Breaking the Light Barrier

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
It has been suggested by physicists that the speed of light is not constant. That the speed of light was faster in the past, so objects millions of light-years away are much younger than millions of years.

This work is by no means proof its really only a theory right now.

wiki.cotch.net... &printable=yes

www.setterfield.org...

::groan:: How did I know that someone would cite creationist arguments that the speed of light has changed over time?

When I asked for an opposing example, I was hoping for articles one would find in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal. I'll be more specific next time.

Your first link actually refutes the refutes the theory that c has changed over time. You should read it again.
The second link contains the following statement:

Until I have seen a copy of the paper by Davies et al. I do not know if they have eliminated all other options.

In other words, Setterfield is summarizing an article published in Nature that he hasn't even read.

I actually read the Nature article by Davies back in 2002 and some of the others mentioned by Setterfield. Those articles were talking about some very complicated physics pertaining to the big bang. (I find it interesting that creationists cite research into the fundamental physics related to the big bang, a theory that they normally would reject out of hand.) Anyway, the referenced articles are theories related to small fractions of time immediately following the birth of the universe. Bottom line: these references are not particularly useful for those who wish to propose FTL travel.

Scientists have also found ways to vastly increase the speed of light. Scientists at NEC Corporation's (NEC) basic research unit in the US have created Laser pulse travels 300 times faster than light.

This was an optics trick. A very nice experiment by some brilliant guys. But once again, as they admit:

...it is still correct to say that information cannot be transmitted faster than the vacuum speed of light

More importantly for the question at hand, it still has nothing to do with FTL travel for spacecraft, etc.

I just grabbed some quick information on google on the fact that the Speed of light might not have always been constant. There is much more out there if you look.

I also made it very clear it was just a theory and not fact I also never said it could be used for faster then light communication.

As for the increasing the speed of light through certian mediums calling it a ''optical trick" is going alittle far IMO. Certainly it was a dramatic demonstration. A team of physicists have also made a microwave beam travel 7% faster than light speed. Physicists have also slowed light to a near crawl as well.

Dr Wangs work may not threaten Einstein's theories but experiments such as Dr Wang's may force a reassessment of some cherished ideas.


But getting into how faster then light communication could really be done there are theories on how that could indeed work. I would suggest looking into ''Quantum Tunnelling '' or the ''Casimir effect '' if you are interested on how FTL communication may be possible.

The simple facts are that we are dealing with what we know RIGHT now. That will change as we go along.

It was once believed that the earth was flat, that man would never fly, that we would never make it to the moon or send craft beyond, into the stars.

At the time of those thoughts they were true to the people alive and dealing with the facts they had at hand.

As we continue to grow and learn, new information will come into our light. We will not only break the light barrier we will master it. We will explore the center of our own galaxie and go to galaxies that are but a pinprick on our telescopes now.

It is not a question of will we, but a question of how quickly we will get the knowledge to do so.

It is the nature of our species, and it shall not be denied.

Love and light,

Wupy

Hmmm. Once and for all. According to the US Navy light travels at 186,000mps. For some reason when it comes to corrective lenses the formula is 167,000mps. I stand corrected. Okay. I get it. You can stop now. One good thing this post has made me do is break out my old optics books. My favorite is Basic Optics and Optical Instruments by the Naval Education and Training Program Development Center.
Am now triple checking myself. Thank you.

Are there any forms of energy known to travel faster than light? Can a different form of energy be made to travel faster than light? Which is of course 186,000 mps.

Yup.. neutrinos, tachyons (if they exist), lots of em.

Originally posted by apc
Yup.. neutrinos, tachyons (if they exist), lots of em.

No, neutrinos don't travel at superluminic speeds. The only dogma regarding them in those terms is that some people believe they have no mass, which would put their speed at the same as light, while others accept a value of 20eV as mass, which would make them travel slightly slower than the speed of light.

Why cant we go faster because the relativity theory says that traveling with 99%the speed of light would stretch(object,ship..)into infinty and flaten it into zero nothing!!!Thats why.So the solution wolud be traveling by radiovawes and teleporting.Or maybe Einstein was wrong and they will come up with something in the next ooo 300 years.

Unless you actually achieve lightspeed, all we are ever gonna have is theories on what happens or if its attainable.

What about a often used form of FTL travel in SCI-FI and a personal fav of mine ''Hyper Space''. A ship would slip into another dimension which has a point by point correspondance with our universe,but the points are closer together. So you slip into "Hyper space'' move from point A to point B then slip back into our own universe and you moved faster then light not breaking relativity .

I believe the concept is demonstratable using mathamatics, but as any true mathamatician will tell you, math rarely has much basis in reality

I think there are many interesting theories in SciFI

It really boils down to several basic ideas.

1. Hyperspace/dimensional manipulation
2. Outright ignoring relativity
3. Warped space (Locally changing the rules/speed of light)
4. Wormholes
5. Teleportation

I think besides number 2 All other may indeed be possible, Real scientist have even done work to show that some of these concepts are atleast theoritically possible. I.E Wormholes: plausible according to string theory

in guenuss world records it sais that sweedish scientist slowed light to a stop
how???

Simple. He turned off the lights

Originally posted by ktprktpr
Simple. He turned off the lights

lol, wouldnt that mean there is no light????

Originally posted by SonofSpy
The speed of light is about 167,000 miles an hour. Einstein said that going faster is impossible. I think hes wrong. Having studied light theory I think its light that cannot travel faster than that. Of course we are nowhere close to having the ability to prove it. Newtons laws apply most to physics on earth. One thing that applies in space is that unless impeded by something you can go as fast as you want. I would appreciate any insight to why 167,000 mph is the cutoff. As fast as that is I really don’t see why the barrier cant be broken.

Text

The theory of relativity makes sense but still doesn’t explain why light speed is the limit. Thoughts please...thank you..

The reason light travels 180k per second is that it has no mass.... Now the point Einstein was that energy and matter are interchangeable.. in other words the reason Light has no mass is that it is pure energy...

so there fore light speed could be considered the speed where matter is converted into pure energy...

Now follow that train of thought for one second....

if we could harness the power of matter and accelerate it to the speed of light we would have an awesome energy source that would be able to fuel the world.... also it would be the solution to our mounting rubbish problem lol....

getting back to going faster than light....

the problem you have with accelerating matter to the speed of light is that matter has mass and there for to push matter to the speed of light you would need increasingly more and more power the closer you got to the speed of light... Actually if calculations are correct it would take all the energy in the universe to push a single cube of sugar sized peace of matter to light speed....

However does that mean we can't travel faster than light??? Nope it doesn't mean that..

Although we can't accelerate matter to 186k per sec we can however use space time to 'Fold Space' Create a worm hole and travel great distances without actually travelling very far at all....

This is a common theory of how to travel faster than light...

My personal feelings are that if we were ever to be able to travel great distances we would change our very selves and become a derivative of the human race... in other words we would not be human...

Anyway...

All the best,

NeoN HaZe


[edit on 21-3-2005 by Neon Haze]

Speed of light where? Here at sea level on earth, in the mesosphere, or in a vacuum? Ina vaccum, according to Taylor and Wheeler, is 2.997925 x 10

I'm way out of my league here, but a smarter friend of mine used to come back from his physics classes with cool questions, may favorite one was,

if a car is going the speed of light, and turns on its headlights, can he see the headlights beam ? madjamr posted something similar, just a point to ponder.
I understand the whole weight and fuel dilemma as you approach the speed of light, its really to make you look at the idea of the light speed barrier......hope this contributed in some way

i just thought, get a torch, get ready to run, turn on the torch. run with torch in hand, however long it takes for the light to reach an obstacle, got there a itny un noticable bit faster than it would if you was standing still, therefore the light was going faster than its normal speed because of the help from you, os that light moving, moved faster , nothing had happened yet, wow. if it was possible to slow down time so you could watch light travel, and it was slow enough to look maybe, 50 mph, and there was someone running with it, it would not be noticable at all, but it would be quicker. maybe impossible to notice with any device. bu i was still traveling faster, tell me what the answer is to this thought plz. maybe i made the discovery of the millenium..... or not. :s highly doubtful but it works out in my mind

start running before u trn on the torch

here are a couple of thoughts for you. light is both a partical and a wave. we can see it in each instance but we can never see it as both at the same time.
you can set up your own experiment using your hand held laser pointers to see it as a wave make an interference pattern on a wall as it passes through a narrow slit.

also since light is a wave you only see light half the time... think of a sine-wave going both positive and negative. now at its peak on both the top and bottom we see light, when it is at zero state there is nothing.

[edit on 22-3-2005 by bigx01]

Originally posted by bigx01
also since light is a wave you only see light half the time... think of a sine-wave going both positive and negative. now at its peak on both the top and bottom we see light, when it is at zero state there is nothing.

Could you elaborate on that please?