this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Astronomy
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'Speed of light' compared to what? is what you need to worry about. Most things in the universe won't be moving at the speed of light compared to you (or whatever you're inside of), and when you run into them, you won't last for long.
That's the neat part of the speed of light. It's the speed of light for every reference frame, no matter who is looking at you or from where.
If you're zooming past the Earth at the speed of light headed straight at the Moon, you've got about 1 second to enjoy that before you make a very, VERY large crater.
If you change course and head straight at a frozen tardigrade, it will make a VERY large crater in you.
To actually reach the speed of light you'd be massless, so the only damage, would be from momentum transfer, at which point your particles would be reflected or absorbed like light.
But that aside, mostly I was referring to your statement:
Which is really not a concern. It's the speed of light for everyone with respect to everything, or it isn't the speed of light. Like, two beams of light going in opposite directions don't see the other light beam going at 2x the speed of light, just at the speed of light with lots of time dialation.
You already knew the answer to 'What would happen if you moved at the speed of light' was was "To actually reach the speed of light you’d be massless." No shit. The question was already massless.