Expert: Paul Wagner - 6/3/2004

Question
Hello sir,
 I am anup & here is another question for you.

1)Consider,a huge circle made up of very light weight/mass wire
  IN SPACE.Suppose cicumference of this circle is 6 lakh km.

2)Now, we join any point on this circle to its center with another
  light weight wire.Thus,this wire will define the radius of huge
  circle in space.

3)Now, we fix a 'T' shaped handle at the center of this circle(ofcourse
  handle is of light weight/mass too).

4)Thus, we have joined every link with eachother & there is no relative
  motion between circular wire, radius wire & the handle.

5)Now, we rotate the handle in such a way that it will come to its
  original position after one second.

6)Thus, as there is no relative motion between links,any point on the
  circumference of circle could/must have travelled 6 lakh km in just one
  second!

7)Here,angular velocity is just 1rev/sec & linear velocity of any point
  on the circumference is still less than light speed but the every point
  has travelled huge DISTANCE which even light cann't trvel in 1sec.

8)Although its impossible to build such a mechanism in space but we
  still can find out the results of this mechanism.Again,energy required
  to rotate the handle will not be huge one,we can afford that much of energy
  as whole system weighs very low.
 
9)If we make circles of huge diameters we still can exceed the speed
  limit of light.

10)Is above arrangement is really true/possible? Can such arrangements
  cover huge distance in no time?

Answer
Dear Anup:

What happens to the mass of any object when it approaches the speed of light?  The flaws in your system are in step

5:  that won't happen.  How will you make that happen?

8:  Don't forget that as the speed reaches the speed of light, masses increases exponentially!  How are you measuring the speed of this construction?  If you can measure it as reaching the speed of light, then you have some really problems holding things together.