Do you think that we will be able to travel faster than light speed?

Question

For the human species to outlive our Sun me must Colonise other planets! Even at the speed of light Space Travel can be emencely long! What do you think?

Einstein said that it is not possible! But rather than physically travelling do you think there is another way?

I agree that we may even self destruct but hyperthetically speaking we do not self destruct! Please answer accordingly!

Please answer without having the assumption I have no idea how long the Sun will last or how long we have! I know my Science and I am fairly clued up on Astronomy!

Answer 1

hard to say
even fast as light speed is still slow if you ask me.

even the closest star, alpha proximia is still a whooping 4.22 lightyears away.


experiments involving quantum tunneling seem to create situations where faster than c travel has accord, but this is more like teleportation instead of velocity
http://www.primidi.com/2003/05/23.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunneling
quantum tunneling could allow us to teleport quantum particles long distances instantaneously, and have done so already with quantum information

now full matter is a different story. we need much more time and powerful computers (to map all particles) to be able to accomplish this.

actually they claim quantum tunneling will be used in those computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer


recently german physisist have made a claim (sorta) that they have broken the C barrier, but they do not have the proof to back it up...... they hesitate and claim they are unsure.
truely its quantum tunneling and they know it, I just think the media is twisting it into faster than C
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/16/scispeed116.xml
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=36926&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&sid=bc69f2ebd08104659291258d8c6a80e7&view=print

Answer 2

I'll take your second point first: the worrying timeline is not the failure of the sun to maintain fusion but indeed the collision that is due with the Andromeda system. Contrary to popular belief, not everything is moving away from each other and at a constant rate. Before the Sun runs out of Hydrogen nuclei to fuse, the solar system will form a binary (ie two star) system which will rip apart the structure that we know (and in some cases, love).

Secondly, the theory behind special relativity includes the formula that as the speed of an object approaches c, the speed of light, its mass tends towards infinity. Therefore it would be impossible to accelerate something to travel greater than the speed of light. But if there was some way to either tkae advantage of hypothesized wormholes or sequence quantum events to create some kind of transporter like star trek, we could overcome that problem given that EM radiation travels at the speed of light.

But yes, at the speed of light stellar distances are still immense and could not be conquered by conventional travel means. It would take many years just to travel to Mars at the moment.

Finally, to answer your first point, no I don't think I'll ever travel faster than the speed of light, and probably neither will anyone.

Answer 3

At speeds approaching the speed of light, space travel would not take immensely long for the traveler, since time would slow down for him. Theoretically, if one could reach the speed of light, then time would stand still for him and he could travel across the galaxy without aging. Of course, this would take a theoretically infinite amount of energy and if he were to return, his friends would have died hundreds of thousands of years in the past. Will we be able to reach and surpass this speed? Well, I would never say never. But it's pretty unlikely based on what we know about special relativity and how it works. I would recommend that you read Frank Tipler's book on Modern Physics. If you can understand the first chapter, you will gain a much more cogent view of the difficulties involved. Good luck.

Answer 4

There is no way we know of. Even if two people are moving away from Earth in opposite directions at 90% the speed of light, they are moving away from each other at 99% the speed of light and not 180% of the speed of light like you would expect. This is because time and space warp in such a way to make light always move at the speed of light relative to all observers, even the headlights from a car going 90% the speed of light will be seen by the driver as leaving the car at the speed of light but a person standing still far out in front of the car sees that light ariving at the speed of light and not 190% the speed of light as you might expect. Believe it or not.

Answer 5

There are NASA experiements and projects to travel AT the speed of light (the "sailing spaceship"). But that is "AT".
Our current knowledge of physics says "NO, we can't".
But we could not fly heavier than air, we could not exceed the speed of sound... etc.
Today, we do.
What will we discover tomorrow?
The current "belief" has its answer well explained in "Star Trek" (seriously studied by physicists such as S. Hawkings)
We could travel well below the speed of light (about half), but if we were to "bend" (shorten) the space in front of the ship and "expand" the space behind, we would (for external observers) travel way faster than light.
The question is: how to we "bend" the space?
We bend it with gravitational effects, with "masses", or massive objects, such as the object that creates black holes.
So, we just need a black hole in front of the ship, and a "white hole" at the back (a carot in front of our donkey, and a whip at the back)! Easy!
We are not there yet: black holes exist, but we can't just "go and pick them up". White holes are just a theoretical concept (the "anti-black hole").
But the CERN (France), has created a small black hole two years ago, in their powerful accelerator. It lasted a few nanoseconds before evaporating (and a lot of stupid people were worried that it would swallow the Earth: they did not understand gravitation, nor inertia).
Just a start.
Probably not in our life time, but within 2-300 years, who knows!

Answer 6

Only if we can figure out how to fly "around" traditional space. that is if we can find a place to move particles through that won't have as much resistance as moving say a photon from here to the next star. Like moving through another demension of space that will let us slip through it easier. Or if perhaps we can break down partilces even smaller then photons and be able to reasemble them perfectly then maybe that would work, i'm not sure. As to if we will ever figure this out... its hard to imagine, but so were computers 2000 years ago. Man is pretty crafty and good at improvising, so who knows. long as we don't blow ourselves up or poison ourselves first we got a heck of a shot at figuring it out.

Oh and if we don't, we can always get inteligent robots to colonize other planets for us. They can travel through space indefinately. They could then even grow test tube babies to colonize the planet for us.

Answer 7

You are right, Eienstien said that it is not possible. but he also said that if you can't beat the laws of physics, you have to go around them.
I know of one way to travel even faster than the speed of light. Have you ever seen programs on aliens on the National Geographic Channel? They tell you that the aliens, if there are any, may use a technology that allows their space ships to pull the Part of the universe in front of them while simuntaneously pushing it behind them. This allows them to travel from one part of the universe to another without really moving.

Answer 8

I think it's possible physics is an ongoing process, Einstein is right until someone else says he's wrong,

edit,
Self destruction is not an option. the sun will out live you and me and is not a factor in the pursuit of knowledge one day someone will answer this question with a known answer I just hope I am around to realize it

Answer 9

We are unable to reach even 25 percent of speed of light.Physical travel ,with the present technology,at the speed of light is impossible.Only travel beyond speed of light seems to mental travel.Mind can go faster than speed of light.
Human species outliving is a nice theme to write fiction.Why don't you try it?It may sell more than Harry Porter!

Answer 10

Einstein said that it is impossible for anything to travel faster than light, but if you think about it light is made up of photons, or whatever they are called, that zigzag from side to side and up and down of the beam. Polaroid lenses filter them out, so that they only let through the part of the beam travelling in one plane as if they were passing through a narrow slit. If you put another lens over the other you will block all the light. Try it with your polaroid sunglasses. Surely the photons, or whatever, moving from side to side of the beam must be moving faster than the beam as a whole? So they are moving faster. All that we have to do is straighten them out, like straightening a bit of bent wire! Dead easy! Please can I have my Nobel prize now?