Agriculture Tractors

Man Boom

Whats the equivalent of a "sonic boom" in the terms of light speed?

I know that when an object travels faster than the speed of sound (761 mph), a sonic boom is created. And I know that so far, nothing man made has passed the speed of light (670,616,629.384 miles per hour), but in theory, what would be the likely outcome if something were to travel faster than this speed?

The energy required to accellerate to near light speed is tremendous the closer to the speed of light, the more energy required approaches infinite. Therfore, an object accellerated to the speed of light has become pure energy.

Pretty simple, right. That is, simple in theory.

Back to your sonic boom equivilant. There is none, since the property of sound that carries the "boom" to your ears has no equivilant in the discussion of the propagation of light.

For discussion, however, why not consider red shift and blue shift as the equivilant? You probably are familiar with doppler shift as it applies to sound. A sound is generated at a specific pitch. Put the sound on a moving vehicle. As the vehicle approaches you, at the side of the road, the sound reaches your ears long before the vehicle because sound travels faster than the vehicle. As it nears, the pitcy seems to get higher because the sound waves get compressed. (the wave made a moment before is traveling at the speed of sound, same as the wave made immediatly afterward, but the vehicle is moving forward, compressing the waves closer together) As the vehicle passes, the sound seems to pitch lower, becuse the vehicle is moving away from you, strettching the sound waves farther apart as the sound reaches your ears.

Same thing happens to light. Light moves EXTREMELY fast, so we don't notice any shift in the frequency of light as we travel, even on the fastest jet aircraft. But moving at high speeds, approaching a signifcant percentage of the speed of light, an observer on a space ship might notice that the "white" star they are approaching appears to be reddish, while the star to the rear looks kind of blue. This is the same doppler effect at work. The objects to the front show you a "red shift." They don't really change color, anymore than the sound pitch on the vehicle I mentioned. It only appears to the observer to change.

Does this work for you as an equivilant?

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