College Physics (4th Edition)

Published by McGraw-Hill Education
ISBN 10: 0073512141
ISBN 13: 978-0-07351-214-3

Chapter 26 - Conceptual Questions - Page 1008: 10

Answer

A particle with mass cannot move faster than the speed of light.

Work Step by Step

We can write an expression for the relativistic mass of an object when it is moving at speed $v$: $m_{rel} = \frac{m}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}$ We can write an expression for the kinetic energy: $K = \frac{1}{2}~m_{rel}~v^2$ We can see that as $v$ gets closer to $c$, the value of $m_{rel}$ increases without any upper limit. A particle would require infinite energy to travel at the speed of light, which is clearly impossible. Therefore, a particle with mass cannot move faster than the speed of light.
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