Do you think we will ever travel faster than light?

Question

If so, what branch of science will it develop from? If not, is there any way we can explore beyond our solar system without this technology?

Answer 1

Yup. Physics
"Scientists break the speed of light
By ANDREW LEVY
Last updated at 22:43pm on 15th August 2007
It was supposed to be the one speed limit you cannot break.
But scientists claim to have demonstrated there is the possibility of travel faster than the speed of light.
The feat contradicts one of the key tenets of Einstein's special theory of relativity - that nothing, under any circumstances, can move faster than 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light.
Travelling faster than light also, in theory, turns back time. According to conventional physics, an astronaut moving beyond light speed would arrive at his destination before leaving.


But two German physicists claim to have forced light to overcome its own speed limit using the strange phenomenon of quantum tunnelling, in which particles summon up the energy to cross an apparently uncrossable barrier.


Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons - energetic packets of light - through two prisms.


When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.


But a few appeared to "tunnel" through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.


Although these photons had travelled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.
Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

Also, see link 2 for an interesting physics paper - a sample:
The Speed of Light - A Limit on Principle?

A physicist's view on an old controversy

"It may be a surprise for many physicists that even within the framework of general relativity faster-than-light speed is allowed, provided that the space-time metric of the universe is globally hyperbolic [14]. This condition simply implies that closed time-like paths in space-time (and thus time-travel) are excluded, so that causality is again preserved. (In this framework, the cosmological time parameter can be again interpreted as the absolute time of the universe. However, in order to construct a propulsion mechanism for faster-than-light travel, exotic matter (with imaginary mass) would probably be needed in order to produce negative energy densities in space. Unfortunately, exotic matter is not known to exist, although negative energy densities have been shown to appear in quantum field theory. But, of course, such a hypothetical propulsion mechanism just provokes to be given the familiar name of the warp drive."

Answer 2

I dont know whether we'll travel faster then light... only time (and people sitting in NASA)will tell that...
and i dont think it is possible to go beyond our solar system with a speed slower then that of light...
but there is an intresting fact about travelling faster then light i thought i should share with you...it is that when a body travels faster then light....its mass increases gradually...funny eh?

Answer 3

I do not think we will ever travel faster than light. This is because of the rules of special relativity.

As an object speeds up, time for the object slows down in relation to any point of reference. If you reach the speed of light, time would stop moving for you and you could get anywhere without any time going by for you. This is why you cannot travel faster than light, because you would get somewhere before you left, which is a paradox.

More simply put, it would take an infinite amount of force to make an object go the speed of light. It would take more than an infinite amount of force to make an object go faster, which is impossible.

Answer 4

If I understand your question correctly, theres no way can humans travel faster than light. If there is a way that we could, wouldn't it branch from some mesh of theories from quantum mechanics and astrophysicists?

Answer 5

There are some pleasing opportunities. area-time isn't an inert substrate, and could be distorted or bent by way of community concentrations of mass or skill. it is attainable to create a distortion in area-time earlier than and in the back of a spacecraft that ought to act something equivalent to a wave in water. A wave can propagate by way of water and carry a floating merchandise alongside for the experience. the same theory - the Alcubierre warpchronic - has been proposed by way of physicists that ought to enable a spacecraft to stay static in an area bubble of area-time, whilst the bubble itself propagated by way of typical area-time at superluminal speeds. There may well be no community violation of relativity interior the bubble. there are various theoretical issues and countless important engineering problems with the belief. lots greater learn is mandatory to verify the flair of this attitude.

Answer 6

yes! tachyons travel faster than light and relativity was never a scientific law just a theory. all we need to do is work out weight, mass and gravity and we're off!

Answer 7

No.

Even angels can't travel faster than light, and they are pure energy.

Answer 8

no i donot think we will ever travel faster than light.much before humans will have killed themselves. its another matter if anyone can travel faster than light.

Answer 9

your question is a good one. however i dont think that its possible but if it were i would say that it would branch out from physics.
ill ask my physis teacher

Answer 10

in thought YES. but physically only GOD the living LORD can. because He is the "beginning and the end...the Alpha and the Omega".

thanks for the 3 thumbs down. denial is the most predictable of all human responses.