Here is why you CANNOT travel faster than light!

Originally posted by Gentill Abdulla
Many people think of light speed as impassible, inconceivable, and many other adjectives which I don't feel like listing.(Mostly because I can't think of any more. And I would like to mention I am generalizing when I say many people.)

Then there are the ones who think light speed is attainable. I have come to dispute the facts that it isn't, and then explain how it MIGHT be.

We all know of the equation e=mc^2.

This is Einstein's famous equation that tells us how matter and energy are equivalent.

But how?

Well here is how it actually does look....

upload.wikimedia.org...


Well in order to help understand this we need the velocity c to be the velocity of something that has no rest mass.(Light.) We will see this as 1.

Then v^2 must be your velocity squared.

In the equation we have to subtract v^2 / c^2 from 1.(Just to be clear v ^2 is going to be less than 1^2 when an object has la lower velocity than that of light.)

The problem we run into is that 1 when the object velocity squared equals 1, then 1 / 1 = 1!!!!!!!!

This is NOT GOOD!!!

Because 1-1 =0!!

And dividing by zero is COMPLETE MATHEMATICAL NONSENSE. In fact back in 98 a computer on a ship called the Yorktown, I think that was it's name, tried to divide by zero. And guess what happened....

www.wired.com...

The source of the problem on the Yorktown was that bad data was fed into an application running on one of the 16 computers on the LAN. The data contained a zero where it shouldn't have, and when the software attempted to divide by zero, a buffer overrun occurred -- crashing the entire network and causing the ship to lose control of its propulsion system.

Crashed it's ENTIRE NETWORK.

Okay now we know you can't travel at light speed.But what about traveling faster than light?

It is wrong to because what happens?

The answer becomes a NEGATIVE SQUARE ROOT!

In english this means what number squared = -1 (when v^2 / c^2 is 2.)

When you multiply, or divide, 2 negatives you get a positive. This is a fact. Even when you square a negative number it is still a positive. Heck when you square a positive number it is positive too!

But you cannot find the square root of a negative number.

mathworld.wolfram.com...

In math this is an imaginary number.

So now we know that the domain of the function
f(x)=mc^2/ square root( 1 - x^2 / c^2)

f(x) = any real number where x < 1

So in english all of this means we cannot travel at a velocity faster than or equal to light.So to put it in real terms we knew our energy needed to become infinite.

Until now I haven't mentioned any of the other ways to travel at light speed.Well I just proved you can't travel at light speed. But WHO SAID I HAVE TO TRAVEL?

It was Relativity's ability to bend spacetime that led people to the belief that I can move spacetime in front of me faster than light and spacetime behind me faster than light.

In essence I haven't traveled. So since spacetime doesn't have any mass it is not restricted to a certain speed.

This is known as the Alcubierre warp drive.

Another thing that might be used for faster than light travel is a wormhole.

A wormhole is created by mass bending spacetime in such a way that 2 points in spacetime become connected and by traveling through, well you really can't say through do to the wormhole not having any width, the wormhole you are instantaneously at the other side of the wormhole no matter where it is in the universe.

Unfortunately wormholes are very unstable. Kip Thorne proposed using a form of exotic matter that bends spacetime differently than normal matter to keep wormholes from collapsing. The closest thing we have to this is the Casimir effect.

Here is a link....

www.scientificamerican.com...

Now, if mirrors are placed facing each other in a vacuum, some of the waves will fit between them, bouncing back and forth, while others will not. As the two mirrors move closer to each other, the longer waves will no longer fit--the result being that the total amount of energy in the vacuum between the plates will be a bit less than the amount elsewhere in the vacuum. Thus, the mirrors will attract each other, just as two objects held together by a stretched spring will move together as the energy stored in the spring decreases.

Hope that helps.

Post any questions, comments, concerns, and conundrums below.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Gentill Abdulla]

I never say impossible, it would be stupid to say such a thing is certain in this day and age. We are so far from even being able to consider it that it's like saying God does or does not exist. Don't forget though, the theory of relativity is still a theory, one that says what we can't do in this situation.We have yet to determine all the things we can do, including things that wont interfere. String theory and M-theory are no less valid theories.

Don't know if this is helpful, but Einstein never said that you cannot travel at light speed. He said that you cannot 'accelerate' to light speed because the g-force would be so great that you would weigh as much as the entire universe.

The trick then is to achieve any speed you want (many times the speed of light) without acceleration.

Piece of cake.

reply to post by Gentill Abdulla

Here is why you CANNOT travel faster than light!

You mean other than traveling at the speed of light is even impossible as far as we know?
Is there an equation for travel at the speed of light?

Passing light speed is entirely possible, the problem only is observing this. The visible light only goes so fast, after that you cannot see it.

This is why e=mc2 is called the theory of relativity. not the theory of you can't go faster than light. The theory only is about observable speed. I don't understand why people don't get this. You can go faster than light speed, and yes it would take an awful lot of energy to do that, but it can be done.

If you were on the outside of something going faster than the speed of light, you just wouldn't see it.

In my model, a particle with rest mass cannot go as fast as light because particles with rest mass consist of orbiting pairs of ethereal shear waves. E/m waves are ethereal shear waves, and all ethereal shear waves propagate at the speed of light, even when they orbit one another. Orbiting converts the energy of the shear waves to the rest mass of the particle. Imagine a bolero consisting of balls tethered by rope. The center of the rope obviously can't go faster than the balls.

Since we are made of particles with rest mass, we can never go as fast as light.

Well I am a bit of a laymen here, but my understanding of the theorey of relativity is that Time Dialation, Length contraction and Mass Dialation is what stands in the way of exceeding the speed of light.

I at least understand that math.

From a general perspective...Einstien was faced with a problem.

That the "speed" of light...speed being (distance and time) Miles per hour Kilom per sec. etc. did not change even when that light was being projected from a moving body.

Example...if a train is speeding by you and someone throws a rock forward from the front of that train...to the observer not on the train the rock would be going (the speed of the throw + the speed of the train)

Not so with light...constant speed.

So what does he do? He does the unbelievable...he questions everything we know about speed (time and space)

This is like installing a door in your house that does not close properly...and then to fix it you jack up the foundation of the house to square the door.

That is what made his theorey brilliant. The courage of it. And it worked!

Life is full of ironies and I suspect in order to surpass the speed of light, we will need yet another brilliant man willing to disregard established physics, relativity included, and re-tool our understanding of the underlieing science and mathematics. To think that is impossible is a form of arrogance that impedes progress of the sort that Einstein made.

Just my opinion.

reply to post by Mikemp44


If you haven't notice this whole discussion revolved around how the speed of light is a scientific law due to Maxwells equations.The fact that light HAS to travel at that velocity, brought about, in Einstein's mind, time dilation. Then time dilation led to the stuff you see here.

I admit that I did not read all the reply on your post. In fact I did not get past your first one. There is something wrong with your formula. If e=mc(squared) then the only time that your formula is the same is when v=0. If that formula is correct then anytime v is other than zero then e would not = mc(squared). Then you seem to have a problem with the square root of a negative number. This is not a problem in a 2 or more dimensional universe. It does not work on a number line but works just fine in a number plane. the only problem is there are two possible answers to a square root of a negative number (just like two answers of a positive number). I am sorry if I sound a little out of sorts about this but Einstein theory never said you could not go faster than the speed of light just you could not go the speed of light. The problem is we have not been able to resolve the bugaboo problem of changing speeds without acceleration. If we could say go from 2 mph to 5 mph without ever being at 3 mph we would be able to go faster than the speed of light without every being at the speed of light. The problem is that our changes in speed is all analog and we need to be able to do in digitally. The graph of energy to speed is asymptotical to the where the speed = the speed of light. but what happens on the other side of that speed?

This sounds crazy, but I think if you could exceed the theoretical speed limit it would be like this:

You're in a spaceship going faster than light. Going from Planet A to Planet B. For you the travel time is such that the trip is going that much faster than the speed of light.

You're outside watching the spaceship that is supposedly going faster than light. However it only seems that it approaches the very lightspeed limit, but never exceeds it.

So what happens is that some kind of time dilation occurs in a relative frame of reference once a certain speed is hit. The ship actually is taking a much shorter and faster trip. But in the universe outside of it, for some odd reason it can only go yea fast. It basically prevents the asymptotic out of range and divide by zero problem by altering the passage of time itself. This means that the rate at which time passes isn't constant and effected by the energy level of objects in it. (In this case it's kinetic energy. But technically mass is energy too, so in very large gravity fields time may also crawl relative to the rest of the universe.) Because of the ratio at which that changes, it appears that going the speed of light is the limit. But from certain relative vantage points, it really isn't.

In such a case I could imagine spaceships that still take hundreds of years to go from Planet A to Planet B, yet the ships themselves and everything on them only age and experience a few months passage of time during long interstellar trips.

The only way around it is developing a new kind of math to calculate around the obstacles that you encounter when using the "conventional' way of looking at it. We all know that the theory of everything is still to be 'discovered"....maybe when it is found it will say that traveling faster than the speed of light is possible...

Just trying to think out of the box....:@

Originally posted by pauljs75
This sounds crazy, but I think if you could exceed the theoretical speed limit it would be like this:

You're in a spaceship going faster than light. Going from Planet A to Planet B. For you the travel time is such that the trip is going that much faster than the speed of light.

You're outside watching the spaceship that is supposedly going faster than light. However it only seems that it approaches the very lightspeed limit, but never exceeds it.

So what happens is that some kind of time dilation occurs in a relative frame of reference once a certain speed is hit. The ship actually is taking a much shorter and faster trip. But in the universe outside of it, for some odd reason it can only go yea fast. It basically prevents the asymptotic out of range and divide by zero problem by altering the passage of time itself. This means that the rate at which time passes isn't constant and effected by the energy level of objects in it. (In this case it's kinetic energy. But technically mass is energy too, so in very large gravity fields time may also crawl relative to the rest of the universe.) Because of the ratio at which that changes, it appears that going the speed of light is the limit. But from certain relative vantage points, it really isn't.

In such a case I could imagine spaceships that still take hundreds of years to go from Planet A to Planet B, yet the ships themselves and everything on them only age and experience a few months passage of time during long interstellar trips.

I do not think that sounds crazy.

You can if you happen to be a photon

I think it is safe to say that your theory, and Einsteins, falls apart if you have twice the energy required, or in fact, any amount more than E=MC2 Says..

E may equal MC2, but if you have 2E, then you can travel twice the speed of light.

Energy is the Key, not mis-conceptions from the past.

Anything is Possible.

Originally posted by quantum_flux
You can if you happen to be a photon

Light travels faster than the speed of light?

I have been reading about this subject from a few different sources. Many of then claim it is impossible mixed in with some hypothesis about how it might be possible.

I claim this: WE DO NOT KNOW AT THIS POINT.

Mankind's knowledge (at least what is available to the public) of physics is so limited compared to the vastness of both inner and outer space that a statement either way is worthless.

REMEMBER: Up until the 1930's, according to physicists there was no fissionable material..it was IMPOSSIBLE. Sound familiar? Then Oppenheimer pop's on to the scene and we discovered u-235 and p-239 along with 2 methods of initiating a fission reaction which just a few years before was considered Impossible, Quickly afterwords we discovered how to produce nuclear fusion, So much knowledge gained in such a short time that was considered mathematically impossible just a few years prior.
Now think about how easy it really is to get these reactions to go, compared to the impossible wall that we put up before the discovery.

Now we are digging deeper and deeper into sub atomic and quantum level experiments, who knows what we will find. Our knowledge is so limited at this point .So much more for us to understand about the universe and existence.
Maybe there are some natural types of evolution that occurs both technologically and socially, to avoid a situation like the Roman Empire have nuclear capabilities.

Maybe by the nature of existence, society much reach certain levels of social evolution to achieve certain levels of technological evolution. I would imagine such systems to be flexible however, one bright bulb figures out a energy efficient way to contain Hot fusion or maybe even anti-matter and we are launched into the next major step of technological evolution. Like the Pre-30's, things impossible become possible and are easier than we once thought like fission and fusion.

I guess i kind irks me when I hear people and scientist claim something is absolutely impossible, when over the course of history we seem to find the way to make the impossible,possible. In many instances, easier than we once thought.