The speed of light is 100 mph

[Robert]

Assume it to be true that the speed of light is 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour).

Background
We don't move through time, but rather, we move through space-time. If we stand still, time passes by at full speed. But if we move through space, time passes by a little slower. Of course, we experience no difference in the rate of passage of time, but that's because we are not moving through space relative to ourselves. But the stationary observer sees us moving through space and notices that our clock is ticking a wee bit slower. Now, if we could move at the speed of light we would appear frozen in time to the outside observer.

The Problem
Since we can only move at a small fraction of the speed of light we don't experience the weirdness associated with relativity in our everyday lives. This gives us the illusion that there is no space-time. We perceive that everyone's time is the same, independent of one's movement through space.

The Assumption
For this thread I have changed reality so that the speed of light is only 100 miles per hour. The idea is to bring relativity into our everyday lives so we can experience the weirdness first hand. What would your day be like? What would you notice? Would it be possible to survive in such a world? In order to exist to make this observation we also need to assume that the speed of light only recently changed to 100 mph. Perhaps at the moment you read the next word...begin

[Mr. Nobody]

Why not slow it down to 10 MPH:
We would see things that are truly in the past and react to situations that do not exist anymore, not in a stellar or cosmic sense, but in an earthly sense. The limits of meaningful interaction between us and our environment would make our world smaller.
The sun would rise and set in rapid successions, day and night would flitter. All animals would perceive the same time scale. I suppose then, relatively speaking there would be no difference, since our senses would be adapted to create a livable reality out of the new speed limit within a smaller space frame. From the outside (a world with the true speed limit) this world would look frozen, from the inside the world would have no day and night but a blinking appearance until one day that world discovers photography and realizes that there is a day and night with stars

[mkirkpatrick]

Great idea for a post Robert,what would our reality be like then?
The night sky would be much darker,as most of the stars we see today,their light would
still be in transit,and would therefore be invisible to us!
Prehaps we would see the sun set,then wait hours before it got dark?

And what about shining a torch,you could see the beam moving through the dark.
It would be a very different world than the one we know now!
Then of course what would happen to communications?Would the internet function at
100mph?

regards michael.

[dleviwing]

Hi Robert;
I am assuming that you are presenting this as a thought experiment. If we are to assume that the SOL is 100 mph, then are we to also assume that everything else is altered proportionally to the change in light speed?? If this is your assumption then all that has been accomplished is to define a “Reference Frame” as expressed by “General Relativity”. If, however, we are to assume that light speed is the only thing that is now altered as 100 mph then sound would travel faster than light just as if we were in a “Bose Einstein condensate” or black hole.

Special Relativity mathematically defines space as it would appear to a moving observer (time accounts for motion) and thus is a subjective theory. General Relativity mathematically corrects for the influence of mass on the mathematics of Special Relativity and is thus an ethereal theory of space mixed with the subjective view of measurement.

For some reason Relativity has been mystified by science to a level of extreme complexity. I tend to believe this is due to the fact that it would not have been fashionable to admit science resorted to subjective measurement to explain their experimental observations. Unfortunately this is just the politics of human nature.

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Hi Robert. As a thought experiment, if light traveled at 100mph, you would perceive no difference___what-so-ever. As light slows, matter expands, so all possible observations are impossible___all observers and measuring instruments would change in a corresponding ratio to the light speed difference. Other than that it is as David stated. I think it might simplify things if everyone realized light speed is an absolute frame of reference of absolutely everything[as Einstein also stated long ago]___in the post-first-star world___the pre-first-star universe may be a different story___as there is no light, but it still must function within the laws of physics' wave/matter realities, IMO.

regards

[michellemfry]

In another's eyes, the blind can see. Just as Allah's eyes see Islam, we can only see it in his eyes. Does Allah hate the blind and sightless? Are we to trod upon holy vision and say that the darkness we know is knowable to the light oriented? When a prophet sees, he is begun the work of caring for those who are blind and sightless, such as atoms, molecules, and DNA. Hydrogen radiates at 21 cm. I cannot see the odorless, and the tasteless gas but if I should find that sense of radiating at 21 cm to end, I will know I have left the universe. We cannot go back to not knowing it once we have felt it. It is bigger than anythiing and more prevalent in the universe than can be imagined.