How to travel faster than light.

I made a post in S&T, and came up with a theory as I was posting it...

Speed is controlled by resistance. Be that friction (physical resistance) or whatever. Without friction, travel would be instantaneous. We are only just beginning to understand smaller and smaller elements. If memory serves me correct, have we not found that there are particles smaller than protons and neutrons? I'm sure there must be something smaller than that.

The speed of light is measurable, hence we have a speed given. Therefore, there must be some kind of resistance holding it back. As show in earlier posts by the fact that light travels faster in a vacuum. There must be things that we cannot yet detect that are providing resistance to the light. There's all kinds of interesting and wonderful things that we have not yet discovered.

But take throwing a ball off the front of a train for an example. Throw the ball as hard as you can. If the resistance caused by the wind is large enough, then that ball may move forward momentarily before being thrown back. If your hand didn't move (and presuming you were strong enough), then it would be like the ball didn't even move. For it to have moved away from your hand, you must have provided a force stronger than the resistance (the wind), which was worn down and then reversed by the opposite force (the wind).

At the present moment, using current technologies, we have no way to control the speed of light. Hence if you were travelling at light speed, your flashlight would produce only enough power to travel at the speed of light, and be unable to overcome the resistance. It would stay in the flashlight, much like the ball stays in the hand.

Now, if you were travelling at the speed of light in an enclosed ship... the flashlight WOULD shine, as the speed of light would be relevant to the speed of the interior, which is stationary (as a whole). But the light would not be able to escape the 'ship'.

On another note. Travelling at the speed of light must create some kind of truer vacuum through those resisting unknown particles (just like the vacuum created behind a car travelling at high speed)... so with that gap, it may be theoretically possible for the light to travel faster than the known speed of light if shining backwards, or if you had a ship following that ship, drafting in that (what I will call for namessake only) true-vacuum. Much like an F1 car will draft behing the other car to get an advantage.

Tachyons can travel faster than light, is it not?

So, if tachyon's can move faster than light.. perhaps we can use tachyons first. While they would not create as much true-vacuum as light, they would reduce the resistance a little. Then send some light to draft behind the tachyons, then something with a little more substance draft behind the light, and so on... until eventually we get to the density that would allow a vessel or probe of some variety (perhaps even a person) to draft and get up to speed.

There are a couple of problems I see with that theory.

First of all, friction implies that energy is lost through heat. Let's say you drop a baseball from a plane. It starts accelerating, but that acceleration slows down since friction increases with the speed. Eventually, it reaches terminal velocity, where the force of friction and the force of gravity, acting in opposite directions, balance out. The baseball ends up plopping to the ground at around 100-200 mph, no matter how high you drop it from. Now, what would happen if there was no friction with the air? Assuming it was dropped at 30,000 feet, it would hit the ground at around 950 mph! Why does the ball have a lot less energy after traveling through air? It's because a lot of energy was lost through friction, heating up the air that encountered the baseball.

Now, imagine this: You're standing on a very large field. You have the same baseball, and you roll it on the ground. What happens? It slows down and eventually comes to a stop. Again, the energy that the ball had was lost through friction with the air and ground. Unlike in the first example, however, there was no gravitational force acting on it to counter the friction, and the ball stopped.

If light was slowed down by friction with an invisible medium, then where would the energy come from to keep it going? It would be like my second example: it would merely slow down and come to a stop. And yet, we're able to see objects in the universe billions of light-years away, where light traveled for billions of years to get here and never stopped. More importantly, it didn't even slow down. No matter how long light travels, we've always observed it to travel at, well, the speed of light. We can measure its speed over a couple kilometers (fiber-optic gyroscopes), over a couple hundred kilometers (GPS), over a couple AU (interplanetary probes) and it never slows down.

Anyways, about your flashlight-in-a-spaceship example. the person in the spaceship would observe the light from the flashlight to be propagating at the speed of light, no matter how fast he is traveling or whether the flashlight is inside or outside the ship. This is the reason why the theory of relativity is called the theory of relativity: velocity is relative. There's no way to measure "absolute speed". When you're talking a walk, you may be moving at a couple km/hr relative to your surroundings, but you're also moving at 108000 km/hr relative to the sun! What difference does it make? None! The guy in the spaceship couldn't tell that the was traveling near the speed of light unless someone on, say, a nearby planet would tell him that he was doing so. Even then, he could just as easily say that the person on the planet was traveling near the speed of light, while he and his ship were not moving at all.

I didn't say that light is necessarily resisted by friction, as I said... there's many unknowns still in the universe.. but the fact that the speed is limited shows that there is some kind of resistance. Aircraft can travel at constant speeds, despite the resistance offered by wind.

As for where does the energy go.. Again, lets repeat it. There's a whole bunch of stuff we don't know.

As for your counter argument. That's the observation of speed, not the actuality of speed. What you're talking about is the perception offered by distance. Your actual speed is still the same, regardless of distance.

Another example. Take two cars... Have the first car travel at 200kph, pushing the 2nd. Then the front car adds power. If that car adds the power to run at 200, then it will still remain stationary in relation to the pushing car, as until it passes 200 it will not be travelling any faster. It's kinda like pedalling on your bicycle while you're being pulled along by a car you hitched a ride on.. useless

Another point that I thought of while I was showering...

Are you telling me that he wouldn't know he was travelling at light speed? Sure. If he was completely unable to see outside his cocoon... Travelling in a car, with windows, when you're travelling at 200kph... you know it. Sure, you won't know your exact speed without a speedo, but you can see from the environment around you that you are moving very fast.

Speed is NOT relative. I believe that's a misconception. Sure, travelling here will be 100kph, but to the sun - it will seem like we're going at 1kph... If you truly want to measure speed, you need to know how far from you the object being measured is.

Try this:

Get someone to walk 1km distance parallel to you. Time them. Measure them. Now send them 2km away from you and tell them to walk 1km at the same speed. They will actually seem to be going slower.

From close up, 1km will be like:
A_______________________________________B

While far away, 1km will look like:
A______B

So, in observation, they are taking the same amount of time to pass a shorter distance.



You're speed is not relative to the sun in a way that makes it faster. That is just the angle of viewing. The only way that it would seem faster is if the observer on the sun thought you were some kind of ant-man hybrid that was right next to him.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by x08]

Originally posted by x08
I didn't say that light is necessarily resisted by friction, as I said... there's many unknowns still in the universe.. but the fact that the speed is limited shows that there is some kind of resistance. Aircraft can travel at constant speeds, despite the resistance offered by wind.

Valid point about the unknowns, although keep in mind that your hypothesis only serves to multiply them. As for the aircraft, keep in mind that the engine is providing constant thrust, using up potential energy from the fuel. If the engine shuts off, the plane can't maintain its speed for any reasonable length of time.

As for your counter argument. That's the observation of speed, not the actuality of speed. What you're talking about is the perception offered by distance. Your actual speed is still the same, regardless of distance.

Another example. Take two cars... Have the first car travel at 200kph, pushing the 2nd. Then the front car adds power. If that car adds the power to run at 200, then it will still remain stationary in relation to the pushing car, as until it passes 200 it will not be travelling any faster. It's kinda like pedalling on your bicycle while you're being pulled along by a car you hitched a ride on.. useless

I'm completely confused as for what you mean by that. Which of my counterarguments are you referring to? Try to be more clear. The only thing I can say is that there's no "actuality of speed", as I've said before. I'll get back to that in a sec.

Are you telling me that he wouldn't know he was travelling at light speed? Sure. If he was completely unable to see outside his cocoon... Travelling in a car, with windows, when you're travelling at 200kph... you know it. Sure, you won't know your exact speed without a speedo, but you can see from the environment around you that you are moving very fast.

Yes, he wouldn't know he was traveling near light speed, except that the mass of his ship would be greater than its rest mass. Anyways, let's say you're in the car. How would you know that you're moving at 200kph relative to the environment, rather than the environment moving at 200kph relative to you? This may seem pretty silly, but in some cases it's difficult to observe. Let's go back to my walking example: even though you're leisurely moving past your surroundings at a couple km/h, you're moving relative to the sun at 108000 km/h. Anyways, about this example:

Speed is NOT relative. I believe that's a misconception. Sure, travelling here will be 100kph, but to the sun - it will seem like we're going at 1kph... If you truly want to measure speed, you need to know how far from you the object being measured is.
Try this:
Get someone to walk 1km distance parallel to you. Time them. Measure them. Now send them 2km away from you and tell them to walk 1km at the same speed. They will actually seem to be going slower.
From close up, 1km will be like:
A_______________________________________B
While far away, 1km will look like:
A______B
So, in observation, they are taking the same amount of time to pass a shorter distance.
You're speed is not relative to the sun in a way that makes it faster. That is just the angle of viewing. The only way that it would seem faster is if the observer on the sun thought you were some kind of ant-man hybrid that was right next to him.

I wasn't talking about the effect of something appearing slower when farther away. I was assuming that the distance and size of the object you're observing are known and taken into account.

Why is the person taking a walk moving at 108000 kph relative to the sun? It's because the Earth orbits the sun at around that speed. Of course, we don't feel it at all, because there is no absolute speed. This may not be then best example, since the Earth is not in an inertial frame of reference by any means, but it should show what I mean. Right now you and I are moving at

Ok... I see your point relative to the sun, but as you just said... it's not a good example. Light speed travel is usually considered for space, which with current theories we presume is inert. As such, not moving in space will result in us not moving relative to the sun, while not moving on Earth still leaves us moving at 10800kph relative to the sun. Movement is movement and it doesn't matter if we feel it or not.

If you want to talk about relativity then... what you're saying is that the speed of light is not consistent. I'll say it again... in all truth, the speed is consitent... It's the observation of speed that is relative to location.

Someone with the ability to observe humans from the sun will be smart enough to admit that. The human is not moving 10800, but it is his contained environment.

BTW. There is a big belief that if you travel [at light speed] 20 light years away, then come home (hence 40 light years) that everyone you know will be dead, while YOU will still be young. But why? 20 light years means it takes 20 EARTH years for light to travel that far. Hence you would return in 40 Earth years. The only way that it COULD happen is if you were in stasis and travelled for a substantial distance.

[edit on 24-1-2007 by x08]

It's a consequence of time dilation.

en.wikipedia.org...

The people on the ship (in an accelerating frame of reference) will perceive time more slowly than the people on Earth (in an inertial frame).

Anyways, why do you say that velocity relative to the sun is absolute velocity of the universe? Seems pretty arrogant to me. Here, I thought of a better example: The Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards us at around 300 km/sec (0.001 c, or over one million kph). Both the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy can probably be considered as inertial frames. Anyways, let's say you're on a planet in Andromeda. Why would you still believe that your sun is perfectly still, while Earth is moving towards you at 300 km/sec? What about the speed of light? Do you think that if you're in Andromeda, it travels at 0.999 c when emitted in the direction of the Milky Way, and 1.001 c when emitted in the opposite direction? Why isn't the same thing applicable for us in the Milky Way? Are we somehow magically the center of the universe?

Basically, I'm trying to drive home the point that to have absolute speed, you need an absolute frame of reference. The universe is huge. Really, really friggin' huge. Galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc move towards and away from each other at immense speeds. What do you propose as the center of the universe?


Oh, and I'm not saying that the speed of light is inconsistent. No matter where you are, it's c. It's your view that would produce an inconsistent speed of light.

... I understand the whole Andromeda thing... but by your words, the Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards us at 300kps... did you stop to think the opposite? perhaps it is US moving toward the Andromeda Galaxy, and that the AG is, in fact, inert? The theory seems fine on the outside, but it shows that you are being biased and using the Milky Way as your point of reference.

The only way that it could be truly right is if we were travelling ona tangent. Andromeda heading towards us at 300kps, and us moving slightly away. Presuming this, is the 300kps taking into account our own movement (ie. It's actually 400kps, but we're moving away from Andromeda at 100kps)?

What is speed? Look at it mathematically... Speed = Distance / Time.

Whether you're on Earth, Andromeda or wherever - 1 light year is still 1 light year. The distance doesn't change, regardless of your point of view.. it's only your perception of the distance. Nor will the time change. A year is a year (using the Earth as a timeframe - if aliens we're observing us, then sure.. they would measure time differently)
At the moment, without knowledge (public) of alien races, and the whole human race accepting our time measurements... then it's acceptable to say that 1 year is 1 year.

So, when travelling at light speed, 1 light year and then back, I will officially have travelled 2 light years, and hence 2 years of Earth time.


The link you gave me has nothing to do with the argument of how to get to light speed. You have changed the basis of resistance to that of time dilation. Time dilation is an effect of time on the travelling object. Nothing to do with GETTING to light speed. Though admittedly you have me thinking further about the light inside a light topic and in what way would exiting the contained environment (which is travelling at c) be affected by time dilation. Would it's velocity adapt to the new (faster) time frame, and slow down the light? Or would it continue at the original velocity (self + environment) on your basis of relativity. If it continued, then it would shine. If it returned back to the 'normal' time frame, then no it would not.

Back to the OT.. can you explain to me then why light is not faster than it is? With no kind of resistance, it would continue accelerating, right? As I said before, a car can keep producing a constant amount of energy and run at a constant speed. So why not light? You say light does not lose any energy, so there must be no resistance. But what if light IS losing energy, but also creating it at the same time?

Light is electromagnetic radiation, correct? ER is self-propogating. Propogation is affected by the density of the material through which it is propogating. Sound waves are a great example here. The denser the object, the faster the propogation. Light is not the same, through a denser material such as glass, the speed of light is less than that of in a vacuum. This shows that light is affect by density. So if there were less density than the vacuum, then it should travel faster. If a tachyon is able to travel faster than this, it must be able to displace some of the density limiting the speed of light. Also, self-propogation creates (or moves?) energy, and hence why light has energy to travel at a consistent speed.

On another note, I thought tachyon's were real... a little homework has shown me now that they are only hypothetical that kind of throws my whole theory off

Originally posted by x08
... I understand the whole Andromeda thing... but by your words, the Andromeda Galaxy is moving towards us at 300kps... did you stop to think the opposite? perhaps it is US moving toward the Andromeda Galaxy, and that the AG is, in fact, inert? The theory seems fine on the outside, but it shows that you are being biased and using the Milky Way as your point of reference.f
f
The only way that it could be truly right is if we were travelling ona tangent. Andromeda heading towards us at 300kps, and us moving slightly away. Presuming this, is the 300kps taking into account our own movement (ie. It's actually 400kps, but we're moving away from Andromeda at 100kps)?

Look, that's just a nitpick. My point is that we and the Andromeda Galaxy are traveling towards each other in some way at 300 km/s. Saying that does not at all assume an absolute frame of reference.

Not sure what you mean by the tangential part (you got a bit confusing there) but I'd just like to point out that we don't know what the relative tangential velocity is between the two galaxies. Only the relative radial velocity is known, and that's because of blue shift.

What is speed? Look at it mathematically... Speed = Distance / Time.

Whether you're on Earth, Andromeda or wherever - 1 light year is still 1 light year. The distance doesn't change, regardless of your point of view.. it's only your perception of the distance. Nor will the time change. A year is a year (using the Earth as a timeframe - if aliens we're observing us, then sure.. they would measure time differently)
At the moment, without knowledge (public) of alien races, and the whole human race accepting our time measurements... then it's acceptable to say that 1 year is 1 year.

So, when travelling at light speed, 1 light year and then back, I will officially have travelled 2 light years, and hence 2 years of Earth time.

Huh? Yeah, 1 year is by definition 1 year. 1 light-year is also always one light-year, no matter what your frame of reference is. Glad we agree.

Anyways, what do you mean about "perception of distance"? Please be more clear.
Time does change between inertial frames of reference, at least according to special relativity. Go ahead and argue with that, but realize that in all experimental cases it has proved correct. GPS satellies and receivers have to take it into account.
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

The link you gave me has nothing to do with the argument of how to get to light speed. You have changed the basis of resistance to that of time dilation. Time dilation is an effect of time on the travelling object. Nothing to do with GETTING to light speed. Though admittedly you have me thinking further about the light inside a light topic and in what way would exiting the contained environment (which is travelling at c) be affected by time dilation. Would it's velocity adapt to the new (faster) time frame, and slow down the light? Or would it continue at the original velocity (self + environment) on your basis of relativity. If it continued, then it would shine. If it returned back to the 'normal' time frame, then no it would not.

Back to the OT.. can you explain to me then why light is not faster than it is? With no kind of resistance, it would continue accelerating, right? As I said before, a car can keep producing a constant amount of energy and run at a constant speed. So why not light? You say light does not lose any energy, so there must be no resistance. But what if light IS losing energy, but also creating it at the same time?

Yes, you're right, special relativity says noting about getting to near-light speed. I can tell you how: A really friggin' huge and efficient rocket. That's about it. Of course, I didn't know we were talking about that.

With no resistance and no forces accelerating it, light would happily keep on moving at a constant velocity. That's exactly what happens. To accelerate, it would need a force that would have to come from somewhere. If light is losing and creating energy, where's that energy coming from?

Light is electromagnetic radiation, correct? ER is self-propogating. Propogation is affected by the density of the material through which it is propogating. Sound waves are a great example here. The denser the object, the faster the propogation. Light is not the same, through a denser material such as glass, the speed of light is less than that of in a vacuum. This shows that light is affect by density. So if there were less density than the vacuum, then it should travel faster. If a tachyon is able to travel faster than this, it must be able to displace some of the density limiting the speed of light. Also, self-propogation creates (or moves?) energy, and hence why light has energy to travel at a consistent speed.

pq
On another note, I thought tachyon's were real... a little homework has shown me now that they are only hypothetical

that kind of throws my whole theory off

The slowing down of light in a medium such as glass actually isn't related to a loss of energy, since light goes back to c when it encounters a vacuum again. I think the current theory is that within the medium, it just takes a longer path.
Besides, the "medium" I was talking about such as glass doesn't have much to do with mediums of sound propagation. Remember that light is always propagating in the EM field.

The self-propagation of the EM field does not create any energy, take energy in or emit any energy. It is just simply the repeated transfer of energy between the electric field and magnetic field.
en.wikipedia.org...

Yeah, tachyons are hypothetical particles. They're also hypothesized to move ONLY at speeds faster than light.

Oh, and read this:
en.wikipedia.org...

Yes, I've read through all those wiki articles.... some of it I can understand, but when it starts going into formulas, it starts confusing me~

My personal belief:
A quick bit of research about geosynchronus (sp) orbit made me come across this Sidereal Day thing. It's the length of time the earth takes to spin on it's axis. 23h 56m 4s. This is slightly less than the standard day, as our rotation around the sun offests the location of the sun in relation to the spin.

That would still indicate a need in time adjustment to accord with the solar time Vs. the sidereal time.

Time itself though, has not moved any differently.

In this case, I do wish to ask a question. When we say a planet's day is x number of Earth days. Are we using sidereal or solar as a reference? And are we referring to the other planets sidereal or solar?

OK. Anyway, this whole argument is starting to confuse me, and I think we're arguing about several different things at one time. Ok, not arguing... debating... we're civilized people and we're not cussing either.

So I'm going to try and simplify things before my brain explodes.

Time dilation occurs to an object travelling at the speed of light. But this occurs inside the object. From the outside, it is still travelling at the speed of light. The ultimate question that I am trying to solve is WHY can't light go faster? If it's taking a better path through a vacuum than through glass.. WHY can't it take an even better one if a Tachyon can?

Originally posted by x08
Yes, I've read through all those wiki articles.... some of it I can understand, but when it starts going into formulas, it starts confusing me~

My personal belief:
A quick bit of research about geosynchronus (sp) orbit made me come across this Sidereal Day thing. It's the length of time the earth takes to spin on it's axis. 23h 56m 4s. This is slightly less than the standard day, as our rotation around the sun offests the location of the sun in relation to the spin.

That would still indicate a need in time adjustment to accord with the solar time Vs. the sidereal time.

Time itself though, has not moved any differently.

Right, but this really doesn't have much to do with relativity; it's just a consequence of the Earth's orbit and how we like to perceive time in terms of days. As you said, solar time does not mean that time "stretches" on Earth or anything; it just means that the day begins and ends at different times depending on where the Earth is in relationship to the Sun.

In this case, I do wish to ask a question. When we say a planet's day is x number of Earth days. Are we using sidereal or solar as a reference? And are we referring to the other planets sidereal or solar?

Honestly, I don't know. I guess it depends on who's saying it. I think most scientific literature just talks about the sidereal period/rotational period and refers to it as such.

Time dilation occurs to an object travelling at the speed of light. But this occurs inside the object. From the outside, it is still travelling at the speed of light.

Time dilation occurs when going between inertial frames that have different speeds. It occurs at any difference in speed, but is vastly more pronounced when the difference approaches the speed of light. Basically, if there are two identical clocks in both inertial frames, then a person in each frame thinks that the clock in the other frame is going slower. It sounds extremely weird and there indeed are very strange consequences of relativity that are hard to wrap your mind around because they're so counterintuitive. You can feel free to argue against them, but the fact is that they have an extremely solid theoretical and experimental basis. I just think it would make more sense to try to learn special relativity rather than try to argue against it.

The ultimate question that I am trying to solve is WHY can't light go faster? If it's taking a better path through a vacuum than through glass.. WHY can't it take an even better one if a Tachyon can?

Tachyons, as you said before, are hypothetical. As I said before, they can't travel SLOWER than the speed of light at all, so it's a completely different beast. It's mostly a mathematical construct.

As for why light can't go faster, it's because light is a disturbance in the electromagnetic field. Electric and magnetic fields do not react instantly to disturbances, and they can only propagate at finite speeds. Don't think of photons as mere particles; there's much more to their physics than that. Again, read this article, especially how it relates to Maxwell's equations:
en.wikipedia.org...
Yes, it involves lots of math, but hey, it's physics. All I can say is good luck trying to do physics without math.

ok, thanks for that... i think i can wrap my head around that explanation a little... i'm supposed to be smart, but i'm no genius... plus i wasted away a few of my school years in typical teenager fashion

add to that the fact that i haven't been into this stuff for quite a few years, and have forgotten most of it...

so much for a kid that wanted to be an astronomer or an astronaut when he grew up... :s


I guess I'm gunna head back to the general science forum and wrap my head in a few more business ideas for some technologies, dream about having cash for said ideas, and then fall back to reality~

to be honest, i've had a headache for the past 2 days trying to fit what you've been saying into my already full head and trying to figure out what that means in relation to my idea~

[edit on 26-1-2007 by x08]

hmmmm. I'm not sure if I am on the same page here but here goes. no object can travel faster than the speed of light because as an object approaches the speed of light its mass increases. therefore it will require more and more energy exponentially to keep the speed c . therefore requiring an ever increasing amount of energy as said object approaches the speed of light. which is why light itself cannot travel any faster than it does. Perhaps an object given sufficient energy to keep its mass going faster than the speed of light, I guess it could happen. I dunno. thats how I understand it anyway.

The lower your mass the greater speed you can obtain a good example of this is neutrinos. They have hardly any mass and travel at the speed of light. The key is gravity. If we can change or manipulate the attraction between tow mass then you can go very very fast. The greater the mass the greater the gravity. The smaller the mass the smaller the gravity.

No matter how much energy you put in, it's impossible to go faster than the speed of light. Merely reaching the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy and is thus impossible too.

Originally posted by cdrn
No matter how much energy you put in, it's impossible to go faster than the speed of light. Merely reaching the speed of light would require an infinite amount of energy and is thus impossible too.

Man will never fly, create a mechanical horse(car), go to space, etc. Be careful CDRN, the naysayers of the world are often the ones who are wrong in the end!

2+2 will never equal 5, no one will ever be able to trisect an angle, and a perpetual motion machine will never be built. This is about the laws of physics, not about an engineering achievement.

Get a hose, a pump and turpentine. With that, I can make you travel faster than light.