I read about some SETI activity on Slashdot the other day, and a few days later they denied the signal as being anything other than random noise. Not sure if we're talking about the same signal here though. But if it takes 26 million years to reach them what the hell are they waiting for? Its not like the day after they send the signal we'll have aliens try to destory our solar system or something.
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Originally Posted by Necrodeath
You looked that up, didn't you  |
I thought that was a well-known fact actually. All electromagnetic waveforms travel at the speed of light, including visible light, x-rays, microwaves, infrared radiation, and ultraviolet radiation.
In fact, according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, all things in the universe, both matter and energy, are traveling at the speed of light. Now you may be saying "Woah there," but allow me to explain. Our universe is composed of 4-known dimensions; the 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time. According to Einstein's theory, all energy/matter (which are really one and the same according to E=mc^2) travel thru the universe, thru both space
and time, at the speed of light (3x10^8 m/s last time I checked
) and that this is the "universal speed limit". In other words, nothing can ever travel faster. Because light travles thru
space at the speed of light, this means that it can not travel thru the time dimension, and thus does not age. If you were to board a spaceship and travel 99.9999% the speed of light for just a few minutes and then come back to Earth, you will find that a LOONNNNGGGG ass time has passed on Earth. Essentially, the faster you travel thru space the slower you travel thru time. So since I'm sitting here typing and not moving, I'm traveling at the speed of light thru time (I'm using the Earth as my frame of reference, so yes I know my velocity is not
really zero).
Well sorry for going on a tangent, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sound really smart.
I sure know how to get off-topic don't I?