Strange BUT Untrue

The Cosmic Speed Limit (and the fine you get if you break it)

Travelling at speed obsesses many human beings in this day and age, and scientists are no exception. Everyone wants to break the speed limits, and again; scientists want to do this too.

The Cosmic Speed Limit is another name for the Speed of Light. Lightbeams are allowed to travel at this speed, but rather unfairly no-one else is. Scientists have declared that it's not in fact possible to reach it, but they say this only because they're miffed that they aren't allowed to. After all - light travels at the Cosmic Speed Limit - so it can't be impossible.

The fact is - if you break the Cosmic Speed Limit, you will break the Laws of Phydlstics, and so you will probably be arrested. It is interesting to speculate on the beings that would arrest you - would they wear blue or red uniforms? And how would the flashing light on top of the police car work at lightspeed?

All these questions were likely to remain unanswered unless we at Strange BUT Untrue did another one of our ground-breaking (literally, usually) experiments, so we set up a catapult in the back garden and sat one of our fearless/gullible researchers atop it. After firing him and then several more researchers up into the air (they may recover, once we get around to inventing a cure for death by lots and lots of gravity) we decided that (a) we weren't going to reach the Cosmic Speed Limit without more money, (b) we didn't have any more money after the Lottery Grant ran out, and (c) throwing researchers into the air on catapults was rather fun.

So, one of the mysteries of the universe is still a mystery to us, but on the bright side we have discovered the new sport of Researcher Tossing. We play it every other Wednesday now, and the Olympic Committee assure us that they are seriously considering it for 2024. I think we can safely say the experiment was therefore a great success.

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