The speed of light, etc.

Status
Not open for further replies.
wavinwayne

wavinwayne

Joined
Jan 6, 2005
Messages
9,691
Location
Alabama
I currently work with a group of scientists and physicists. They are much more into theory than I am. So anyway, we all got to talking about aliens, deep space, time travel and such things....which got me to thinking: What do you guys think it would take for humans to be able to travel at the speed of light, or even beyond? My only comment in our discussion was that if it ever happens, the mechanism(s) will be something that none of us can currently envision. What say the BITOGers?
 
You ask the question and then you answer it by saying none of us can envision an answer. So why did you ask?

Assume you know that the faster an object goes, the more mass it has and as it approaches the speed of light, it approaches infinite mass and requires an infinite amount of energy and time more or less stands still?

So its a big problem for procastinators and weight watchers and energy conservation.
 
you cannot travel beyond the speed of light, it is the basic law of the universe

the form of time travel is somewhat wierd.... it isn't really travelling time for what most of us think of time travelling in movies and stuff. I cannot get into a device, and hit a button and say I want to goto 1520 or 2035. It doesn't work like that from my BASIC, BASIC understanding

what it really boils down to is the faster you move, the slower time goes for YOU. If you stay on earth, and I get on a rocket that puts me in orbit at the speed of light, and I orbit for 5 years, when I come back, it will look like i only aged 2.5 years compared to your 5. Time slowed down for me, yes I was really gone for 5 years though. Our principal of the calendar would be the same, but it would be like I only aged half of what you did.

this is really mind perplexing stuff, and I've had an interest for it lately, for some strange reason. I'm not really smart enough like an Einstein or Hawking to fully grasp physics and the universe. I can read stuff on it though. Sucks when all you can do is read about it, I'm just reading what somebody else wrote, could be wrong information, its not something I can test out, or experience myself
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: wavinwayne
My only comment in our discussion was that if it ever happens, the mechanism(s) will be something that none of us can currently envision.

This is my understanding of the current state of our knowledge on this subject.

There have been a few ideas thrown around and studied to some extent but I don't think anyone really knows how to make them work.
 
So far the speed of light appears to be the highest speed possible in the universe.

What would it take for humans to exceed it? An observation that some thing exists in this world that can exceed it would have to come first.

I did see a physics documentary once that claimed if you can warp space (bend it so that two distant points become much closer) you can effectively exceed the speed of light. Not that you are actually traveling faster than it though.

I also believe that we'd need a solid PAO/ESTER combo to get there. Naturally it would be a proprietary formula.
 
you cannot exceed the speed of light

if you tried time would just slow down even more for you, not allowing you to reach it.... hence the whole someone going close to the speed of light ages slower......

I watched some program the other night by Hawking on the History channel....

he was using an example of running a train on the surface of the earth, now what if that train is going almost the speed of light, and you get out of your seat and walk to the front of the train, technically now you'd be moving faster then the train, but time would slow down for you compared to the other passengers on the train and your movements would nullify you attempting to break the speed of light.
 
Me thinks it's impossible to exceed the speed of light. But me is not that smart in this area......
Are aliens even able to go at the speed of light?

It's going to take the Motherload of all breakthroughs to get us anywhere near the speed of light. I will say this, the more I learn the less I know........
 
Mass Effect Relays from the MAss Effect games



140-31-l.jpg
 
At one time man's understanding of reality was that is was made of earth, air, fire and water. I do not think we should accept the theory as if having the complete understanding of it, it is more like, because we currently don't understand "the whole thing" we are currently constrained by it.
 
Last edited:
"I also believe that we'd need a solid PAO/ESTER combo to get there. Naturally it would be a proprietary formula."

Good point!
 
Another reason you cannot travel faster than (or even at) speed of light is that the speed itself is relative.

Say you are traveling on a ship that goes at 1/2 of the speed of light away from the earth. While inside the ship, you are stationary relative to the ship. If you get out of the ship and become stationary relatively outside the ship, and tries to travel another 1/2 of the speed of light outside relative to the ship, you are still not traveling at the speed of light relative to the earth.

What earth sees, in this case is you traveling away at something like 3/4 of the speed of light (I forgot the formula), the ship traveling at 1/2 of the speed of light. While the ship sees both you and the earth are parting each at 1/2 of the speed of light. And at the same time you see the earth traveling away at something like 3/4 of the speed of light, and the ship is leaving you at 1/2 of the speed of light.

Speed (more accurately velocity) is not linear, and 1+1 is not equal to 2, when it is at very high speed. 1+1 = 2 only works at relatively low speed like our daily movement. Because of this, exceeding speed of light is not possible. Physical dimension (XYZ) and time dimension is not linear and you can used up all the energy in the world and can still only get you a little bit faster than before while reaching speed of light and not getting there (as well as time slowing down and your 3 dimensional sizes shrinking)
 
It's one of those stratospheric topics that requires you to understand it for anyone to explain it to you. I'm not wired right for the concept.

I can't get past paradoxes.

Here's a scenario that no one can answer due to the paradox.

3 different physic professors launched 3 orbital time pieces. They were unaware of the others work.

One remains in solar stationary position being left behind by the Earth as it orbits around the sun.
One is launched at 2x the speed of the Earth in co-orbit.
One is on the moon.

They were all sync'd with a clock on Earth at the time of launch.



The classrooms were adjacent to each other and merely separated by curtains.

Each classroom had two monitors. One displaying the localized time and one THAT class's orbitor's time.

At some day in the future, all the clocks were going to end up at the point of origin. The classes were assembled and each class saw, based on their frame of reference and calculations, that THEY had accurately predicted the time dilation or compression that occurred with THEIR orbitor's clock.

Just then, some stupid janitor decides to withdraw the partitions between the classrooms to start vacuuming and all three classes get to view all three clock indicators.

What happens?

This is something that CAN be done, yet it's an illegal state and there is no answer.


Subspace and hyperspace will be where apparent distances are brought into reach due to shorter real distance.
 
Gary, the answer is that the clock in the classroom would be out of sync with the clock in the traveling space shuttle / earth orbit / moon AS SOON AS IT START MOVING.

In theory, no 2 clocks will be sync as soon as they start parting from each other. In practice, this out of sync is very small that you have to either travel very fast or you have to travel for a long time for this out of sync to be noticeable.

There was an experiment done years back, by measuring the average radioactive particle concentration of an element before it start descending to the ground, and after it descend. Calculating the half life, the distance, and the speed, scientist concluded that the faster you travel, the slower is your time (relativity).
 
Quote:
Gary, the answer is that the clock in the classroom would be out of sync with the clock in the traveling space shuttle / earth orbit / moon AS SOON AS IT START MOVING.


This part we accept. Yet only one individual relationship between the local stationary clock and ONE clock in motion is valid. You can only have one frame of reference.
 
Originally Posted By: oilboy123
Me thinks it's impossible to exceed the speed of light.


I think that the information transfer in quantum entanglement is instantaneous, ad therefore faster than light and instantaneous.

(I also think magnetism is "there", and thus transmits information instantaneously too.)

Doesn't make you or I able to do the same.
 
Some scientists contend that the speed of light is slowing down.
It would explain a lot of what we see in the heavens - who knows?

And very recently, it has been shown that at the 'big bang' inception, it had to be initially faster than the speed of light.

The absolute limit to the speed of light may not be so absolute.

I was thinking - just point to any star, then point to another. You have just geometrically / mathematically exceeded the speed of light with what you described. On paper, we can make lots of things work.
We answer many questions and offer proofs as science goes forth, but we also unearth many uncomfortable/unanswerable questions.
 
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
You have just geometrically / mathematically exceeded the speed of light with what you described.

...huh?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom