Beginning of feb 07
Posted in Ramble on on February 1st, 2007 by FKG
What an uneventful day, is four words that would sum up my day. I would leave it at that, but then there would be no point to this post. And so I’ll tell you about one of my many thoughts that I had throughout this non-event of a day, while watching a fly flying around inside the carriage of a speeding train.
The speed of light is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second or 1,079,252,848.8 km/h, and is thought to be unreachable. But what if there was a way of multiplying speeds, as in speed x speed?
As I watched the fly on it’s merry little way in the carriage of the train, I started wondering about it’s speed. Would it be slower if it flies towards the back of the train? And would it be faster if it flew forward in the same direction as the speeding train? Which I know would have something to do with Einstein’s theory of relativity.
The answer is yes and no to both of the questions, because the speed is actually determined by the observer. No the fly would not be slower or faster if the observer, which in this case happens to be me, is in the carriage. Yes the fly would be slower going backwards and faster going forward if observed from the outside of the carriage of the speeding train.
In the latter situation (fly going forward, observer outside the carriage) would this be a multiplying speed occurance? And if this is the case would it not contradict the notion of light speed being unreachable?
If a circular train was on a circular track, going around and around at a certain speed has itself a circular track on it’s back with a circular train also going around and around, then surely this is a multiplying speed occurance according to the observer on the sideline.
My point is that if it was possible to stack these speeding circular trains with tracks on it’s back on top of one another then at some point the topmost circular train must hit light speed relative to the observer standing outside.
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