Will we ever be able to travel at light speed?

Answer 1

Within our current understanding of physics people will say no, usually citing equations.

However, we once also thought the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, airplanes would be impossible, escaping the atmosphere to reach outerspace was not feasible, etc, etc.

Basically I would imagine that as our understanding of the universe and physics evolves we will one day travel faster than light speed, though the method be something we couldn't even fathom at this point or may have bypassed the "rules" that keep us traveling that fast (i.e. teleportation wouldn't necessarily mean we traveled faster than light-speed, but we would get between 2 points instantly)

Answer 2

According to the theory of relativity, anything that has mass cannot travel at the speed of light (because it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it to that speed).

Of course, the theory might be wrong. But scientists have been testing it and picking it apart for the last 100 years, and if anything it has just grown stronger. Relativity will certainly be modified and augmented in the future (just as Newton's laws were modified to fit relativity), but there is no reason to suspect that any of the modifications will allow mass to ever travel at light speed.

But there are a couple of alternatives:

1) If you are not in love with your personal mass, would you settle for transmitting the _information_ in your body? This would basically be Star Trek-like teleportation. A scanner would record the state of all your atoms (unfortunately destroying them in the process), transmit the state information (not mass) at the speed of light, then some device at the other end would build you a new, identical body. This is an unimaginably difficult technical feat--but at least it is not completely forbidden by physical law.

2) Would you settle for travelling at 99% of the speed of light? A 165-lb. person can theoretically be accellerated to that speed using a "mere" 4.7 x 10^19 Joules of energy. Now, that's a lot of energy (it's about as much as the entire human race currently consumes in about a month), but at least it's not infinite.

Answer 3

I believe we will, and that it is inevitable due the the facts that it is both highly desireable and not unpermitted by physics. It is the next step after accomplishing teleportation of information at the speed of light, something we have been doing routinely with increasing sophistication for the last 100 years.

Just don't ask me how. Same as if you had asked me before yesterday if we will ever be able to produce stem cells without embryonic sources - you did see the news, right?

Answer 4

Yes and no...There are rules that set the universal speed limit; however, the rules of space itself are different. For example: there is a limit to how fast a bird can fly but if you put that bird in an F15 then the bird is traveling faster. We would have to learn how to manipulate space time.

Answer 5

Nothing will ever exceed the speed of light.
To exceed the speed of light it would be necessary to take the smallest pulse of time and split it in half.
Anything smaller than the smallest pulse of time cannot exist.

Answer 6

its difficult 2 approach the speed of light it mass starts decreasing accordin 2 the equation
M=m/root(1-c^2/v^2)
where m is the rest mass of the body c is the velocity of body
and v velocity of light
therefore at speed of light mass vanishes

Answer 7

As the other posters have pointed out, our current physics suggest that it is impossible.

But maybe travel faster than the sppeed of light is WARPED thinking.

Answer 8

no longer something with mass can pass the linked fee of sunshine and whether we could the human beings going the linked fee of sunshine would desire to in basic terms be travelling for some years whilst incredibly everyone who became alive at that factor is long long gone.

Answer 9

Yes.

Albert Einstein's work was fundamentally flawed, which is why Quantum Mechanics and Relativity have not been reconciled and why gravity has not been explained (despite desperate attempts to invoke the 11th dimension).

The facts always undermine the theory. There are alternative explanations to Relativity and Copenhagen QM, but scientists can be as bad as creationsits when it comes to being stuck in a rut.

Answer 10

Einstien said , when a mass moves at the speed of light, it approaches infinty- so if we do , we will explode!!