No.cathrynliz said:The title is from a great book by Eric Kraft, who plays around with one's physical-being in elemental terms in an excellent novel. He is very funny.
To get down to my question: Do electrons or photons on anything move faster than the speed of light?
No, electrons cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, as an object with mass approaches the speed of light, its energy requirement becomes infinite, making it impossible for electrons to reach or exceed this speed.
No, photons travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, which is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second. They cannot exceed this speed because they are massless particles, and their speed is a fundamental constant of nature.
Cherenkov radiation occurs when a charged particle, such as an electron, travels through a medium (like water or glass) at a speed greater than the speed of light in that medium. However, this does not violate the principles of relativity because the speed of light in a medium is less than the speed of light in a vacuum.
Theoretical particles called tachyons have been proposed that could travel faster than light. However, there is no experimental evidence for their existence, and their properties would violate several principles of causality and relativity, making them highly speculative.
As an object with mass approaches the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases exponentially. This means that it would require an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light, making it impossible for any object with mass to achieve or exceed this speed.