Is it possible to travel faster then the speed of light???? And if not, why????

Question

I am a huge fan of shows like Star Trek and Stargate. I have always wondered if it was actually possible to travel at the speeds which are traveled on the shows.

Answer 1

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Okay, this may sound like a new theory, but it is not. It's just a different way of explaining Einstein. (See my reference.)
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Remember Einstein's E=MC2? This formula says energy and matter are the same thing.
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All energy, like light, travels at the speed of light. We are made out of matter. Matter is made out of energy. So we are made out of energy. We are, in a sense, made out of light. This is why we can't travel faster than light. we ARE light.
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Consider that we may be traveling at the speed of light right now. Everything we see on Earth is simply traveling with us. Most of our velocity is taking us into the time dimension, the fourth dimension of spacetime.
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This is why relativity predicts that time passes differently when a traveler accelerates away from Earth at a high rate of speed. Earth continues on its time vector, while the traveler accelerates away in a different direction. If you look out the car window on a freeway at the car next to you, it appears to be motionless, even though you are both moving. When you take the exit ramp, and look back at the same car, it is now accelerating past you. Think about the motion of the cars as movement through the time dimension. This is analogous to the way time passes at different rates for different travelers.
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By transferring some of your motion away from the time dimension, toward a new direction, you are 'leaving' the time dimension the Earth is traveling through, and applying your velocity in a new direction. In this sense, there is never any new motion; only changes of direction.
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What you are asking about is to achieve a relative speed, away from the Earth, of lightspeed. If you achieved this, and could look back at the Earth, since this would make time stop for you relative to the Earth, the planet would appear to you to be moving at the maximum possible speed - light speed. Because it is moving at light speed. Everything in the universe moves at light speed (relative to a perpendicular observer.)
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Answer 2

Yes. Actually, there is now something that travels faster than the speed of light. To put it as simple as possible;

Some sub-atomic particles are in pairs. These pairs always spin in opposite directions. If 1 changes direction, the other changes at the same time. There is no lag. Some scientists decided to see what would happen if the pair was separated. They had one particle in Chicago, and took the other one to Minnesota. When 1 particle changed direction, the other changed simultaneously, even though it was a thousand miles away. The question is how did 1 particle 'send the message' that the direction had changed? In order to happen at the same time, the speed of the 'message' is instant - which is faster than the speed of light. Scientists are working on this trying to designate spin one way as 'on' and the other as 'off'.
This is all part of quantum thinking, and quantum 'links' seem to imply either faster-than-light signals, or that local events do not promptly proceed in an unambiguous way at the end of each 'link'.
Much better explanations in "Schrodinger's Rabbits" written by Colin Bruce.

Answer 3

The interesting thing that EMC2 fans forget is that in Star Trek, and Stargate no one actually talks about going faster then the speed of light per say. Notice words "warp" and "gate".

If I try to travel from San Francisco to Russia with the European airlines they go east and then up. But on the Russian airline they go over the pole and it is much sorter. If I could fly straight through the Earth it would be shorter still. The idea of sub-space and warp is the same as a gate, sort of a of a whole through normal matter folded in a way so the distance is much shorter, so that you can cover the "distance" in a much shorter period of time.

Answer 4

It depends.

In a straight line? The answer is NO!

E=mc^2/1-v^2/c^2 (the whole equation). As you can see, when velocity approaches the speed of light, E (or energy) will approach infinity. The energy required to reach light speed is INFINITY, meaning you will never reach light speed.

What about in a non straight line? In theory, if you can bend the fabric of space time, then you can get from point A to B faster than light. You don't do this by traveling faster than light per say, but you do it by making the distance shoter. Imagine a piece of paper, where you are on one end and you want to get to the other. The fastest way is not across the paper, but it is to bend the paper such that where you want to go comes to you.

In Star Trek the ship does not break the speed of light. However, as the ship approaches the speed of light, you get what is called 'time dilation', so you can cover distance relative to yourself faster than light. This is complicated so I won't get into it too much. :p

:)

Answer 5

Einstein's famous equation, E=MC^2, makes this impossible. Because a photon's mass is "0", E=C^2. This is the highest solution to the equation, assuming a positive value for "M". Matter cannot travel faster than light, because all of it's constituents (protons, neutrons, etc.) have mass. However, there are other particles that, theoretically, have no mass and thus can travel the speed of light. To answer the question, a particle would have to have negative mass in order to travel faster than light, which is theoretically impossible.

Answer 6

According to Einstein's theory, it is not. But that is only a theory based on the known physics of the time. Scientists have recently been able to make an atomic particle pass through a cell at a faster speed than light

Answer 7

Hey Explorin...how's things with you tonight? It is neat that you like those shows...

In the real world, however, your question asks is it possible to travel at or faster than the speed of light. The answer is no.

The fastest velocity we have ever been able to accelerate a man made object to has been about 45,000 to 50,000 miles PER HOUR.

That is not any where near 186,000 Miles
PER SECOND which is the speed of light.

The second word in Science Fiction is "fiction." never forget that.

Answer 8

It may be possible in the future to travel the speed of light or faster, but at this time we do not posses the technology to do this. We are just beginners when it comes to space travel. Also with the Einsteins theory, I believe he wrote this equation to apply to Earth and gravity, therefore in space without gravity the equation changes.

Answer 9

Nope, sorry. However, it IS possible to travel faster than light - if the light is moving through a dense medium which slows it down. That's where we get Chrenkov radiation. But in a vacuum? Nothing beats light.

Answer 10

A novel theory apeweek but I like mine better.
The speed of light can never be exceeded.
When the first space-time pulse came into existence it established the minimum amount of time that can exist.
If you try to divide the pulse it will go out of existence.
The speed of light is an incident,it takes time to occur.
If a photon of light goes through a prism and it slows down.
At any point in that prism it exists for so many time pulses.
When the photon goes into empty space it speeds up to it's maximum speed,at any point in that space the photon exists for one time pulse.
To speed it up you would be trying to force it to exist for a length of time that cannot exist.