Is it theoretically possible to travel faster than the speed of light?

Question

Ok I know its not possible because we don't have the technology, but in theory would it be?

Answer 1

In theory, if you traveled faster than the speed of light, you would start to go backwards in time. So I guess you could, but you would to back in time.

Answer 2

Easy answer: Currently, No, humans can not travel faster than light. Sometime in the future some group of free thinking dreamers may come up with a way to get around this law of Einstein's that no one has actually tested. If you believe in intelligent life elsewhere in the Cosmos, maybe they have come up with a solution. If they haven't then there is no way anyone's ever visited us, unless there immortal, robots or both. Personally, I believe it IS possible. The physics police can't write tickets, so I can believe anything I want. The responsible answer, tho, is Not At This Time.

Answer 3

If you where traveling at, say 60 mph in a motor home and were to walk to the front say 3 mph would you not be going 63 mph ? Say you "theoretically" had the technology to move mass at the speed of light, then could you not use that mass to launch a secondary mass, repeating step 1 wa la twice the speed of light.
Trust in math it will never let you down!!!

Answer 4

I would like to answer this question as no. It is not posslible to go the speed of light. As an object gets closer and closer to the speed of light, time starts to slow down. If you traveled at the speed of light, time itself would essentially stop. That is what i have read in the past, and it is what I believe is the most concievable theory. Although, there is a possibility that this isn't correct.

Answer 5

light doesnt actually have a set speed...the "speed of light" is just a measurement...so technically light can go faster then the speed of light depending on what its medium is...

as for humans travelling faster then light it will probably never happen..but i suppose that theoretically it is possible...according to the theory of relativity, if you travel faster then light and then stop, you would still be only a fraction of a second older, but the place in which you stop will be hundreds if not thousands of years older

Answer 6

There are theoretical superluminal particles.

If you study relativity you'll find that in theory there can be an entire existance of beings that travel faster than light and can't go slower than it.

However if you were simply asking if you can get from point A to point B faster than light oculd then yes. Wormholes, warpdrives, and hyperspace (yes the same ones from scifi) do theoretically exist and can be used to travel pretty darn fast.

Answer 7

In a sense. in the course of the first billionith of a second after the tremendous bang, the universe stronger in length at a a lot more advantageous price than the speed of light. that doesn't propose the fellow debris moved speedier than the speed of light. imagine a ball increasing. in length and the exterior of the ball being a 2 dimentional universe observed from our 3 dimentional universe. The debris close to at least one yet another bypass very slowly interior of both dimentions. even if, the debris on the option are transferring aside very straight away. Now the ball itself will be increasing outwardly very straight away yet that is outside both dimentional universe and can't be observe from their universe. After the tremendous bang our 3 dimentional universe become increasing speedier than the speed of light if observed in a 4 dimential universe. even if, interior of our 3 dimential universe, no particle surpassed the speed of light. it isn't something that you'll comprehend because there is not any fourth dimention from our attitude.

Answer 8

This question is actually far more complicated then one would expect. Would it be possible for a space craft to travel faster then the speed of light? No. Is it possible for a space craft to reach a destination faster then light? Yes.

Why can't we go as fast as light in a vacuume?
As your speed increases so does your mass, in addition your time compared to that of an outside observer slows down. Now as stated, as your speed increase so does your mass, so it becomes harder and harder to push your craft any faster. As you approach lightspeed your mass is getting closer and closer to infinit. So you would require the combined power of the entire universe to travel the speed of light. At that point your mass is also equal to the mass of the universe.

So how can we beat light to a target?
Warp Drive, is probably the most logical source of locomotion with relative speeds in excess of light speed. A warp drive system in theory does just what you think, it warps space. How this is accomplished is still being figured out. But the theory goes that by warping space you simply bring the point you wish to arrive at closer to you. As space is stretchy, this warp will probably be accomplished by some type of gravity drive system. So we just need to figure out gravity and then we might have a chance. And you thought Star Trek was just Sci-Fi, lol.

Worm holes unfortunately probably don't exist, except on scales that would be completely useless to us for travel. Though Faster Then Light communication may be possible with them. Worm holes require, in theory, a tremendous amount of negative energy to open. This is not the normal type of negative energy that we experiance in dayly life. This is more closely related to anti-energy as in anti-particle, not zero point energy either.

Other theories: Lets face it science is all about the unknown, there may be other, as yet unknown modes of transit that we haven't even thought about yet. Ether/Hyperspace may exist as a side dimension to our own.

Answer to Givingitthought's post(Below):
The idea of going past the speed of light by moving fast and then launching another vehicle at twice the speed runs into the same problem. Lets say you are on a train traveling half the speed of light. This train has a light on the front like they all do. At what speed is the light traveling? Common sense would say that the light is traveling at 1.5 times the speed of light(.5Lspd + 1Lspd). Unfortunately relativity does not work that way. If you were standing on the train the light would seem to be moving at the speed of light(this is a point of reference problem.) Now general think would say the person watching from the platform should see the speed of light as 1.5xlightspeed. Unfortunately, you have to remember that as an object gets closer to the speed of light time is dialated, meaning that from an outside observer the train may only be traveling at .4lightspeed and the light is traveling at lightspeed. There are some very odd things that happen at light speed that has to do with the compression of space, and this is just a very quick explanation. If you want to know more find a good college level physics prof or a really good physics book(that explains this in simple terms, trust me the math to some of this is blackboards full.)

Answer 9

OK, lets walk through a theoretical.
Particle in accelerator is getting close to light speed. Its getting harder to push and registers more mass. The force increases and pushes the mass higher. Eventually, you get a single point particle generating its own gravity. Then you get a singularity / blackhole event.
So if you pushed a particle to light speed, you would get a blackhole.
If you push a jet past the sound barrier you get a sonic boom. If you go faster than the light barrier, you get a radiation boom.

And then the particle goes faster than the speed of light.

Answer 10

No, it is not a question of technology. The theory says no material object can travel as fast as light, much less faster. And we DO have the technology to make subatomic particles go that fast. Powerful particle accelerators have pushed particles with way way more force than would be expected to be required to make them go faster than light, but they don't. They just get harder and harder to push as they get closer and closer to the speed of light.

Answer 11

No Einstein proved it isn't possible because as you approach the speed of light your mass increases up to the point where if you actually did reach the speed of light you would have infinite mass, which is just plain silly and impossible.

[EDIT] Oh ok if the guys below are right about Einstein being wrong then just ignore everything I said. I don't get it, were Newton or Einstein right about anything?