Can something move faster than light?

[InfiniteNow]

I'd say considering the preponderance of "Yes" votes in this thread that someone move to creating a new thread entitled, "How can we move faster than light?" requesting reasonable ideas and exchange on possible mechanisms to make it so.

[Guest chendoh]

I'd say considering the preponderance of "Yes" votes in this thread that someone move to creating a new thread entitled, "How can we move faster than light?" requesting reasonable ideas and exchange on possible mechanisms to make it so.

 

I'm in, I have always thought........

'If man can break the speed of sound, then why can it not be done with light?' , NO matter what the physicist's proclaim.

 

His name escapes me now, but there was a pilot before yeager, mi'ta been white, but his attempt wasn't offical.

 

The scientist and engineers wanted to pack it in, with the problems they encountered trying, Couldn't be done, but eventually.... it did get done.

One problem is, we are a 'want it now' society, and no one wants to create or wait for the technology to catch up.

:eek2: It's burn it up, use it up, before someone beats me to it. :D

 

The measuring of magnitism against gravity program, I believe is a good start, but like uncle al says they need to try different variables.

I've been working with that, but I don't say anything, because I got tired of the physicist's telling me,

'IT CAN"T BE DONE'

 

I gotta go, but if the new thread isn't started by the time I get back, InfiniteNow, I'll do it.

[InfiniteNow]

"You can call it the Art of fighting without fighting",

Wouldn't that be putting the stupid big guy on the life boat and untying it so he drifts away... :eek2:

[InfiniteNow]

Did you just flip me off with text?

[InfiniteNow]

Obvious Enter the Dragon reference missed... Oh well. For someone who likes Bruce Lee so much...

[hallenrm]

Well, I have thought of the first step, toward rationalizing the idea that something (thoughts!!) moving faster than light with the Einstein's equation, relating mass eith energy.;)

 

What if the variable m in this equation were a complex number than real. It could be real for all real objects, but imaginary ( i.e. ix ) for all imaginary objects, say thoughts and imaginations. It would be just like the einstein's relativistic equations that tend to the newtonian equation for ordinary speeds, but makes a difference when they are moving close to the velocity of light.

 

Any one with me? especially Racoon!:eek:

[hallenrm]

I have a chapter I am reading why lightspeed Cannot be exceeded.

let me consider your statements a little while HRM...:eek: ;)

 

very intriguing!

 

Thanks again Racoon!!!:D

 

Please do keep me posted on your discoveries regarding this, I would be immensely intersted:)

[Qfwfq]

Exactly. Natural units mean, quite simply, using the same units of length for spacelike and timelike directions. Velocity as the tan of an angle, no unit of measure, a pure number.

 

I mean, :) why the heck have people always been using such tiny units for the former and whopping huge units for the latter? The only reason is so the makers of sports cars, jet planes and so on can impress people better.

 

Imagine advertizing the top speed of the Königsegg as 0.00000035914. :estrange:

[kamil]

[

 

 

 

Einstein believed that "God doesn't play dice", so how did God throw out a BIG number like 186,282 mi/sec ??

 

 

 

He meant that nature is predicable......unlike quantum mechanics suposedly is.

[lindagarrette]

This is a silly poll. The speed of light is a limit in all calculations. Otherwise, there would be another limit.

[Guest chendoh]

There is, it just hasn't been found yet.

'If man can break the speed of sound, then why can it not be done with light?'

[ldsoftwaresteve]

Just an observation, one that has been made by every person who has ever thought about this.....

Since speed is relative, something has to be wrong with the following picture:

A and B are two black holes at the centers of two galaxies. Each black hole is ejecting matter precisely in the same line, one that colides head-on with the matter being ejected from the other, thereby giving us the case of particles traveling toward each other at well over the speed of light.

I'm assuming that such a case exists. I'm assuming that the matter is being ejected at or near the speed of light.

So how is it that theory says they don't? What theory is so powerful that it can overide such an obvious, or at least possibly obvious flaw?

If the theory is correct, then our simple perception of this situation is flawed. That also means that our perception of existence is fundamentally flawed.

Or, maybe it just means that mine is.

Perhaps the flaw is in thinking that straight lines exist. Or perhaps the limit is bogus.

[Qfwfq]

There's no need for remarks like:

This is a silly poll.

[Qfwfq]

Each black hole is ejecting matter precisely in the same line, one that colides head-on with the matter being ejected from the other, thereby giving us the case of particles traveling toward each other at well over the speed of light.

I'm assuming that such a case exists. I'm assuming that the matter is being ejected at or near the speed of light.

So how is it that theory says they don't? What theory is so powerful that it can overide such an obvious, or at least possibly obvious flaw?

According to SR, in the coordinates of each particle, the other is travelling at a slightly greater speed than in the coordinates of the black holes.

 

Such cases do exist. They are even created with particle accelerator facilities that can produce two beams and make them collide head on. Measurements are analysed according to Lorentz-covariant theories and things match up. No flaw.

[TheFaithfulStone]

'If man can break the speed of sound, then why can it not be done with light?'

 

Because the speed of sound is not a fundamental physical property of the universe.

 

It's an entirely different set of problems - it doesn't require brand new physics to go faster than sound, just brand new thrust.

 

That said, I like to believe it's possible. There are a few steps to breakthrough technologies like this.

 

1) Theoretically it's possible, but it would never happen.

2) Okay, we can make it happen with ungodly (but achievable) amounts of energy/technology/unobtanium.

3) Nature already does it.

4) We pull it off.

 

I'd say we're at step 1 with the whole FTL thing - see Alcubierre, Kip Thorne.

 

TFS

[CraigD]

A and B are two black holes at the centers of two galaxies. Each black hole is ejecting matter precisely in the same line, one that colides head-on with the matter being ejected from the other, thereby giving us the case of particles traveling toward each other at well over the speed of light.

..

So how is it that theory says they don't? What theory is so powerful that it can overide such an obvious, or at least possibly obvious flaw?

:evil: This is a very good question, and a commonly asked one, for which there’s a straightforward answer. :hihi:

 

Special Relativity doesn’t forbid what ldsoftwaresteve describes. An observer can measure the distance between 2 objects approaching or receding from one another such that it (as the observer measures it) decreases or increases at a rate greater than the speed of light ©. That SR forbids is that an observer can measurement the distance between it and any other object as changing at a speed greater than c.

 

This isn’t hypothetical. The greatest observed redshifts for distant objects implies a relative speed greater than .5 c. Since there’s no evidence that we, as observers, are particularly central to the universe, an observer at one of these distant object would measure us as receeding at a speed greater than .5 c, and other distant object in the opposite direction also receeding at a speed greater than .5 c. We can also see this object, but do not see it receeding from us at greater than 1 c.

 

Here’s an example, with a crude asciiart sketch

<-(.60)-<A      B           C>-(.60)->
A               B>-(.60)->  C>-(.88)->

A>-(.60)->      B           <-(.60)-<C
A               B<-(.60)-<  <-(.88)-<C

As observed by B, A and C are moving away from one another in opposite directions at speed .6. As observed by A, B is moving away at .6 c, C at a little over .88 c. The second example shows the same, but with the object moving toward one another. Without SR, we’d expect A to see C moving away or toward it at 1.2 c.

 

The formula for “Relativistic speed addition” is V = (V1 +V2)/(1 +V1*V2), where V, V1, and V2 are in units of c. It can be derived using simple algebra without much difficulty from the SR’s equivalance principle, and is supported by experimental evidence to a very high precision.

[CraigD]

Because the speed of sound is not a fundamental physical property of the universe.

 

It's an entirely different set of problems …

I agree, TFS.

- it doesn't require brand new physics to go faster than sound, just brand new thrust.

Actually, it doesn’t take any thrust to break the sound barrier, just gravity and streamlining.

 

I’ve long found in interesting, and surprisingly little known, that large manmade objects were made to exceed the speed of sound simply by being dropped from airplanes, in late 1944 by the US, and, rumor has it, earlier, by Germany. (see http://web.archive.org/web/20050308112522/http://www.aeromuseum.org/Articles/May04/ThousandMPH.htm – unfortunately, this is the only internet reference

I can find, and its graphics are missing) Projectiles, from small bullets to large artillery shells, had been breaking the speed of sound for many years before then, but were not as useful for testing the effects of supersonic flight as a nice, 8 foot-long missle dropped gently from a B-29 at 40,000 ft.