Post #4936

If You Had A Pole Stretching From England To France And Yanked It, Would The Other End Move Instantly? Over on Reddit, people are once again asking some interesting physics questions with equally intriguing answers. Today is the turn of Redditor gothreepwood101, who asks "if I had a metal pole long enough to reach from the English coast to the French coast. And a person holding it at each end. If one person pulls it would the other end move instantly?" That's a fun question, and it might seem pretty simple. It's made of metal, right, so if you push or pull on one end the other end must move instantaneously? An instant yank for the French person on the other end? But it's not as simple as you might imagine. If you answered "yes", then congratulations; you have broken a fundamental rule of the universe, affecting another part of the universe (in this case, the French) faster than the speed of light. The speed of light, 299,792,458 meters (983,571,056 feet) per second, is the speed limit of the universe. No matter, electromagnetic wave, or "guy with a theory" can travel faster than it. Source:IFLScience @EverythingScience