Just throwing this out there, how would our universe work if there was no speed of light? Would it be very different from the way our universe works now?
I've just been thinking about the universe a lot recently and this question keeps popping up into my head.

Do you mean if there was no limit to the speed of light or do you mean if light couldn't travel at all?

I mean if light had an infinite speed.

oh ok, Wow if light had an infinite speed ...I'm definitely going to think this one over! ( I thought I would snap a quick answer but no way, good thought Jopaan)

It's a very interesting question. The first thing that came to my mind is that every time we see a celestial body, the light from it would arrive to us instantaneously. It would definitely be a lot harder to tell how far planets and stars are from us. I am fairly sure that most of the things in relativity would not change. However, I am not sure about how the laws of the universe would be affected. My biggest question is what this would do to the influence of black holes and gravitational lensing on light. I will also ponder on this and post again if I think of anything.

is it just light that has an infinite speed, or does this apply to UV rays and radiation?

The electromagnetic spectrum would not exist.

Besides that, photons would have destroyed the quark gluon soup, IMO.

Beyond gamma.

Light is the exact same stuff as UV rays, infrared rays, microwaves, radio waves, gamma rays, x rays... its all electromagnetic waves, only difference is the energy associated with them. Particle radiation, like alpha and beta particles, are different and are actual bits of matter. I'm gonna assume all electromagnetic radiation goes infinitely fast with no other effects on physics.

As to what the universe would be like... well we for one we wouldn't have the Doppler effect with light. Everything would be in true color all the time. Also we wouldn't see back in time as we look further out in the universe. I guess we would've never come up with the big bang theory because of these.

Big things would get into thermal equilibrium faster... like when you have an active galaxy heating up the gas in the halo around it.

Here's a thought... if the universe is infinite, and light goes infinitely fast... wouldn't every line of sight we had eventually end on a star? So the whole sky would be as bright as the sun... and everything would vaporize as it heated up like crazy.

Thats where my thoughts were , I don't think we (life on earth) could have started at all

If light had an infinite speed, as apposed to a constant, wouldn't that mean that light could actually change speeds. Wouldn't that mean that light could fall victim to variables that would alter its speed?......theoretically light could slow down or speed up

I would think light would go to it's maximum speed but if light's speed is infinite ......I'm lost, where is Dr.Michu Kaku when you need him?

If light had infinite speed, then wouldn't that put it on par with the near infinite gravity of a black hole? If that's the case then wouldn't it be possible for light to escape or maybe even bypass a black holes gravity altogether?

oooooooooooo...... thanks Wickian now I'll never get any work done around the apt.

I would assume everything would be very much Newtonian.

why if the speed of light had no limit, that would mean it would have infintie energy to it and why if it had that it would destory every thing it came in contact, if this "super" light even had one ray touch you if would instantaniously kill you or dismember you,there would be no object in the universe capable of surviving this super light except black hole and possible other stars, but it this light were so powerful it would destory other stars only the largest would survive if it were possible for more then one gigantic star to survive and the giant stars don't last long they burn up their fuel far too quickly, a large blue mainstage may only survive 12,000 years while red dwarfs can survive possibly up to 15 billion years if super light exsited nothing would exsit at all only black holes and possibly one short lived star. the univesre would be terrible then you should be glad the speed of light is only 300million meters per second.

[ Question to the BOLD words ]
How can a light kill? light consist of photons which are weightless. how could a photon kill or even dismember you?

I doubt that would happen. Light with infinite energy would just travel at infinite speed. Meaning instead of seeing what other galaxies looked like a few million years ago(since that's how old the light we're seeing is), we would see it real time without the delay. We might even see a much more colorful night sky.

Isn't that the point of the thread, to speculate what happens when c goes to infinite?

I believe he's right to a degree. Infinite speed would imply infinte energy in every function of physics defining mass or energy. To start with the early universe would never have been more than soup of primal particles. Nothing would ever have coalesced. Everything would be thermodynamically equal everywhere at all times.

light has both properties of energy and matter for your information, all light is is energy and partly like particles light can effect things that are matter if light had infinite energy it would destroy everything.

You might be interested in Kristos Mavros' PDF books, free to read.

http://krism.idx.com.au/

Its along these lines of reasoning that you speak of where man could exceed the speed of light mainly because the misconception of our universe model, its definitely an interesting read on a new way to look at dimensions, time and energy/matter.

Seems interesting. Thanks for the link.

Photons do carry momentum so it is possible for them to do damage to you (think of the dangers X-rays or gamma rays pose to the human body, particularly your genetic material). In fact, there is even a method of propulsion through space--called light sails--which rely on the fact that light can exert a push on things. There is a tendency in this thread to equate the energy of light with its velocity, which is not how light works (all light travels at the same velocity but certainly not all light carries the same energy; the important factor there is the wavelength). Perhaps that's no longer the case in a world where we rewrite physics so that light has infinite velocity but a number of things would have to change in such a universe anyway.

ow ok.. thanks.. ^^ ah.. Like gamma. a photon passing through a body of matter. might damage it. thanks.

If the speed of light would have been infinite then >>>>
• Universe started out dominated by radiation pressure, and if the c would have been infinite then the pressure would have been too hence the expansion would have been infinitely faster( and there it all ends)

Even is somehow it managed to survive(which is impossible) these things would happen----------------

• The radiation pressure inside every star would be infinite which would lead to an explosion of titanic energy
• The fine-structure constant would be infinite times higher, so electrons would be held in the atomic nuclei with infinite energy( you can imagine the worst)
• Creation of stars would not be possible hence there would be no planets and galaxies just a soup of gigantic energy erupting.
• Creation of life would be an extremely far fetched thing.
• and the list goes on and on....

I am also mentioning minor changes--------
• Cosmic Microwave Background radiation would be same in all points of the Universe
• Whole of the Universe would be visible hence white sky and everything burnt(as already mentioned)
• There would have been no Time Dilation, Length Contraction, etc.
• Perfectly Rigid bodies would exist. (It is impossible for them to exist in our world)
• and the list goes on and on....

As nuts as this may sound - Ive generally thought that the 'speed of light' must be pretty well infinite. Becasue if it isn't - then something should be able to travel faster than it - whats 'lighter' than 'light'? nothing I suppose.

Can 'nothing' be considered 'something'? We talk about the speed of light - presumably there is 'something' where there is 'nothing' - does that count? My point being - if you have a hypothetical area/volume with light zooming around the place, with a little shift in perpsective - you'd just see zones of 'nothing' moving around - okay, head in clouds.

One of the main points about the 'speed of light' thing is that the speed is constant - so that (in theory) if two beams of light 'collided' with one another - the combined speed coundn't be greater than 3 (lots of zeros) m/s. Isn't that just a round about way of saying that the speed of light is infinite (or as close to it as you can get) - and that everything else is 'slower'.

One thing which always (okay - IMO) fuzzes things a bit is the circular relationship between 'light' 'speed' 'time' 'distance' (I think - may have just made that up!!!!)

Its generally assumed that light has negligible mass - therefore must be the 'fastest' thing going. If light has no mass - then it must be the FASTEST thing going IMO - hence why it may make sense just to assume that 'lightspeed' is infinite and that everything else is slower.

If you assume that all matter is formed from energy - and 'light' is the most fundamental form of energy with zero mass - then nothing can be faster than light - anything with any form of mass will be limited as to how fast it can travel by virtue of momentum.

These topics are always great for creating headaches.

Light is made up of photons, which are massless particles. Therefore, light has no mass and is the fastest assumed thing in the universe.