This is perfect for Adam and Jamie, is it possible to use a Magnetic Accelrator Cannon to send a projectile faster than light?

No, nothing goes faster than light.

Look up the Large Hadron Collider or other particle accelerators. They can give a billionth of a gram of hydrogen so much speed that it contains the same amount of energy as a train has at 100 mph, and such particles still don't go faster than light.

This is all due to Special Relativity, discovered by Einstein:

quote:

Special relativity reveals that c is not just the velocity of a certain phenomenon, namely the propagation of electromagnetic radiation (light)—but rather a fundamental feature of the way space and time are unified as spacetime. A consequence of this is that it is impossible for any particle that has mass to be accelerated to the speed of light.

With enough superconductor magnets, the fired projectile could have the potential to go faster than light. I've been working on this for close to a year now, it's possible for it, but the gun barrel would be very long and the amount of magnets needed could be close to one hundered, or even more.

An object or particle that possesses mass (be it an electron or a bullet) cannot travel faster than the speed of light - it can't even travel AT the speed of light. Only a particle with zero rest-mass (photon or graviton) can travel at the speed of light - and ONLY at the speed of light, it can't go slower or faster than that.

Theoretical particles with negative rest-mass, known as tachyons (from an Ancient Greek word meaning "fast") can only travel faster than the speed of light, but they may not exist in reality - they are a theoretical construct.

As a normal particle is accellerated closer & closer to the speed of light, more & more of the energy being pumped into the particle goes into increasing it's mass instead of it's velocity, such that infinite energy would be needed to take it up to the speed of light, at which point the mass of the particle would become infinite.

Hhhmmm, perhaps it's possible to make a weapon utilizing protons..............Nevermind, that'll never happen. But could the projectile could be accelelorated to lightning bolt speed?

Why did you bring protons into the discussion?

Protons have mass just like neutrons & electrons. In fact the mass of the proton is 1836 times the mass of an electron & almost exactly the same as a neutron.

The only massless particles are photons & probably gravitons, neutrinos used to be thought of as having no mass, but the current evidence suggests that they do have a very small mass - not sure of the exact figure.