Do you think FTL travel will ever be possible?

[Vernichtung]

Testing whether a limit of the speed of light exists by traveling 0.05% of the speed of light really doesn't show anything. Without a greater understanding of the mechanics of the universe, the amount of energy needed to accelerate from 80% (random numbers) of the speed of light and higher may be essentially zero instead of infinity by some quark of the universe that we have no idea exists.

I guess particle accelerators don't have subatomic particles whirling around at .99c and beyond? Corrections that need to be taken into account because of special relativity are built into particle accelerators. Its not like we've just tested this at the small v limit.

[Gheld]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1...ars-in-30-days

NASA's current pet future propulsion project (A fusion rocket, co-developed with the University of Washington) is believed to be capable of 200,000 miles per hour (once fully operational). It would trivialize travel within the inner solar system, and enable a manned mission to mars by getting there so fast (30 days) that the accumulative radiation exposure to the crew is non-lethal.

It would be the fastest man made object ever. But still only capable of 0.03% of C

So if Voyager 1 (maximum speed of 38,000)mph were launched in 1977, and if the UW Fusion rocket stays on schedule and launches in 2020, in 43 years our propulsion capabilities have increased by a factor of 5.26. So assuming a steady rate of technological development in the field of space travel we will be at 0.156% of C 43 years later yet.

So in the year 2063 travelling anywhere within the solar system will be a trivial matter. You'll probably be able to book a vacation on Mars, and you might work on a mining outfit on a large asteroid. The stars are still a long way away though.

So who cares whether they ever develop FTL travel? It won't be within our lifetime, but it's likely that at the rate things are going, the human frontier will expand to encompass most of the solar system by the time we die. And as we expand our frontier we also increase our chances of finding a new exotic source of energy, or form of propulsion. So who knows, our great great great great grand children might trek through the stars yet.

[Vernichtung]

1) There's no way to make E=/=mc^2

Except this isn't true. This is the small momentum limit.
Its actually E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2 otherwise photons (and other massless particles) would have no energy.

[Biomega]

So assuming a steady rate of technological development in the field of space travel we will be at 0.156% of C 43 years later yet.

That's the problem. ASSUMING a STEADY RATE... It's very unlikely that such things will increase at a steady rate. There's usually plateaus and jumps, courtesy of other technological limitations or breakthroughs, respectively. That's why you can't just make such wild predictions - it's never going to be a steady rate.

[Gheld]

That's the problem. ASSUMING a STEADY RATE... It's very unlikely that such things will increase at a steady rate. There's usually plateaus and jumps, courtesy of other technological limitations or breakthroughs, respectively. That's why you can't just make such wild predictions - it's never going to be a steady rate.

I would hardly call it a wild prediction. Here, I'll revise my statement:

Assuming that all of the technological plateaus and breakthroughs average out throughout the next 43 year period (emulating the appearance of a steady rate):

[Elegiac]

That's the problem. ASSUMING a STEADY RATE... It's very unlikely that such things will increase at a steady rate. There's usually plateaus and jumps, courtesy of other technological limitations or breakthroughs, respectively. That's why you can't just make such wild predictions - it's never going to be a steady rate.

It's not really an unfounded assumption. If anything, the rate of technological development is increasing owing to it being autocatalytic.

[Arcrin]

It is not that gravity outruns it, but spacetime get so warped and concentrated that light gets trapped. When you hold your hand tightly over a flashlight it does not get dark because you slow down the photons, but because you block its path.

seen the movie the dictator? he runs a 100m sprint or something and wins because he outsmarted the other guys with a gun. result = he wins.

and a quote from pirates of the carribean. "What a man can do, and what man can't do"

[Biomega]

No doubt that progress will be increasing - but the rate at which it does is very much up for debate. You make prediction based on current rates, though, and these are likely to be changing, possibly dramatically so. Of course you can average out the rate of increase - AFTER the fact. You can't average something NOW and then use it as the average of the FUTURE, not when it's something as unpredictable as technological advancement.

Again, no doubt advances are going to be made - but saying things like "by the year 20xx we'll reach X.XX%c because we've gone from diesel to rocket fuel over the last 75 years" are just meaningless. You can make careful estimations with lots of data, and they'll STILL be only marginally better than educated guesses, if even that. All it takes is one great discovery, and suddenly we move in leaps and bounds; or one big war, and suddenly nobody cares about space anymore and things come to a halt. Too unpredictable! Heck, even population growth is often off, and that's a pretty safe bet as far as such statistical predictions go.

[darxide]

Except this isn't true. This is the small momentum limit.
Its actually E^2 = (mc^2)^2 + (pc)^2 otherwise photons (and other massless particles) would have no energy.

Which simplifies to E=mc^2 for massive objects with no momentum, yes, I know this. It's still simpler to say E=mc^2 instead of having to type out the full equation especially since I'm not using it in reference to massless particles. Nitpick much?

[Vernichtung]

1) There's no way to make E=/=mc^2

Which simplifies to E=mc^2 for massive objects with no momentum, yes, I know this. It's still simpler to say E=mc^2 instead of having to type out the full equation especially since I'm not using it in reference to massless particles. Nitpick much?

Do you see where those two things aren't able to be connected? Its the part where you say you can't make E=/=mc^2 and then the part where that is literally exactly where you agreed that E=/=mc^2.
Nitpicking:

I'm a sucker for quantum physics

This is a discussion of relativity.

[Rendia]

Of course, though not the act of accelerating beyond Light Speed. Through warping drives though, yes. We have made some theoretical advancements so far, and have even, theoretically, found a way to reduce the energy needed, as mentioned in an article above.

Re-linked here for easier reference:http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story...ure-spaceships

Hope for warp drive

White said his analysis in the last 18 months promises some hope, with the key lying in altering the geometry of the warp drive itself.

"I suddenly realized that if you made the thickness of the negative vacuum energy ring larger — like shifting from a belt shape to a donut shape — and oscillate the warp bubble, you can greatly reduce the energy required — perhaps making the idea plausible," he said.

Theoretically, he said the warp drive could be powered by a mass less than that of the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

"The reduction in mass from a Jupiter-sized planet to an object that weighs a mere 1,600 pounds has completely reset White's sense of plausibility — and NASA's," io9.com said.

As to thoughts regarding the human body "not being able to handle it", we would likely need to develop something along the lines of "Inertial Dampeners", similar to what is seen on Star Trek, as is warp drive.

[Deleted]

I don;t think that faster than light travel is possible in traditional speed terms. But it does not mean there will not be "work arounds", like wormholes, or even a hyperspace, where you travel outside of space to reach a destination quickly.

You can't travel "outside" space, seeing as space is everything that constitutes the observable universe. It's like saying you'll drive the car down the road without having wheels.

Folding two points in space might be possible, somehow. But the energy requirements are potentially so high as to be impractical.

[MerinPally]

Theories change. Hell, the speed of light keeps changing at very small amounts as we keep measuring it more precisely.

[Deleted]

Theories change. Hell, the speed of light keeps changing at very small amounts as we keep measuring it more precisely.

No it doesn't. Link some credible papers that state the speed of light has changed. It's a constant, it's THE constant.

[MOEEEE]

Yeah, why not. Unless humanity is destroyed ourselfs before we reach that level of technology.

[Garnier Fructis]

Theories change. Hell, the speed of light keeps changing at very small amounts as we keep measuring it more precisely.

Theories don't change over a more precise measurement of c.

No it doesn't. Link some credible papers that state the speed of light has changed. It's a constant, it's THE constant.

In all fairness I'm sure he meant to say our measurement of c is changing, not that c itself is changing.

[Deleted]

Theories don't change over a more precise measurement of c.



In all fairness I'm sure he meant to say our measurement of c is changing, not that c itself is changing.

We don't change our measurement of c. It's derived from mathematical models so I'm not sure what you mean by our measurement is changing.

[Deleted]

I do .. I don't think we will see the movement of big object at speed of light though.
But i do think that eventually scientist will figure technique's out to make particles behave as they are traveling at or over the speed of light to study the effects and so on ..

[Psilar]

The Higgs Field doesn't give EVERYTHING mass. Or at least that's what I've come to understand. Apparently warp drives are possible with higher energy sources.

What we're discovering now is that vacuums have an energy state. Another words there is something there. Furthermore, traveling faster than light implies a vacuum - as we know it today. When one thinks about the smallest "particle" and the largest particle, by mass, you get a number line. On one end you have the least massive particles like electrons protons, neutrons and then you have this huge empty space where no known particles exist. Finally, all the way at the other end you have a planck mass. The largest mass a particle can have before it breaks down into a black hole. The higgs boson falls very far to the right of our known particles but no one where near the planck mass.

In other words, there are potentially many more high energy/high mass particles that we simply cannot recreate here on earth yet. Particles that could very well make up a vacuum.

It would look something like this <--electron-----proton-neutron -----Higgs----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Plank mass-->

I think we will be warp drive or wormholing in the future... I don't think we will exceed C in a vacuum.

[Garnier Fructis]

We don't change our measurement of c. It's derived from mathematical models so I'm not sure what you mean by our measurement is changing.

The theoretical derivation of c depends on other electromagnetic constants which must be measured, so either you're basing the value of c off of those measurements or you directly calculate c by measuring the wavelength and frequency of a beam of light.

As a side note, ever since we fixed the speed of light by convention, measurements of c have really just become measurements of the meter.