can a person travel faster than the speed of light?

Answer 1

No, the laws of physics currently prohibit any type of matter from accelerating to light speed, since it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so.

Answer 2

In theory, yes. Normally the closer an object gets to the speed of light, the harder it is to accelerate. In essence no object can ever reach the speed of light by pure acceleration or force.

How can the speed of light be exceeded then? You'd need a wormhole. A wormhole is predicated on the idea that spacetime is not linear or straight, but curved, and a wormhole is a shortcut between two overlapping sections. Suppose spacetime was curved like a horseshoe. Instead of travelling all the way around the shoe, a wormhole would be like a shortcut between the two ends. So by taking this shortcut, you would travel from one "end" of space to another in a fraction of the time it would take light to travel the length of the shoe.

If my word picture is about as clear as mud, the good folks at wikipedia have posted a picture here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Worm3.jpg

Now, if speed is change in distance over change in time, then you have travelled a very large distance because of the shortcut in a small amount of time, so your speed is technically faster than light.

Answer 3

Yes, if they were born traveling faster than the speed of light. As others report, Einstein's equations say that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. So I for example am prohibited from accelerating beyond c, just can't get there from here. However, velocities faster than light are allowed by the equations. As such, tachyons - faster than light particles - have a place in field and string theories. The same relativity equations prohibit those particles from decelerating down to the speed of light. So, a person composed of tachyons would always travel faster than the speed of light.

Answer 4

Actually light only appears to have the attribute of speed due to the limitations of human perception. You will find that in fact light does not have a speed at all, not even infinite speed, so to ask whether a person can travel faster than the speed of light makes no sense. It is like asking whether a balloon can accelerate your mind. It is a nonsense question.

Answer 5

the answer is NO (in the current understanding ).

without engaging in hardcore physics, the question you ask is best approached from a common sense perspective:

experimentally, it is shown that ALL observers MUST observer the same speed for light regardless their own speed ( which is always in relation to another fixed point in space ).

the observer's speed is arbitrary ( it could zero in relation to the earth but non zero in relation to the sun for example ).

if you think about this, their is no "absolute" or correct speed for anything in the universe ( except light , which always measures a fixed number ).

what this means is that you can NEVER measure your own speed to that equal to light because light is also moving at that speed !

to do so otherwise would lead to a contradiction.

besides, your own speed is never a certain unique measurement. it always depends on the frame of reference ( a particular point in space.

there are many good books on this topic to explain further, but the simplest answer is that there is no such thing as "speed" for objects other that light.

hope some light was shed.....:)

Answer 6

According to Einstien, no information can travel faster than light, this would include a person. But who knows, maybe some day some clever person will come along and show his theories were incomplete.

Answer 7

not light. But we can travel the speed of sound.

Answer 8

Unknown as of this time...
If we are to become a spacefaring people, we must
learn to travel far faster than the speed of light..

Answer 9

Albert Einstein proved that any object that obtains mass cannot tarvel at the speed of light. So, no a person cannot.

Answer 10

in spite of the indisputable fact that if swifter than mild vacation were plausible, the tidal forces ought to nonetheless rip you aside at the same time as you purchased close to to the black hollow. Tidal stress is actually the version between the stress of gravity at 2 different distances from the black hollow. Get close adequate and gravity is a million situations superior at your ft than at your head, so your head and ft get pulled in numerous instructions with a stress of tens of millions of pounds.