Can you poke something that’s far away with a stick faster than it would take light t

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Alan McDougall, Jul 9, 2012.

  1. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

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    Can you poke something that’s far away with a stick faster than it would take light to get there?

    If you had a really long (about 500,000 km) stiff stick, say made up of the stuff of a neutron star would one be able to hypothetically send information faster than light by moving it quickly by 1 cm and poking someone on the other side by pushing a button instantaneously on the other side.

    I know! I know! a silly question , but many uninformed people ask this question all the time, so let the forum put their confused minds to rest

    Alan
     
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  3. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    No

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    So what does that make you?
     
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  5. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    No, nothing is so stiff that it cannot flex, and the flex will propagate at the speed of light at most. If you poke your stick with it at the speed of light then length contraction and time dilation will make sure that it is still at the speed of light (as the distance to the star shortens and the time for the stick slows down to a halt so it is there before it had any length to travel, and also because there is no length to travel).
     
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  7. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

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    Maybe you are right but there are other answers!
     
  8. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

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    Informed! I know you cant transmit information faster than the speed of light :cool
     
  9. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    This was covered in another thread as well, and they speculated about vortexes and other things that I know next to nothing about, but that was mostly involving the problem of creating such a stick in the first place, while I'm guessing that you are just concerned about if it was possible if it could be made.

    All motions are propagating. This is why things can be heavy and hard to move even when in outer space, all of those tiny molecules have to move one by one by crashing into the next, there is a retardation of movement because of this reason. Not to mention the amount of power necessary to move such a stick without moving yourself (or the entire earth for that matter) equally much

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    , if you had another stick in the other direction that was equally large then you could move them both with the support of the other though...at least I think so.

    Either way, the small gap between each particle becomes pretty large when combined into such a long stick and it would be like one particle that would have to go that length in order to touch that star. You could just as well ask if a particle can go faster than the speed of light and the answer would be the same. Nope.

    You would have massive leverage though

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    , be careful with that stick or you might push the moon out of orbit!
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2012

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