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nyc111 ◴[] No.41892855[source]
"This is the underlying reason why, when you move at speeds that approach the speed of light, you start to experience phenomena such as time dilation and length contraction:"

This is not even possible in pulp science fiction. In order to be able to move with the speed of light you need to transform yourself into a photon. Only a photon can move with the speed of light. Saying "close to the speed of light" changes nothing. You need to be light to move with the speed close to the speed of light. Macroscopic objects cannot move with speeds approaching light speed.

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1. ndsipa_pomu ◴[] No.41895641[source]
> This is not even possible in pulp science fiction

Incorrect - anything is possible in pulp scifi.

> In order to be able to move with the speed of light you need to transform yourself into a photon. Only a photon can move with the speed of light.

Incorrect - any massless particle will move at the same speed as light.

> Saying "close to the speed of light" changes nothing. You need to be light to move with the speed close to the speed of light.

Incorrect - it's perfectly feasible to accelerate particles to over 99% of the speed of light. e.g. the LHC can accelerate protons to 0.999999990 c. Also, it's not possible for massless particles including photons to move at anything other than the speed of light in a vacuum, so "close to the speed of light" is not possible unless the object has mass.

> Macroscopic objects cannot move with speeds approaching light speed.

Incorrect, though humans haven't been able to accelerate macroscopic (e.g. visible to human eye) objects to more than approx 0.064c (Parker Solar Probe), it's just a question of using enough power to accelerate the relevant object. There's no reason to think that a black hole accretion disk couldn't easily accelerate a lump of matter to more than 0.99c.