@slimj87d: Many of the laws of classical mechanics falter when we move towards relativistic one. The equation works well when the variation in mass is small. But as we approach light speed, the equation is not useful. There is reason why they had to invent relativistic mechanics.. (That is,most of the Newtonian counterpart fails for high speeds.)
Exactly, the writers screwed up the physics in a lot of different ways.
First, they said that when Flash uses IMP he "punches with the force of a white dwarf star" but this doesn't make sense. A white dwarf star doesn't have "force". It would be like saying I punched with the force of a building; that makes no sense, lol.
Second, the formula for force is: F = m * a. That's mass x acceleration. However, the speed of light isn't a measure of acceleration...it's a measure of speed, lol. So, you can't plug the speed of light into the formula for force because it uses acceleration and not speed.
Third, the writers mistakenly believed that as an object approaches the speed of light its mass becomes infinite. This is obviously not true, if it were then photons would have infinite mass, lol. In fact, photons have a mass of 0. However, the energy-mass equivalency equation is: E = mc^2. That's mass x the speed of light squared. Well, if you remember your algebra and you remember how to balance equations, you'll realize that whatever you do to one side of the equation you must do to other, right? Well, since c (the speed of light) is constant, and as you approach the speed of light you need an infinite amount of energy (E), then mass must also be approaching infinity, right? Right...and wrong.
Physicists realized how confusing the E = mc^2 formula was and they started to make a more explicit distinction between different types of mass. There's invariant mass (or rest mass) and then there's relativistic mass. As an object approaches the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases, but it's invariant mass (rest mass) remains constant. Thus, in reality, as Flash approaches the speed of light his invariant mass remains constant but his relativistic mass increases. Basically what this means is that an object's mass doesn't really increase as it approaches the speed of light. Your mass as you approach the speed of light is the same as your mass if you're resting.
And since Flash can move at FTL speeds this makes things even more complicated and confusing. The writers really messed up on this one.
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