Will it ever be possible to travel faster then light ?

Question

i know that Einstein says no but could there be ways in which his laws could be bent or broken.

Answer 1

Forget the answers which mention the speed of sound to be an example of what to expect.
Sound travels through a medium (air/water/whatever), in which it is clearly possible to travel faster, like in vacuum. The speed of sound is a property of the medium in which the sound travels as distortions of that medium.

With vacuum, there is no such medium which can be distorted, so there is no sound. As measurements show (and also according to classical relativity theories) it is impossible to travel faster than light. Experiments show that masses become infinitely large, as measured by resting observers. (To understand why that is and how that is observed, needs a lot more than these few lines.) And it needs an infinite amount of energy to accelerate such masses to even only get near the speed of light.

There may be several ways out of this dilemma.

One way could be a theoretically still possible but never observed curved space, where one steps out of here immediately into another part of space, like wormholes in science fiction films.

Or "curve your own space", like the warp engines appear to be doing in the StarTrek series. Nobody knows how that could be done in reality without the help of zillions of solar masses to curve the space into a high-enough degree.

Another way could be by means of not yet understood relativistic quantum effects, which may only apply to elementary particles and not to larger bodies, due to quantum restrictions.

Or maybe through (unobserved) other dimensions or other (unobserved) parallel universes... Nothing of these are ever been measured to exist. (Which does not exclude the existance, but which makes those not real either!)

Astronomy and physics are trying to understand the laws of the universe and at this moment they are still concluding, that it is highly impossible for us to travel faster than light.
Maybe later, when more is understood, there will be a more conclusive answer. Until then you may believe what you want, and wish that faster-than-light travelling is possible.
I wish 1000 Dollar/Euro to be in my pocket, but does that wish also mean that that is reality?

Answer 2

Not just through 'going faster' - it seems some people here dont understand how lightspeed is different from the speed of sound - that was never a fundamental speed limit - small minded people thought it was a practical limit but the speed of light is a different beast entirely. Nothing can be accelerated up to the speed of light - the energy required to do it for a single particle would be infinite. Infinite energy does not exist. There may be ways to get past the rule by creating Einstein-Rosen bridges or warping the fabric of spacetime itself though this is way beyond our present capabilities it has not been ruled out in theory.

Answer 3

It's very unlikely that we would ever be able to travel faster than light - E=MC 2 suggests that it's impossible. The faster an object travels the heavier it gets, and the more energy it needs to convert to stay in motion - until at a speed close to that of light it becomes infinitely heavy and requires infinite energy that the universe cannot provide. So therefore completely impossible.

Having said that, it does seem that there are "things", if that's the right word, within the universe that may indeed travel FLT. I always get loads of thumbs down for saying that, but there is a lot of research going on in this area at the moment.

But will we ever be able to travel FTL - no, never.

Answer 4

Einstein did not base his theories on observation. He so existing laws/ideas then said they are worng. Since the equivalance of e=mc^2 has been proven back wards and forward. The nothing can travel faster than the current speed of light. The speed of light was different in the past, it had to be.

If a wormhole some how was stable and large enough. You would still not be able to travel faster than the speed of light.

Answer 5

Put simply - No...

... and then again maybe...

You will not be able to fully understand why unless you fully understand Einsteins theory of relativity (which is degree level physics) but I shall try to explain the important parts:

Basically, Einstein stated (which has now been verified experimentally) that as you travel faster, time appears to slow down. This is called time dilation. So the wrist watch of someone driving in a car is running slower than the wrist watch of someone standing still. But at everyday speeds this effect is so small it cannot be detected. By everyday speeds, here we are talking about cars travelling at 70mph, bullets travelling at 1000mph and pretty much anything you can think of that moves really fast. So time dilation for everyday objects is pretty much irrelevant. As you approach the speed of light however, time dilation becomes much more important, with time slowing down more and more. When you hit the speed of light (670,616,629 mph) time appears to stop. From the point of view of something travelling at the speed of light the object is moving infinitely fast - travelling from one point to another in no time at all. How can it be possible to travel faster than this?

The only problem with travelling at the speed of light is that it takes an infinite amount of fuel to get going that fast. So it cant be done unless you don't weigh anything and are composed entirely of energy e.g. light.

As to methods of bending space, creating worm holes, etc, there is currently not a shred of evidence to support or disprove these hypothesises. So at the moment it is all in the realm of science fiction. But one day who knows...

Answer 6

He didn't state any laws; he put forward a theory to explain observations and from that theory postulated that certain things would happen or wouldn't be possible.
As far as we know with our current state of maths and physics, nothing can or will ever travel at the speed of light - this would need infinite energy for an infinite time to accelerate even one atom.
Even SF writers struggle. The current best idea is wormholes (shortcuts from one place to another. Course, they do involve travelling through a black hole and you might not be quite the same afterwards!

Answer 7

According to the special theory of relativity, velocity can only exist between two limits. Anything travelling at the upper limit would have zero length and infinite density. Light travels at a speed very slightly below that limit.

Who knows what new discoveries may be made in the future? The workings of the universe can only be appreciated by mathematical modelling. Maybe Einstein got his sums wrong.

Answer 8

FTL trael is relatively no longer that faraway if there is the investment or it. back interior the '30s E.E. "record" Smith got here up with the assumption for the Bergenholm, an inertialess area rigidity that thoroughly neutralizes inertia subsequently cancelling Einsteinan relativistic outcomes. below modern situations, the aster you pass the greater mass you acquire till on the value of sunshine you have ininite mass, requiring ininite potential to push you. yet whilst inertia is cancelled out, the shrink to velocity is how lots utilising orce you have and the density of the medium.-- time dilation and different relativistic efects do no longer word. technology knows so little approximately inertia, yet there is an thought proposed via Bernhard Haisch, Alfonso Rueda, and Hal Puthoff which shows inertia may be an EM result that theoretically must be neutralized. no person has paid lots interest to the thought different than for some sci-fi writers like Arthur C. Clarke who based the pointy rigidity (for Sakharov, Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff) in his e book 3001: the suitable Odyssey partly on the HRP concept, in spite of the shown fact that curiously that the presently got here upon Hutchinson result seems to do what the thought shows must be available: use a mix of forces that end the interplay of the 0 factor container and for this reason, do away with inertia. The medical community has became its nostril up on Hutchinson, yet traditionally, engineers have made greater advances in technologies than any mainstream scientists have ever performed. With this type of first step, it quite is in basic terms a depend of money to to do the examine and paintings out the fairly some problems. If financed, we ought to have action picture star trip interior the subsequent thirty years or much less. regardless of each and every thing, UFOs seem freed from inertial outcomes, making right perspective turns at two times the value of sound...

Answer 9

well my dear the only thing which can travel faster than light is spirit bcuz when u dream ur spirit comes out and travel across the world within a fraction of seconds and no one notice where u have gone and suddenly when u woke up u find urself on the bed and one more thing also travel ie ur brain but this cannot be measured hence u need not go beyond nature .

Answer 10

Quantum theory does predict instantaneous transmission of quantum information or attributes, confirmed by experiments, which seems like a promising avenue. Unfortunately, current theories of quantum entanglement or teleportation does not apply to real messages or structures. Perhaps with a deeper understanding of relativistic quantum theory, something might be possible. At least it's not conclusively proven that it's impossible, even though it does lead to complications and paradoxes with current theories in physics.