Do you think FTL travel will ever be possible?

[Biomega]

Within western culture for Hundreds of years the term "faith" for hundreds of years was used for religious purpose. Not all faith is religion base, but not all things that are considered "faith" are "faith." The faith i assume you are referring to is confidence. You have confidence in your fellow man, or you have confidence that you will get an a on an exam.

Using faith and science in the same sentence is the number one way to get into an online argument.

I like to think of it this way: the distinction between "religious" faith and "I hope so" faith is that the first cannot be proven or disproven by definition, while the second is not proven yet, but assumed true until disproven some time in the future. The first has no place in science, or any form of rational debate; the second is pretty much the basis of science, at least to some degree.

[mercutiouk]

I'm going to bet on Alcubierre's warp drive with the modifications to the theory made by NASA's Harold White.

It took the idea that was widely accepted to "work" within the boundaries of modern physics and the theory of relativity but needed a crazy amount of energy (jupiter size mass or the energy of the sun was thrown around as a "ballpark") and reduced the energy needs down to something a moderately sized nuclear reactor could produce.

NASA are taking it seriously enough to screw around with it in the lab so it's moved from "improbable" to "worth looking at" which is... progress I guess.

[DEATHETERNAL]

The math is sound and all of the things reported by Special and General Relativity have been proven (Gravitational Lensing, Tidal forces, Black Holes, Time Dilation, Time Contractions, etc.) To me, you are essentially saying, "Well we've only tested adding 2 to a number increases it by two with very small numbers. Not even close to infinity. Until we add 2 to infinity and have it increased by two, i don't think its correct."

I.E: You are asking for an impossibility.

I ask for nothing, I simply answer the question being proposed. It cannot be said with any degree of certainty that FTL travel will either be possible or never be possible as our understanding of the universe is not advanced enough to provide any degree of certainty that we know all factors that contribute to the possibility or impossibility of FRL travel.

That's not usually how these experiments work. You predict a certain behavior with mathematical models; but the assumptions you make in the course of it have far-reaching implications. Many of these you can test for. In this concrete example, the speed-limit of c has certain fundamental repercussions for our entire model of physics. Since these have (so far) found to be accurate representations of reality, it is assumed by inference and induction that the theory that led to them is also true.

Experiments are, of course, ongoing. It is not outside the realm of possibility that new evidence will call the veracity of the ToR into question in the future. But for now, everything we see confirms it. We don't need to jump to lightspeed to do it.

Models generally work for the circumstances they are constructed around. I'm not attacking the model, I'm simply saying that there are a great many circumstances that it has not been applied to that may introduce factors that we are incapable of conceiving of and possibly encountering at all in our current state.

[mercutiouk]

Again with the random events!

You can't just "remove" the Higgs Field; if that were possible, the properties of the Higgs Field would be different (in such a way as to allow it being switched off), which in turn would mean the properties of everything else would be different; which in turn meant that you have no idea what would happen, because all your conclusions are based on how we think things are now, and that INCLUDES the Higgs Field not just randomly disappearing.

Thing is with this sort of thinking nothing would ever change.

There was an original thought that the human body wasn't able to stand moving at more than 30mph. Then the speed of sound was considered insurmountable. The atom was considered the smallest possible building block of anything... etc...

Science constantly changes it's ideas of what is a limit. We're only just now understanding what gives everything mass - what's to say we've found the "definite answer" and there's no way to "un-hook" particles from the Higgs field and make them have zero mass?

[Biomega]

It's the only way, really - try stuff and see what happens!

But so far, it's at the very, very, very, VERY early experimental stage. It'll be decades before anything even remotely interesting happens, I fear. Still, it's better than nothing, and something to look forward to!

For the immediate future, I think that ramscoop or ion drives (or a combination of both) are the best bet for long-range space travel. Chemical propulsion is simply a stone-age solution that should be phased out as quickly as possible.

Now if only NASA or the JPL hat as much funding as the DOD...

---------- Post added 2013-05-18 at 04:13 AM ----------

Thing is with this sort of thinking nothing would ever change.

There was an original thought that the human body wasn't able to stand moving at more than 30mph. Then the speed of sound was considered insurmountable. The atom was considered the smallest possible building block of anything... etc...

Science constantly changes it's ideas of what is a limit. We're only just now understanding what gives everything mass - what's to say we've found the "definite answer" and there's no way to "un-hook" particles from the Higgs field and make them have zero mass?

See my other post for that. You are right in that this is basically the method used by science; but in the concrete case of the Higgs Field disappearing, if you modify the variables to allow for that case, you find a lot of stuff suddenly working very differently from what you observe - which essentially makes the premise false, i.e. disproven. This is the reductio ad absurdum I mentioned, and a standard way of falsifying hypotheses.

That doesn't say anything about future research, by the way; it may very well be that a way is found to make the idea work. In such a case the variables would change, but still make sense - and a new theory is born. This happens all the time, but I'm just saying that you can't go around willy-nilly "turning off" inconvenient facts and then expect the results to have any meaning - not unless you go all the way and make sure that your changes didn't cause a paradox somewhere, disproving your premise.

---------- Post added 2013-05-18 at 04:14 AM ----------

Your syntax is correct. Your semantics is not. Why walk around a river when you can simply cross it using the bridge? As in, If there are terms that often confuse people, why use the confusing term, especially if it has another term which means the opposite of the term with the same word?

Issac newton did not have faith that an apple falls from a tree. He observed an apple falling from a tree. But again, this is an argument of semantics that is based mostly on a person's world view.

This isn't my terminology; I am usually more precise. But I was referring to my previous posters, which apparently had trouble with the double-nature of "faith" - this is a common thing, and so I thought I'd share my interpretation of this often-used ambiguity.

[Polution93]

Faith based?

First off, i'm an atheist, so no, it's not faith based, humans by our nature find ways to make things work. This is a fact.

Second, of course there are limits to what can actually be achieved, I was referring to things that are proven to not be impossible/theoretically impossible.

I'm also an atheist, but your logic is flawed. Humans have managed to get as far as we have by adapting, yes, but we have always adapted to nature. No matter how much thought we put behind something, the laws that govern the universe are consistent. The universe isn't concerned with how badly we would like to move faster than massless particles; physics will not allow it.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

That really all depends on how cheap God is.

You see, we're actually living in a universe that was created by God. God inhabits a world that has games similar to Sim City, but on a level of complexity far beyond, to the point where it can simulate our universe. The reason why things are capped at the speed of light is because the game prioritizes its simulations not becoming aware that they are simulations, and traveling faster than the speed of light would cause us to move from one area to another before the game could fully 'render' that area.

If God ever gets around to upgrading his rig, it might become possible for FTL travel.




Ok, on a more serious note, I don't know what to think about the subject. I hope we accomplish such a feat but I have no idea if we will or if it is even possible. Many people will give answers relating to science but I have a feeling that they are not educated enough on the subject to actually 'know' and are just parroting what others have possibly misinterpreted.

[mercutiouk]

See my other post for that. You are right in that this is basically the method used by science; but in the concrete case of the Higgs Field disappearing, if you modify the variables to allow for that case, you find a lot of stuff suddenly working very differently from what you observe - which essentially makes the premise false, i.e. disproven. This is the reductio ad absurdum I mentioned, and a standard way of falsifying hypotheses.

That doesn't say anything about future research, by the way; it may very well be that a way is found to make the idea work. In such a case the variables would change, but still make sense - and a new theory is born. This happens all the time, but I'm just saying that you can't go around willy-nilly "turning off" inconvenient facts and then expect the results to have any meaning - not unless you go all the way and make sure that your changes didn't cause a paradox somewhere, disproving your premise.

Oh, indeed. I wasn't meaning to sound flippant with the "turning off". The point is though that it's fairly early days for the theory anyway. Yes it works for the moment but we still aren't able to mate general relativity with quantum physics without the results being equally meaningless so there's something got to give somewhere even as "accepted theories" go at the moment.

With grey areas and discrepancies already in the mix there's nothing to say our understanding won't change.

If quantum particles don't have to strictly obey relativity then as the Higgs field is more at that end of the scale it's rather more likely we haven't got it completely nailed down yet.

Actually, all this said with the above post ringing very true. I'm far from an advanced physics major. I read a lot around the subject and understand what I can but I'm generally accepting someone's layman terms as my understanding of it.

[Adam Jensen]

That really all depends on how cheap God is.

You see, we're actually living in a universe that was created by God. God inhabits a world that has games similar to Sim City, but on a level of complexity far beyond, to the point where it can simulate our universe. The reason why things are capped at the speed of light is because the game prioritizes its simulations not becoming aware that they are simulations, and traveling faster than the speed of light would cause us to move from one area to another before the game could fully 'render' that area.

If God ever gets around to upgrading his rig, it might become possible for FTL travel.




Ok, on a more serious note, I don't know what to think about the subject. I hope we accomplish such a feat but I have no idea if we will or if it is even possible. Many people will give answers relating to science but I have a feeling that they are not educated enough on the subject to actually 'know' and are just parroting what others have possibly misinterpreted.

Heh, I use to wonder if I was just some animated sprite in a complex game of The Sims for a higher dimension species . . .

Usually while playing The Sims . . .

[Biomega]

Ok, on a more serious note, I don't know what to think about the subject. I hope we accomplish such a feat but I have no idea if we will or if it is even possible. Many people will give answers relating to science but I have a feeling that they are not educated enough on the subject to actually 'know' and are just parroting what others have possibly misinterpreted.

Nobody KNOWS. Nobody CAN know. Heck, the OP phrased the question using "ever"...

As for parroting - if you find a flaw in anyone's reasoning, please point it out. Several posters here are quite knowledgeable, but I think that it's only fair to assume none of us are experts in advanced theoretical physics. Still, you don't have to be, as we're dealing with pretty basic fundamentals here. And as for "parroting"... creating original knowledge is a feat reserved for the most creative of humans. All the rest of us can do is analyze, digest, and repeat what we learn from others. That's how society works, in general. It's not something to be ashamed of, unless of course you go about it mindlessly. Which you never should, in any case, not just science.

[Kalas]

Technically we already know how to violate our universes's speed limit by bending space rather than moving through it normally. Trouble is it would require us being able to harness the energy of maybe a dozen suns, and it doesn't really count since you aren't just moving in a straight line like any other means of conveyance.
While we have know the broad strokes of how it can be done (even more Trek tech!) it's not something that's going to be feasible at any point in the forseeable future, and by the time it is I'm sure we'll have better adaptations available anyway. (Such as suspended animation, generational ships, etc.)
But if you're asking in terms of straight up going faster than light, not 'merely' bending space around your ship, the answer is absolutely no unless and until our understanding of the universe is dramatically altered yet again.

[Biomega]

Oh, indeed. I wasn't meaning to sound flippant with the "turning off". The point is though that it's fairly early days for the theory anyway. Yes it works for the moment but we still aren't able to mate general relativity with quantum physics without the results being equally meaningless so there's something got to give somewhere even as "accepted theories" go at the moment.

With grey areas and discrepancies already in the mix there's nothing to say our understanding won't change.

If quantum particles don't have to strictly obey relativity then as the Higgs field is more at that end of the scale it's rather more likely we haven't got it completely nailed down yet.

Actually, all this said with the above post ringing very true. I'm far from an advanced physics major. I read a lot around the subject and understand what I can but I'm generally accepting someone's layman terms as my understanding of it.

There's a lot of ideas about "how things are" - the problem is the complexity I mentioned earlier; you change variables in one place, it causes ripples all through physics. And following all these ripples and checking what happened, and whether it created a contradiction somewhere, is an extraordinarily tedious and lengthy process. It can easily take decades, if not more, especially in the most complex of problems. And then there's new data coming in all the time, of course...

I expect that in a few years time, we'll know a lot more. But even that will only be a small step on the long road.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

Nobody KNOWS. Nobody CAN know. Heck, the OP phrased the question using "ever"...

As for parroting - if you find a flaw in anyone's reasoning, please point it out. Several posters here are quite knowledgeable, but I think that it's only fair to assume none of us are experts in advanced theoretical physics. Still, you don't have to be, as we're dealing with pretty basic fundamentals here. And as for "parroting"... creating original knowledge is a feat reserved for the most creative of humans. All the rest of us can do is analyze, digest, and repeat what we learn from others. That's how society works, in general. It's not something to be ashamed of, unless of course you go about it mindlessly. Which you never should, in any case, not just science.

Not going to read through 7 pages and point everything out that could be wrong. By parroting, I mean people who heard or read something by somebody else and just trusted them. I mean, for cool things to tell your friends, that can be acceptable, but for any serious discussion, not so much.

[Fuzzzie]

We recently discovered the Higgs Boson, which gives all particles mass.

The Higgs Boson doesn't give particles mass. Particles interacting with a Higgs field give the particles mass. A Higgs Boson comes from the excitation of a Higgs field, much like a photon comes from the excitation of an electromagnetic field.

[Voidism]

We will never be able to go faster than C in space, but space itself isn't bound to the speed limit. As others said, "warp" is allowed. So, maybe. We'd just have to figure out a way to do it which is far from our capabilities right now.

It would be like instead of travelling on a road with a speed limit, you'd be moving/bending the road itself.

[Deleted]

One of the theories that would allow us to "breach" the light speed limit is through wormholes. The wormholes are supposedly appearing/disappearing faster than the blink of an eye in the universe already, so... wouldn't that allow for us to disappear into the vastness of nothing or disintegrate or w/e if the Wormhole "shuts down" while we're attempting to go through it? Just a thought

[chazus]

It's already been established that "FTL" is possible. I put that in quotes because most "FTL" is not actually speed-wise, faster. Arriving at a destination sooner than light does not not necessarily mean a linear path.

While the technology is still far beyond our grasp, we've made proof in concept of science that at some point, with sufficient power sources and research, some form of "FTL" is possible.

[Deleted]

It's already been established that "FTL" is possible. I put that in quotes because most "FTL" is not actually speed-wise, faster. Arriving at a destination sooner than light does not not necessarily mean a linear path.

While the technology is still far beyond our grasp, we've made proof in concept of science that at some point, with sufficient power sources and research, some form of "FTL" is possible.

Once we achieve that, is there even a point in finding out how to actually go "faster" than light?

[Arteous]

to op's post.

it's going to be possible. let's just worry about getting much faster on more efficient systems first. Baby steps. I'm willing to bet that string theory will play into ftl travel.

[chazus]

Once we achieve that, is there even a point in finding out how to actually go "faster" than light?

Yes and no. For travel purposes, no. For scientific purposes, possibly?

Also keep in mind... Technology changes. It may be the case that "Near Light" speed is ridiculously more cost effective, albeit much slower, than some form of FTL. Or maybe the technology develops that "FTL" is only useful for extremely long distances. Or set points in space where we cannot easily choose where to go (like a wormhole concept).