Why is it Impossible to Travel Faster then the Speed of Light?

Originally posted by paranoiaFTW
reply to post by Kaytagg

 

To me theoretically impossible just means a barrier that has yet to be broken. Whenever we can't do something we label it as impossible, maybe something goes faster then light, and we just don't have a way to detect it yet. Maybe our equations are just wrong. Maybe a different set of principles apply to objects that go really fast, just like what happens at a quantum level.

It may very well be possible to travel faster than light. Who am I to claim omniscient understanding of how the universe works.

But there is a big difference between trying to override a fundamental law of the universe, and simply doing something that is really hard.

Flight, in itself, is really hard. Sending a man to the moon is really hard. Note: Not impossible. It's not impossible to colonize mars, but do we have any martian citizens? Nope, because it's too hard. Nobody is claiming it's impossible, though.

Colonizing the whole galaxy is possible, but we're no where close to that, either. Nobody can tell you that "its impossible to do," because it isn't.

As wild, ambitious, and unlikely a goal like that is, it's still attainable. Traveling faster than light is not. Not because it's hard, but because the universe simply doesn't work that way. We've been proving it doesn't work that way for nearly 100 years now, and not a single advancement in our technological capability has been able to break that rule.

That's where the difference between a technically hard challenge, and a theoretically impossible challenge, comes from. It has nothing to do with "how advanced are we? How much energy can we harness? How smart are our scientists?" You can not travel faster than the speed of light, given the current understanding of physics.

There are some "tricks" proposed to achieve a similar effect, and whether or not they work is unknown, but nobody has ever figured a way (on paper or in real life) to go from rest to >c.

I took astronomy this quarter and I can answer your question (who knew I would learn anything of importance in college? ;P) At one point in time in the universe's history that something went faster than the speed of light. Not even a second after the Big Bang, the universe rapidly expanded in a phase called Inflation, where the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.

en.wikipedia.org...(cosmology)

Hope this helps

reply to post by mtok7


why not? how did you come to this conclusion???
if you were on a bus that was one mile long, and you were sitting at the very back of it,
The bus was traveling 1mph, for a distance of just 1mile.and you were to walk to the front of the bus at 1mph. collectively you would have traveled 2 miles in one hour whereas the bus would have only traveled one mile in the same hour, so therfore you were going faster than the bus..
It would be the same as if someone outside of the bus were to be walking at 2mph, for 1 mile, in one hour he would have not only covered the same distance of the bus, but if he followed it from the rear he would be at the front when the bus stopped, yet if the bus and the person started together from a "nose to nose" position he would be 1 mile infront of the bus..
In other words, if a bus is traveling at 1mph and you are inside the bus walking from rear to front at 1mph, if somehow you were to be teleported ouside the bus and were to keep your momentum, you would be traveling twice as fast as the bus..


[edit on 14-12-2009 by SideWynder]

[edit on 14-12-2009 by SideWynder]

reply to post by mantisfan72


Yes that is "relativity" how ever to the stationary observer you bothe would be moving rapidly..
But as you both are following the curvature of(the earth, space-time,etc)
somebody else could jus go ahead and zip by you by not following the "curvature" IE taking a straight line to the exact same point.. to the stationary observer they would beat you to point "b"
in reality though you did move slower than the other two...because the distance was shorter, sthis does actually have a bit to do with Quantum physics, although this is a very "dumbed down" scenario, that barely even touches upon it.

Originally posted by daniel_g

Originally posted by lordtyp0

Boo on number 2

things can only have an effect after a cause. The speed it occurs is irrelevant to that. Similar to the touted paradox of "If you travel faster than the speed of light to pluto, you can watch yourself leave" well.. you are only watching an image, like a video recording. You are not actually on earth, you simply beat the image of you leaving to pluto.

"violations of causality" really mean that something was left out of the equation. The beating information thing is more of a time paradox. Not one of velocity.

Boo on pseudo physics.

Suppose you send a message to OP who is standing a few million miles from you. The message consists on turning on a flash light and pointing at him. When OP sees it, he will reply by turning on his own flashlight and pointing it at you.

If you could travel 100 times faster than light on OP's reference frame, you could potentially send the message, travel the million miles faster than light, and tell OP that you sent the message before he even got it.

BUT, on your reference frame, you cannot travel faster than light(second postulate), the message will get to OP way before you ever reach him.

If you can understand that, once you read that link I posted you would see why in some weird reality OP could potentially reply to your message before you ever sent it.

And yes, I left something out of the equation: Time. But do you really want to complicate yourself even more when velocity alone gives you trouble?

PS. With your Pluto example you are violating the second postulate by assuming you can travel ftl on your own reference frame. If this is the case special relativity no longer applies to anything you are saying thus you must have your own theory buried somewhere(unless you are referring to wormholes, which I doubt). Mind sharing it?


[edit on 14-12-2009 by daniel_g]

Think you might have missed all my saying that FTL wasn't possible-at least under current stated laws. The hypothetical about Pluto is an exploration of the perception-not a statement of possibility.

With the flashlight: if it were possible to travel FTL then you could arrive before the message and explain, however the response I was meaning was the whole part of you saying the response came before the question. That implies time travel as the 'cause' has not occurred in the form of the initial question. Doesn't quite strike me as the same example here.

(edit for complete info, pasting in the #2 orig posted that I "booed")

2- Causality: If information could travel faster than light, you would have gotten this reply before you even typed your question: www.theculture.org...

[edit on 14-12-2009 by lordtyp0]

reply to post by paranoiaFTW


The multiverse theory remains just a theory. Anything is up for speculation as long as we only have theories and no verifiable or demonstrable evidences...

reply to post by rusethorcain


Again, how do they know if this is affecting the actual speed of light, or just the manipulation of perception? I think there's still a lot of ground to be covered in physics...I don't completely agree with relativity among other things...it's just a very difficult process of understanding...

One thing I have noticed in this thread, It is that so far all uf us have been attempting to explain, theorize or otherwise use the "speed of light" as a "linear phenomenon. IE you go X amount ofdistance in X amount of time. Time being the universal constant, never changing always the same...
let us just suppose for a moment that Time had a begining, so therefore it must have an end..Time is not infinite.. time is not a constant..time is actually "fluid" Time is just as "real" as gravity, matter. etc.. And I am not being "esoteric" about time..
What I mean to say is, there have been experiments where the faster you move the slower time goes for you.. Ie,traveling on the concord jet for several hours would make your "watch" show a few seconds behind somebody that had been on the ground all day..
So using that as an example, that tells me that time, just like light, has a speed that can be measured..
Maybe time travels at the same speed as light, or possibly just a fraction faster.
that would possibly explain the faster than light "wall",,, because if Time has a "speed limit" how the heck are you going to surpass the speed of time????

I ran across this and it struck me as extremely appropriate, and some weird timing too
XKCD


Enjoy, and please keep it going in an entertaining manner all. Seems the posts where the conversation is kept going-while being fun/respectful etc. are few and far between. Please-lets not kill it by getting testy.

reply to post by SideWynder


I think trying to equate time with speed is like...trying to give infinity a numerical value....

Originally posted by SideWynder
One thing I have noticed in this thread, It is that so far all uf us have been attempting to explain, theorize or otherwise use the "speed of light" as a "linear phenomenon. IE you go X amount ofdistance in X amount of time. Time being the universal constant, never changing always the same...
let us just suppose for a moment that Time had a begining, so therefore it must have an end..Time is not infinite.. time is not a constant..time is actually "fluid" Time is just as "real" as gravity, matter. etc.. And I am not being "esoteric" about time..
What I mean to say is, there have been experiments where the faster you move the slower time goes for you.. Ie,traveling on the concord jet for several hours would make your "watch" show a few seconds behind somebody that had been on the ground all day..
So using that as an example, that tells me that time, just like light, has a speed that can be measured..
Maybe time travels at the same speed as light, or possibly just a fraction faster.
that would possibly explain the faster than light "wall",,, because if Time has a "speed limit" how the heck are you going to surpass the speed of time????

Ive actually been curious about this: Does anyone know of additional studies that linked it with speed-and not say possible reduced gravity/distance from earth? Anyone know if there are similar time anomalies on the space station, or with sat links?

Otherwise, time doesn't nesc need a beginning nor end. Something existed before the big bang (otherwise what did the big bang come from, and expand into?). Just because we can't measure something doesn't mean it doesn't exist-just means we started measuring from the point we were able to (around 14 b years).

I was wondering, in this hypothetical: How does "Space" fit with this interpretation of "Time"? Generally "Time" is shown to represent placement and state at a specific observation. (The cessium has decayed X amount since last observation. The meteor is now Y distance moved from the point it was last observed. My laziness has caused me to gain 2 oz of body fat since I last observed. etc. etc.)

reply to post by lordtyp0


hmm...I think the only measurement of time would be....the speed of existance.....

wrap your mind around that....

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by lordtyp0

 

hmm...I think the only measurement of time would be....the speed of existance.....

wrap your mind around that....

Hrm.. 42.
There is no spoon.
She's really a man!

Compared to other spoilers "Speed of existence" is a rather boring revelation. Though I dare say it is better than the ending of signs.. blah.

If perception is the actual "speed of time", does it make it deeper into relativity given that to a kid: days take forever to end. To an older person-the day seems to end sometime between the morning pudding and a nap?

right! to answer this you must take into consideration "Reality" our reality is based on principles that our brain create! the speed of sound, light is all relative cause we use wrong measurements to guess it!the same laws we have here do not exist in other dimensions or black matter! obviously I can't prove that! but if sth could move at the speed of light! you would not see it! For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.! so this leads to time travel! right? now is that possible? sure when I see the sun I am seeing 8 minutes into the past! hence I am standing in the present using earth's laws of physics while seeing the past! so how can time possible exist! see the paradox.how can I be in the present and past at the same time. We see the the speed of light everyday and night in motion! so speed/distance =time. and time is relative so its all relative!IMO

reply to post by Selahobed


Selahobed
Every quanta of you and I is connected to quanta in all parts of the universe at the same time, so in essence, we have no location, but at the same time are everywhere!! So in reality, each of us ALREADY travels faster than light, however the "programmer" of this "quantum simulation" has seen fit, that the most complex stored information (us), are quarantined here for some reason.... Thread about that comming soon..

me
So what we have here is a totally quarantined infinity.
Oh, maybe not that just the universe?

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by paranoiaFTW

 

OUTSIDE THIS UNIVERSE? I'm sorry but I'm standing on the ground that the Universe is an open system and there is nothing beyond it that it isn't already reacting with.

A2D

So do you think we will never see the outside?
We need to know that --if it is reacting to
the inside or vice versa. Mankind IMHO can and will overcome this problem
as it has most every other pertinent problem.

reply to post by lordtyp0


yes exactly, the faster you go, the more friction, or air resistance, the more energy needed to overcome, the heavier the "ship" gets.

reply to post by Donny 4 million


I don't think there IS an outside. The Universe, if expansion is indeed correct, would be expanding at a rate that makes perception of PAST the expanding point....virtually impossible....

It's hard to say really. It's so....unique and....perplexing....

I imagine that the Universe and anything that may be interacting with it would be analogous to a layered cake. The base isn't aware of the icing...nor is the icing aware of the base...nor are any of the other ingredients aware of the others....Especially in the sense of an "expanding cake"....We tend to have the same vantage point regardless because all momentum of the Universe appears to be relative....So...in conclusion...if we do not have the ability of seeing past the expansion point(s) right now...I don't think it will ever be accomplished.....However, I've been wrong many times before....I'd GLADLY welcome anything that proves my hypotheses incorrect...

A2D

Originally posted by AKARonco
yes exactly, the faster you go, the more friction, or air resistance, the more energy needed to overcome, the heavier the "ship" gets.

No, not exactly. There's no resistance from anything. Even in a total vacuum, the ship actually gets more massive just because of the movement.

So the only way to beat the system, really, is to attack the basic assumptions of the theory. Every theory has implied assumptions. With Relativity, one primary assumption is that space-time as we perceive and measure it is essentially a four-dimensional structure. But anybody with a couple of simple magnets can plainly see that there is at least another dimension at work, pushing and pulling things around as the material tries to "fall" or "escape" that dimension.

Maybe someday we'll figure out how to travel "sideways" through spacetime in such a way that we don't register as mass. Then we can go as fast as we want. I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen anytime soon, though. Only a few people in the world can even comprehend something like that at the moment. I know it's beyond me.

Originally posted by Kaytagg

Originally posted by paranoiaFTW
reply to post by Kaytagg

 

Flight, in itself, is really hard. Sending a man to the moon is really hard. Note: Not impossible. It's not impossible to colonize mars, but do we have any martian citizens? Nope, because it's too hard. Nobody is claiming it's impossible, though.

****MESSED UP AND IDK HOW TO END QUOTE****

It used to be thought that sending a man to the moon was IMPOSSIBLE. Not because it was hard, but because they thought that rockets could not operate without air to push on.

Just like that, how do we know that we just don't understand the principles to going faster then light? They didn't understand that a rocket could still push without being in the atmosphere, and we just don't understand how the an object with mass can go the speed of light without 0 mass or unlimited energy.

[edit on 14-12-2009 by paranoiaFTW]