The only thing about being faster than light

вЂњUpwardвЂќ is also a direction itвЂ™s the opposite of downward. ItвЂ™s defined as the direction in which things fall when you drop them. ItвЂ™s less straightforward, but it doesnвЂ™t involve anything fundamentally more difficult than arrows on pieces of paper, and I think it offers a much better understanding of the universe we live in than hiding behind abstractions like вЂњforceвЂќ and outright falsehoods like вЂњrelativistic mass.вЂќ Maybe itвЂ™ll work for you, maybe it wonвЂ™t, but here it is in any case.ДЇirst, letвЂ™s talk about directions, just to get ourselves oriented. When I talk about this subject, I do it in terms of the geometric interpretation thatвЂ™s consistent with general relativity.

It makes the universe sound like a much different, and much less wonderful, place than it really is, and for that I kind of resent it. ThatвЂ™s a venerable way of interpreting the mathematics of special relativity, but I find it unnecessarily misleading, and confusing to the student whoвЂ™s just dipping her first toe into the ocean of modern physics. You might google around a bit and find discussion of something called вЂњrelativistic mass,вЂќ and how it requires more force to accelerate an object thatвЂ™s already moving at a high velocity, stuff like that. There are a lot of simple, intuitive explanations of this to be had out there вЂ¦ but I kind of hate them all.

HereвЂ™s a most excellent explanation by redditor RobotRollCall of why that is: Why Nothing Can Go Faster than the Speed of Light

The only thing about being faster than light