as it would eventually consume itself, converting all matter in the universe into energy. It's all just theory though, we wont know until something like that actually happens, in which case we wont care because we'll all be dead =)

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