I have recently played with a thought experiment for which I could not find the answer: Assuming I have a very long stick of several million kilometers and I pull one end: how long does it take, that the impulse travels through the stick to the opposite end so that it moves? Intuitively, I would say that this happens immediately but obviously it must be slower than the speed of light...why is that do? How can this approach the speed of light? Infinitely tight packed atoms and zero mass of the whole stick?
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The fastest you can have the pull on one end of the stick be transmitted to the other end is the speed of sound in the stick which will be of order ~1000 meters/sec. This is far, far slower than the speed of light.
niels nielsen
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