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more of a philosophical questions

normally if you are travelling at some speed and you bump into some object, you generally would get slowed down and the force from your acceleration would be transferred to the other object(not all of it obviously) however what would happen if you are travelling at the speed of light (or faster) and did the same thing? if you bumped into an object would you just go through it? or does it matter on the material of the object?

Qmechanic
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thingybingytie
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  • Interesting question, except for a simple fact: you can't go at the speed of light, let alone even faster. Material bodies always travel slower than light - in this universe, anyway. – hdhondt Mar 08 '15 at 10:10
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    You cannot travel at the speed of light. – Paul Mar 08 '15 at 10:14
  • i understand that but hypothetically speaking hence why i said "philosophical question" if you were to bump into anything, would you transfer energy/force into that object or just go through it? or just pull it along with you? – thingybingytie Mar 08 '15 at 10:15
  • Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/1557/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Mar 08 '15 at 10:55
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    hop, evidently, you don't understand it. To hypothesize that a massive object has speed $c$ is to hypothesize that relativistic mechanics is just plain wrong. Since you've thrown out the theoretical framework of relativistic mechanics with your hypothetical, what theoretical framework do you propose we use to provide an answer? – Alfred Centauri Mar 08 '15 at 12:59
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    The laws of physics would have to be different to make it possible to go the speed of light. So your question is "Suppose the laws of physics were different. What would happen?" You can see why we can't answer that. – mmesser314 Mar 08 '15 at 15:19

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Its a good thing you're asking such questions. At the age of 16, Einstein asked himself such questions. But he later realised such insights are redundant. Travelling at the speed of light, as Einstein enlightened us, is something impossible. But since we're looking at a hypothetical scenario, why not turn to Sci-Fi? "The Fastest Man Alive" or The Flash can instantaneously go through walls at a speed above that of sound and so for light, the same should occur. This is my take on it.

user74857
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  • yes but even within hypothetical situations (hence why i said philosophical) we have to have some logic and reason which even borrows from reality, i know i used hypothetical scenario and philosophical interchangeably, but what i was really asking was about a scenario which almost imitates or is close to reality , sci-fi is creative but i do want to stick to a scientific realm, and even though at the moment we believe that travelling at the speed of light is impossible eventually it will be required to be overcome somehow – thingybingytie Mar 08 '15 at 10:44