ATS Members - When Do YOU Think We Will Travel at Light-Speed?

a reply to: Phage

More like, your 'evolutionary trait' is to rip apart your environment to molecular levels and rebuild it to your liking.

Humans are absurd in the way we do things, and evolve, it's beyond genetics even as the same hands the crafted spears are laying down firearms and building spaceships. We force the environment to cater to us with our minds, that's rather bizarre compared to other creatures.

Also what problems do you get if you can manage consistent acceleration in a vacuum at faster speeds? The ship should make it fine right? Earth will age massively though.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: carewemust

Yeah, relativity can do that. Ain't it cool?

But that really is just the beginning of the weirdness of it.

The "beginning" is mind-boggling enough to my simple mind. I literally cried in school, because I couldn't comprehend calculus.

a reply to: MacK80

Also what problems do you get if you can manage consistent acceleration in a vacuum at faster speeds? The ship should make it fine right? Earth will age massively though.

The Earth won't age massively, you'll age at a snail's pace. (heh)


The problem is in maintaining that rate of acceleration. The faster you go the more mass you have. The more mass you have the more thrust you have to apply in order to maintain that rate of acceleration. So, unless you have a drive that can produce virtually infinite thrust (while not requiring fuel)...it's problematic

So, it is true that a "cheat" would be required. Or, discovering some trick to avoid the pitfalls of relativity.

a reply to: carewemust

Yeah. I agree.
Calculus is scary. In a pretty elegant way.

a reply to: Phage

If I understand this right, that's only from one reference point? The person on the ship experiences nothing because time is passing normally and acceleration is consistent.

A half-myth: It gets harder to push a ship faster as it gets closer to the speed of light[edit]
This is a half-myth because it depends on the frame of reference. It is true for those watching from the planetary reference frame. For those experiencing the journey (in the ship's reference frame) it is not true. For both the planetary frame and the ship's reference frame, the ship will change speed in a Newtonian way—push it a little and it speeds up a little, push it a lot and it speeds up a lot. However, in the planetary frame the ship will appear to be gaining mass due to its high kinetic energy, and the mass–energy equivalence principle. Should the engines be giving a constant thrust, this will result in progressively smaller acceleration due to the higher mass it is required to accelerate.

From the ship's frame, the acceleration would continue at the same rate. However, due to Lorentz contraction, the galaxy around the ship would appear to become squashed in the direction of travel, and a destination many light years away would appear to become much closer. Traveling to this destination at subluminal speeds would become practical for the onboard travellers. Ultimately, from the ship's frame, it would be possible to reach anywhere in the observable universe, without the ship ever accelerating to light speed.

a reply to: MacK80

It does, indeed, depend upon your point of view.

Same problem though, no matter how you look at it.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: Gothmog

You sure know how to kill off a dream, don't you! Looks like we (mankind) is going to need a quantum leap in knowledge. Maybe a friendly Extra Terrestrial will give us some tips!

If Einstein was perfect in his "Theory"

originally posted by: starwarsisreal
a reply to: carewemust

In Halo, space travel consist of going through slip space.

Basically, they open a hole in one place to another dimension and then coming out to another place.

Actually much more plausible and safer.

One problem. To open a wormhole through the "dimensions" would take creating a self-sustaining black hole. Then you would have to have the energy to spin it up at the speed of light.

a reply to: Phage

Wow so even if you solved it, it's only observably fixed from the ship? lol.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: carewemust

Summary: You're traveling at the speed of light and point a flashlight behind you. The light beam will travel outward just like you were standing still? If so, my mind is blown.

At 100% light speed, time passes instantly and the universe ends before you can move.

At 99.999% light speed the flashlight would work. But to a slow moving observer the light would be red shifted into nearly nothing, it would take centuries to record a brief flicker. Pointed forward, the flashlight would be blue shifted into a high energy pulse like a gamma ray shock wave.

No we won't go to LS, we will find a way to create gaps/passage/tunnels in the energy spectrum (zero to infinity) that we can pass through without interactions. ( nobody wants to be smited)

Based on quantum laws the same energy has to interact with the same energy. Frolic interaction can create the attractive interaction that forms pairing and a 'gap'.
Gaps/a tunnel/ a passage theoretically can be created by higgs boson pairing. By forming a pair you create a group. Forming a gap is super conductivity because the gap is formed by going against electric current. Electrons repel negatively.

We need to find what conditions allow the Frolich interaction created by phonons (phonons are the elementary oscillations of atoms)
In a crystal if one atom emits a phonon the next atom can pick it up so these phonons mediate the frolich interaction. (interesting further reading is the quantum entanglement diamond lattice experiment)
Additionally this may entail gaining degrees of freedom, we currenltly have 4. Time and 3 spacial.

How we do that all. no idea...But the new 'time crystals' are interesting. They might find a way to use the time Crystal oscillations as a way to sustain the energy that is needed to hold that Higgs Boson pairing. Also the diamond lattice quantum entanglement experiments may be a start to transport the pairing information to another point simultaneously.

Hmmm might look into that

I saw a movie 3 years ago where 4 members of a 5 person crew left orbit, went down to a planet for a few hours, and returned to the orbiting mothership.

The poor bastard who stayed on the ship waiting for the crew to come back, waited 40 YEARS! I had to sit there in the theatre for awhile after to movie had ended, trying to figure out what all I had just seen, LOL.

I really need to watch that movie again...and maybe a 3rd time.

Light speed?

Never if you think along lines of a projectile.

However if one thinks of two locations 40 light years apart and moving from one to another in a few moments, then that sort of thing is probably sooner then people would think.

My guess, and I don't understand strangled string theory one iota, is that the difficult problem will be the locations.

My next guess is that people will need to swap the two locations, say something convenient, like two house sized pieces.

Cross the boundary here and your there outside the other location. Step back across the boundary and your back again.

Though the physics/chemistry girl around the corner (drinking partner), her explanation of strangled strings might have gone over my head.

What about a warp bubble like in the star trek series a nice bubble of space time that zips along faster then light speed.

No acceleration forces in the bubble to deal with because you are not really moving in the way a rocket does.

Sure it would take a ton of energy and might not even be possible but it's worth a shot in exploring the concept.

a reply to: carewemust

never.
the world will be uninhabitable in around 50 years and humans will be exitinct

Noyes
We're all waiting for an argument breaker, someone who can explain that a piece of glass one light year long will move quicker than the light shining through it.
We should all know because of fiber optics that light travels at the speed of light through this material, but we still struggle with what would move first, the material or the matter.
We've already traveled at light speed, we do it everyday, our ideas over the internet are measurably traveling at the speed of light.

a reply to: BeneGesseritWitch

We've already traveled at light speed, we do it everyday, our ideas over the internet are measurably traveling at the speed of light.

False. Really.
Do you know how to check the delay? Try "ping yahoo.com (or abovetopsecret.com, if you wish)" in a command window. Way, way slower than light.

a reply to: Phage

Yeah okay the inter web brings us back to my first point,
If the whole premise of traveling at light speed is beating light speed: then you have to understand that there are forces slowing down the speed of light in our universe.
It's not supernatural, but if light is affected by gravity then the light we see and measure will be affected by forces of gravity we don't yet understand.
FalseTrue

a reply to: BeneGesseritWitch

then you have to understand that there are forces slowing down the speed of light in our universe.

What forces? Electromagnetism? Gravity? 'Fraid not.

It's not supernatural, but if light is affected by gravity then the light we see and measure will be affected by forces of gravity we don't yet understand.

Light is not affected by gravity. Spacetime is. Light does not change its velocity, spacetime changes its shape. Light moves at the speed of light, in a straight line. Spacetime bends and makes it look, to us, like light is being affected but it is space that is being affected. Light travels at the speed of light, in a straight line.

Honestly I feel the first step is finding a more cost effective way to get off of earth.

Once humanity has mastered leaving earth and exploring and colonizing the solar system then we can aim for the stars beyond.