Science lesson:
The speed of light is a relative measurement. It's the speed at which a Photon (a particle of light) travels in a vacuum.
The reason we can't surpass it has to do with the amount of energy needed accelerate anything to those speeds. As you accelerate, your mass increases. Objects heavier than Photons would gain near infinite mass in an attempt to reach that speed, and would require infinite energy as a result to move them. Even Photons only move at the speed they do due to limitations of their mass. If a Photon had less mass, the speed of light would be higher.
So yes, as we understand current Physics, it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light, and it will remain that way until we learn a way to alter the mass of the objects we intended to move to less than the mass of a photon. The entire Mass Effect game franchise is built on this principle.
Well, that and alien sexy time.
EDIT: Edit for the first line. My original writing had "the speed of a photo traveling across a vacuum" which I'm pretty sure describes Facebook.
Last edited by Xisa; 2013-05-18 at 12:40 AM.
For some reason I have severe doubts that our civilization would survive such huge strides in technology. Just look at what happened with atomic energy -- it's not that hard to picture what would happen with a even more potent source of energy could bring.
False. The speed of light is a physical constant regardless of location, velocity, and motion of the observer.
---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 05:43 PM ----------
I wonder, though.
If gravity is contingent on mass, would reducing or eliminating an object's interaction with the Higgs field affect its gravity?
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
All right, gentleperchildren, let's review. The year is 2024 - that's two-zero-two-four, as in the 21st Century's perfect vision - and I am sorry to say the world has become a pussy-whipped, Brady Bunch version of itself, run by a bunch of still-masked clots ridden infertile senile sissies who want the Last Ukrainian to die so they can get on with the War on China, with some middle-eastern genocide on the side
All right, gentleperchildren, let's review. The year is 2024 - that's two-zero-two-four, as in the 21st Century's perfect vision - and I am sorry to say the world has become a pussy-whipped, Brady Bunch version of itself, run by a bunch of still-masked clots ridden infertile senile sissies who want the Last Ukrainian to die so they can get on with the War on China, with some middle-eastern genocide on the side
The OP's question is badly phrased. Nobody knows if something will EVER be possible - how could they? Given how often seemingly established facts have been overturned, it would be fairly presumptuous to assume that they won't be again in the future.
Given what we know right now, though, there are certainly possibilities to allow for FTL travel. Note, though, that the very notion of FTL in itself demands some further definition and refinement. Based on the current understanding of physics, nothing that has a mass can accelerate above (or decelerate below) the speed of light. That sounds like an odd definition, but there are certain important implications that make it necessary; contrary to popular belief, it is not theoretically precluded to have particles moving faster than light AT ALL TIMES (tachyons, for example) - these particles could not, however, decelerate below light speed, much in the same way as other more "normal" particles could not accelerate above it.
However, "speed" as we so simply use it is a tricky thing. All motion depends on the respective frame of reference, and that is where light speed as the upper limit comes into play. However, this is also an opportunity; most proposed forms of "FTL" travel do not have objects actually moving faster than the speed of light at any point - they simply choose the frames of reference in a way that changes the concept of distance.
Wormholes are an often used example for this. Suppose the distance between A and B was 1 light-year. However, we find a stable, traversable wormhole that that let us zap from A to B in just 1 day - so our speed is, calculated by "normal" equations of distance/time, 1 light-year/1 day; much, much faster than the speed of light! BUT (and this is an important but) we are NOT ACTUALLY moving faster than light AT ANY POINT of our journey. We are merely changing our frame of reference, and thus our idea of "distance"; our local speed in that frame of reference will never exceed the speed of light in that same frame of reference (i.e. a beam of light will always beat us, if it's traveling the same way). Think of it this way: you have town X and town Z, separated by a mountain. Going around the mountain takes 1 week - but we suddenly discover a tunnel that leads through the mountain, shortening the trip to 1 day! Do we suddenly move with super speed? No. We simply shortened the distance, by going a direction previously thought impossible. Wormholes, in a way, work just like that - or at least, are ASSUMED to work like that, provided they exist in a form that actually permits travel through them (which isn't certain by any means).
The "warp drive" used in Star Trek works in a similar way. Rather than increasing local speed, it (as the name implies) "warps" space around the ship in a way that messes with the concept of distance. The math behind this idea is, strange as it sounds, actually quite real. It is called an Alcubierre Drive (named after Miguel Alcubierre), and it COULD work - provided certain problems are worked out, like HOW the hell to actually "warp" space in the way required. But it is not impossible that a way to do that couldn't be found, and (based on what we currently know) once we do figure it out, there is a real possibility for actual, working "warp drives". A much bigger challenge would be to stop consoles from exploding and killing unwitting ensigns all the time, of course...
Another concept that is quite popular is that of "hyperspace", a proposed extradimensional plane where, again, distances are defined differently. Essentially, an object would enter hyperspace at point A, traverse some distance within it, and emerge at point B - which, conveniently, would be a much, much greater "distance" from A in this dimension than it would be in hyperspace. Again the ship would never actually travel faster than light in its local frame of reference - only the concept of distance changes. This idea, however, is mostly fiction; while there are certainly some very exotic theories and ideas out there concerning various planes of existence, nothing so far suggests the existence of such a convenient "hyperspace", much less a way to travel to and from it.
But again, all these concepts are based on WHAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW. Cosmology and theoretical physics are developing at quite the pace, and many new discoveries may be just around the corner. Heck, the whole idea of the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are what, 60, 70 years old, and they have FUNDAMENTALLY changed the way we look at the universe. Who knows what we will come up with in another 60 years, or even 600? In the year 3000 high school students will probably laugh themselves silly at the quaint notions we had about our existence, and how we could POSSIBLY believe such nonsense... nobody knows! But for now at least there are solid theories that would, at least hypothetically, allow us to reach for the stars. We can only wait and see.
You'll notice if you click the chain of quotes back far enough that I never actually used the word "impossible" myself, as what started this line of discussion was a statement that all things are possible. I admit I used the wrong choice of words in the post you quoted, as I was still thinking along the lines of my original post.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
A.) If you move at light speed you literally don't experience time. From the point of view of a photon they are created and absorbed at the same time.
B.) Energy flow is entirely probablistic. The probability is EXTREMELY low. Never happening once in the life of the universe so far low. However, it is a probability so you could, in theory, see energy flow from low to high in a system.
This is literally the exact opposite of the first postulate of special relativity. c is the same in all reference frames (in a vacuum). If you talk about materials that has to do more with absorbtion/reemission time scales than the actual speed of light.
I'm referring to the real-time that passes, not subjective time.
Basically. When physicists say "impossible", they mean "infinitesimally unlikely".B.) Energy flow is entirely probablistic. The probability is EXTREMELY low. Never happening once in the life of the universe so far low. However, it is a probability so you could, in theory, see energy flow from low to high in a system.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
If FTL travel is possible, we'll most likely figure it out at some point... unless we kill ourselves first. I think we'll kill ourselves first.
Grand Crusader Belloc <-- 6608 Endless Tank Proving Grounds score! (
Dragonslayer Kooqu
It depends on the scale you are looking at things at. On a macroscopic scale, the probability model can essentially be equated with the facts; but on a quantum level, isolated incidents outside of the probability curve can play a role. "Cold fusion", for example, is often based on isolated particles with a TREMENDOUSLY higher energy than allowed for their state by probability curves; quantum tunneling is another example. Particles (and energy) do some pretty crazy things when they think nobody's looking...
This is one of a few reasons why FTL travel is impossible according to relativity, another is the violation of causality that accompanies moving faster than light. There is a reason why everyone shit their collective pants when CERN thought they found FTL neutrinos. If you break special relativity, then you break relativistic quantum mechanics. If you break relativistic quantum you're going to break quantum electrodynamics. If you do this you're breaking measurements that are accurate, to use Feynman's words, to measuring the distance from New York to LA within the thickness of a human hair.
---------- Post added 2013-05-18 at 01:10 AM ----------
I was assuming we were in large systems, the smaller your system the more probably for energy to go from low to high, in classical statistical mechanics. In quantum, well who the shit knows stuff does what it wants and doesn't care what you think.
Thats the thing with relativity, the photon's view point and our's is equally valid. "Subjective time" is going to be different no matter how fast we get going. Say we get to .999999c, the people aboard this ship will experience a minute amount of time where people on earth will experience the normal earth time. Its relative.
There is a difference between NEVER, and extremely unlikely. You used NEVER.
i think i know where you come from, but it does not work that way. the laws you are talking about (i think) are formulated by us; humans. and we have no idea how these laws might change after we have a better understanding of everything. take human flight as a very simple example, or nuclear fusion as a more advanced one. neither of them were deemed possible by our "laws of the universe" a few hundred years ago. who are you to say that the laws we know now will never be altered? maybe in 500 years, maybe in 100 years. maybe tomorrow.
nothing changed - scientists try to understand, and they learn.