🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello, all.

I'll be the very first to admit that I'm not a physicist, and know precious
little about relativity, although I am a pure mathematician. This is why I've
decided to ask this question of this newsgroup - I'm confident that it will
be given better answers than I've recieved in the past from physicist-friends.

Anyway, here goes. It seems to me that the argument for the impossibility of
attaining speeds faster than c is flawed. Logically, an argument is invalid
if it, at some point, assumes that which it attempts to prove.

The argument (again, these are in simplistic terms, and I guess I should
apologize.. 8^) ), unless I'm wrong, goes something like this:
        An object becomes more massive the faster it travels.
        Since F=ma (Newton), an accelerating body requires more and more
             force to keep accelerating it
        At (near?) c, this force would become infinite, and thus, acceleration
             past c is impossible
        THEREFORE, c is the highest attainable speed by an accelerating body.

Ok. One thing screams out to me, though. c is a finite number, being 3x10^8 m/s
which all of you know. Then, why would the force required to accelerate a
body past c be infinite if c isn't infinite? How can it be assumed that a
body will become infinitely massive at c if c itself is not infinite, UNLESS
one assumes, subtlely, that c already is the fastest attainable speed (that
is, c is in effect, infinite).

Is my question clear? I know that not only has relativity been around for a
long time (allowing this question to come up by now, I'm sure), but many
quite intelligent and educated people buy into this. My conclusion: I'm
missing something. What is it, or (quite less likely) have I found a glitch
in the "c is the fastest attainable speed" argument? I mean, I could see
the force required being VERY large, but infinite..?

Thanks for your time, and again, I apologize if this question is either very
simple, or has been beat to death in the past. I'ma new subscriber to this
list.


Damian Hammontree
System Programmer
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD         (301) 327-2959
DAMIAN@JHUIGF.BITNET
CALVIN@JHUIGF.BITNET