Can information be transferred faster than than the speed of light?

I know that no physical object can travel faster than light. But can information be transferred faster than light? For example, hypothetically, I have a very long stick, say from the Earth to the Moon. When I twist the end of the stick here on Earth, wouldn't the end of the stick on the Moon twist instantly? Or do the physical laws of materials make this impossible?Can information be transferred faster than than the speed of light?This isn't a case of information being transferred faster than light. The stick's impulse on the moon would of course reach the moon faster than a light signal from earth would reach the moon (not instantaneously, but very fast). But that's only because the stick had a head start. If the end of the stick had to start from earth, instead of already be extended to the moon, then obviously the light would win. Or, say the stick does start at the moon like originally stated, but put a light source right next to the end of the stick. As soon as you begin to twist, the light source will turn on. The light signal will win by a fraction of a second.



Though now i wonder, even in the original scenario, light might still win, because the stick will emit radio waves when it twists, and i wonder if those would reach the moon before the frictional force of the stick.



No matter what, information can travel at the speed of light but not greater. There are no loopholes :PCan information be transferred faster than than the speed of light?Information can't travel faster than light. In the case of the twisting stick, the "twist" is NOT transmitted instantaneously to the other end of the stick. It's constrained by mechanical laws, and actually travels no faster than the speed of _sound_ through wood (or whatever material it's made of). The same is true if you pull on a long rope, push on a long lever, etc.



The laws of relativity deal with "events" that happen in space and time (such as: an event of pushing a button on earth; and a second event of something happening on Mars). The laws say that Event "A" cannot _cause_ Event "B" unless they have a certain relationship in space and time (for example: if the two events are 1 second apart in time, but farther than 186,000 miles apart in space, "A" can't cause "B".) That amounts to saying that no "signal" (whether it's a thrown rock, a spaceship, or a radio transmission) can exceed lightspeed.Can information be transferred faster than than the speed of light?Current theories suggest that information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light. Think about it for a moment. If you observe a particle, you are gaining some information from your observation. So, if you release a particle from A and observe it at B before a photon from A reaches B, then the information gained from the observation was transmitted faster than the speed of light. That is, the statement that "nothing is faster than light" IS actually the statement that information cannot be transmitted faster than the speed of light.

Conversely, although our experiments have failed to turn up evidence of faster-than-light travel, this does not rule out the possibility that particles impossible to detect can exceed light-speed. Of course, no information can be transmitted with them, if they have no effect on any other particles.

My point is, it's not that NOTHING can exceed the speed of light, it's that _information_ can't exceed the speed of light. Nothing more, nothing less than that.

Of course now I have to explain the answer to your question. But let me answer a simpler question. You have a rod with one end on a stationary body and the other end on another stationary body very far away. You push on your end of the rod, should the other end advance instantaneously (thereby transmitting information)? No. Because, you have to question, "why is the rod rigid"? What actually happens when you push on your end is that the atoms at the very end move forwards, and the electromagnetic repulsion of electrons then causes the atoms in the next layer to move forward, and so on and so on, so that this is transmitted all the way along the rod. If you were a heavenly being looking "down" at this, you would actually see the rod contract and then expand, because it does take time for the force to be transmitted from one end to another. After all, the electromagnetic force responsible is transmitted by photons - which of course move at the speed of light.Can information be transferred faster than than the speed of light?
Yes because it's a single physical object.