Is breaking the speed of light truly impossible? How else can we travel space?

Question

Could some properties of dark energy (if it truly exists) help us break the speed barrier? Would we have to discover how to freeze ourselves? Is there speed differentiations throughout space? Are there pathways in space that are connected through gravity, creating natural worm holes? Are blackholes capable of being wormholes? Do wormholes exist? Is there a way of jumping the folds of space? If we were to reach the speed of light, could we essentially jump those folds? Is it simply impossible to achieve those speeds? What's your thoughts and please include some sort of scientific data or web sites to verify that its a well founded opinion.

Answer 1

Being accelerated past the speed of light is impossible because of the nature of momentum. It is not simply mass times velocity, but mass times velocity times gamma. Gamma is a factor which adjusts for the fact that as an object's velocity increases, it has more kinetic energy, which, because E=mc^2, is mass. Gamma is equal to 1/(1-v^2/c^2), where v = velocity and c is speed of light. As the velocity approaches C, v^2/c^2 becomes 1, and Gamma becomes 1/(1-1), or 1/0. This means a massive particle traveling at the speed of light has infinite momentum. It takes infinite force to accelerate to infinite momentum, so breaking the speed of light (for a macroscopic object with mass) is, according to current theory and law, impossible.

However, other avenues for an artificial increase of speed are possible. You mention a lot of them, and not much is really known about them, but it could be possible to warp space-time to let us effectively travel faster than light (like the warp drive in Star Trek).

Answer 2

There are many questions here, and I can answer only some of them. We do not need to achieve the speed of light to travel through space, which is a good thing because we cannot achieve the speed of light. Had we a means of very high speed propulsion, the problem would be ameliorated because of time dilation: the space travelers would see time pass more slowly than would be sensed by an observer left behind.
Unfortunately, high speed propulsion is very difficult. Heinlein noted, decades ago, that a spacecraft moving at constant acceleration of one gravity could reach any planet in reasonable time. Unfortunately, he didn't do the math to find out whether this is in fact possible. It isn't. To accelerate a spacecraft means to impart momentum, and the momentum goes proportional to the velocity of the exhaust gases. Unfortunately, to buy momentum, you have to pay with energy, which goes as the square of the velocity of the exhaust gases. Running the numbers, you discover that it would take a thermonuclear reactor to generate the required power, which is of the same order of magnitude as the total of every generating station on the face of the earth. And even with this much power, you don't have anything resembling an interstellar spacecraft.
-- Robert A. Saunders, Lake Stevens, WA.

Answer 3

It's generally believed that you can't travel through spacetime faster than the speed of light, but there are a number of ideas for manipulating spacetime in such a way that you effectively travel faster than the speed of light. These models include ideas like using wormholes to take shortcuts, or warping spacetime itself (e.g. changing distances between places, or surfing waves in spacetime).

The biggest problems in doing so tend to be
1) physically being able to manipulate spacetime in the necessary ways, and
2) finding the amount of needed energy to do so.

Answer 4

Nothing is impossible.

But, some things are highly improbable ... time is a part of our physical being and our universe and if we travel even close to the speed of light time dilates.

But, quantum physics now tells us that there most likely at least 11 dimensions, so the possibility exists.

Answer 5

I don't see why there would be a limit to how fast we could go unless the energy sources available can't give enough boost. But what do I know. I think Einstein said it was impossible and he was a hell of a lot smarter than me. Keep searching and maybe you will find something new that no one has thought of before.

Answer 6

Funny question. People make too many assumptions , including Einstein. Think about space time and mass carefully. Think about their interdependance than tell me the speed of light is a limitation.

Answer 7

i'm certain that for the period of lower than 10,000 years, some non secular communities will despatched technology "ships" out into interstellar area. probable hollowed out asteroids. the point will be to get faraway from the sinful human beings contained in the picture voltaic equipment. they are going to plan to stay in those ships always, because that is going to take many thousands of years to get to a special action picture star equipment.