The only way to travel the speed of light is to use it as a propellant.

a reply to: sapien82

Apparently, the speed of light can vary with respect to the refraction index of the medium through which it is travelling, the higher the index of refraction, the slower the speed of light is.

a reply to: andy06shake
So if we trap light in a diamond we are effectively slowing it down!

Id seen that experiment where we had slowed the speed of photons of light in lazers , by firing lazers through gas clouds in vaccum chambers which are at low temperatures , dont know if it was nearly zero kelvins !

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: sapien82

Apparently, the speed of light can vary with respect to the refraction index of the medium through which it is travelling, the higher the index of refraction, the slower the speed of light is.

That´s sort of misleading.

You are running down an empty street at 10mph for 10 miles. That took you hour obviously. Now you are running down the same street but this time it´s full of people that you have to circumvent bumping in. After one hour you stop on a dime and look how much distance you covered.

You will have covered 10 miles in one hour, just before. The difference is, you didn´t travel in a straight line.

Your first run was in vacuum, your second one in a medium. You were the light. You were traveling at the same speed like before.

How can this be?
The answer is, you just had to cover more distance in relation to the straight line, because you were not traveling in a straigt line.

So if you just look at the entry times, yes, light slows down via refraction. If you look closely, you will discover that the speed of light was the same all the time. It had to travel a factor higher than 1 in terms of the distance between entry and exit point.

originally posted by: rnaa

originally posted by: Hammaraxx
Something to consider about light speed and matter.
If the 'bits and pieces' of atoms in an object have to move about to keep the atom together, what would happen to atoms at the speed of light?
To stay together, they would have to be travelling faster than the speed of light, at least in the direction of travel, which is theoretically impossible.
Perhaps, not impossible, but theoretically impossible according to our current understandings/thinking.

Seems to me that, since as you approach light speed the mass approaches infinity, at some point the mass is great enough that you would produce a 'mini' black hole and essentially wink out of existence.

(Edit: and the 'bits and pieces' of atoms do not travel at the speed of light, so they could still stay some percentage less than the speed of light and still stay within the speed limit. Except that the mass/gravity problem that mentioned above would 'squish' them out of any semblance to an atom.)

You won't become a black hole as your (rest) mass does not change.

The mass increase argument is a popular misinterpretation of relativistic physics, as mentioned by ErosA433 already. It arises from the confusion of rest mass with so called relativistic mass. Nowadays the relativistic mass terminology is avoided for that reason.

originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: Gothmog


So, why do you think that you can't have a lit torch in space, then?

I assume this misunderstanding is the American torch vs the British torch (flashlight)

a reply to: Dizrael


Yes. Two nations divided by a common language. Indeed.

a reply to: verschickter

Cheers, that kind of explains it better than i understood the notion.

Still does not answer why light speed is approximately 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum through.

Think there are even some theories doing the rounds that suggest that Light can change speed even in a vacuum.

The implication being that it could change the way we think about one of the constants of the universe.

originally posted by: TheJesuit
Im no scientist but if you were to travel the speed of light wouldn't you have to use light as a fuel to push propel -whatever - in space and just wait to gather up speed the problem after traveling that far would be acquiring another light source.... lol .. Solved it!

Any theory on using LIGHT as a propellant in space? or on Earth? Gravity would be a monkey wrench though.

I think our biggest failure to progressing to such a point is our understanding. All the theories currently up for grabs are all designed by the same scientists that read from scientists before them and its very rare for any of them to divert from the science they have learned. Otherwise, they are frowned upon by other intellectuals which deny them paying jobs. So then we have a vortex of non-willing scientists trapped by the very science they studied.

With that in mind, to travel the speed of light is not impossible as if light can travel this speed then there is no reason we cannot create something to do the same. Our understanding of travelling fast is using huge propulsion to propel us forward. Yet this is old thinking and not what will grant us such achievements. We need to create the ability to roll down gravity, in a sense anti-gravity towards a point that does not exist. A point manufactured in the local area of space but that vibrates on another manufactured point further in space to where we wish to go. We would snap to location.

This is possibly the reason we see UFO's just disappear as they are snapping from one point to another. Some think we must actually travel the area of space to get somewhere, this will soon be far from the truth. We merely need to point and click.

a reply to: andy06shake

Still does not answer why light speed is approximately 299,792,458 m/s in a vacuum through.

It does not, that´s correct.

Think there are even some theories doing the rounds that suggest that Light can change speed even in a vacuum.

We were talking about refraction, that´s just one method, remember? Maybe if you read this, it clears it up:

www.physlink.com...

Twisting light in a vacuum

a reply to: BlackProject

"With that in mind, to travel the speed of light is not impossible as if light can travel this speed then there is no reason we cannot create something to do the same."

Light is composed of photons which have no mass. Plenty of energy and momentum yes, but no mass.

So anything we could ever produce, that could travel at such such velocity, inside space-time, will also have to have no mass or somehow have its mass cancelled out.

Given our current understanding of physics, electromagnetism and gravity, that's a whole lot easier said than done.

a reply to: BlackProject

Ah the same old "Scientists are stuck in a closed minded loop and are idiots" statement that we hear so many times, and yet has been proven not to be true also many many times.

You then go on to assume that 1) UFOs are not of this Earth, and 2) Have TFL technology

without presenting any evidence at all.

so you clearly don't know the science that you claim the experts are ignorant of, nor do you know how the field of actual science. You appear to not realize that theoretical and experimental physics are totally different areas, and that universities typically want teachers, lecturing pays a lot of the bills, and the research grants are somewhat secondary.

Scientists have stipulated a couple of ways that it might be possible to stay within GR and achieve FTL. They suggest these methods knowing that there are several caveats that make them unlikely/impossible. Those that work on these theories were not laughed at or thrown into the streets.

www.youtube.com...

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: TheJesuit

There are some ideas regarding firing a laser from earth at a solar sailed vessel which could get it up to around 10% the speed of light.

We will never be able to travel faster than light unless we are able to somehow warp space-time around a craft thus use expansion/contraction of space-time to propel the thing.

There simply is not enough matter in the universe to fuel/propel a conventional vehicle past the speed of light.

Warping the space/time fabric would NOT be a propulsion system. You would still require force to move.

Reducing gravitys effect on mass and rendering craft mass less in a field it generates ignores that law and allows FTL.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: BlackProject

"With that in mind, to travel the speed of light is not impossible as if light can travel this speed then there is no reason we cannot create something to do the same."

Light is composed of photons which have no mass. Plenty of energy and momentum yes, but no mass.

So anything we could ever produce, that could travel at such such velocity, inside space-time, will also have to have no mass or somehow have its mass cancelled out.

Given our current understanding of physics, electromagnetism and gravity, that's a whole lot easier said than done.

Been done already.BTs use it.

a reply to: ErosA433

I agree.

FTL, if we figure it out, will come out of mainstream science almost for sure simply because as far as we can tell is most likely going to come from cleverly applying one or more very specific loopholes buried Deep in the minutiae of physics.

Really I'd place my bets on it taking a very strategic combination of multiple loopholes strategically executed in very specific ways and using lots of very cutting edge metamaterials etc.

If someone can find a way to build effective work recycling Maxwell's demons that would probably be a huge help. Even that though is a huge speculation.

You make a very good point too about how the people that do come up with these exotic crazy and likely unworkable methods are definitely not shunned though.

If anything, from what I've seen the rest of the scientific community if anything almost envies them for being able to do science for the sake of science without being chained to only pursuing science that has real world and immediate usefulness to something practical.

That's the kind of science a large portion of scientists wish they could be doing.

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: TheJesuit

There are some ideas regarding firing a laser from earth at a solar sailed vessel which could get it up to around 10% the speed of light.

We will never be able to travel faster than light unless we are able to somehow warp space-time around a craft thus use expansion/contraction of space-time to propel the thing.

There simply is not enough matter in the universe to fuel/propel a conventional vehicle past the speed of light.

Warping the space/time fabric would NOT be a propulsion system. You would still require force to move.

Reducing gravitys effect on mass and rendering craft mass less in a field it generates ignores that law and allows FTL.

Which is not warping the space/time fabric
And nothing would allow Faster Than Light.
That would still break the Laws of Physics (as we know them)
Mass can only reach 99% or so . Nothing goes faster . No particle , no wave.
Now , negating mass on an object would allow Light Speed.

a reply to: ErosA433

well it was Einstein who said that you need imagination to think outside of the already pre established facts

you need to be the un-orthadox thinker who comes out with a crazy idea , that then proves to be true !

a reply to: yuppa

When, where, how?

"BTs"

What's that?

black triangles.

It´s basically an assumption.

a reply to: verschickter

Ah right, cheers.

For a moment there i thought British Telecom were right ahead of the curve. LoL

So TR-3Bs it is then.