Faster than light travel.

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

No. All the above responses are solutions about distorting time and space to get around the fact that you can't travel faster or at the speed of light.

Thank you.

Again (as other's have already stated), assuming Einstein's theory (of Special Relativity, or General Relativity? I can't remember, sorry...) is correct, it's impossible for any ship (which has any sizeable mass) to reach the speed of light.
Let alone go even faster...

 

[Ham_authority95]

I suppose it can be made possible if people work on it hard enough.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Faster than light travel is impossible because when you approche light speed Energy begins to have mass which compounds the amount of energy you need to accelerate the object. this meens in order to maintain something at light speed you must have infinate energy behind it.

the only way to achieve Faster than light speed is through the form of an 'Inertia-Less Drive' a theoretical technology which can alter the preceptive mass of an object (current current theories involve changing the wavelength, frequency, or other properties including resonence although it is largely just all pen and paper theory). when an object has a Mass of 0 then by default it is travelling at light speed (as light has a mass of 0.)

theoretically if you can alter the mass so that it has 'Imaginary Mass' (negative mass) then any acceleration will achieve natural FTL with reasonable energy expenditure.


this doesn't break Einstines theory... it just kinda goes over his head.

...and they called it...

Mass Effect. Sorry I couldn't help it, because it's the whole premise of the game!

acctually that isn't how 'Mass Effect' acctually works.

mass effect creates a low resistance corridor by manipulating the acctual amount of 'space' space acctually takes up. in effect they create near singularity events in extreamly controlled measures.

the Inertia-Less Drive is acctually something which scientists are trying to construct in modern day which was spawned from current studies in Tachyon, which is a partical that travels faster than light.

 

[Pyro Paul]

.... okay here is my theory. U know how we can jump on the moon, because we are lighter and our legs are stronger. So if you reduced the mass of a spaceship to 0 then it could theoretically go faster than the speed of light. This is Mass effect's idea. If you reduce the mass of something to 0 it should be able to go FTL.

incorrect.

having a mass of 0 through normal relitivity is defined as moving At the Speed of light. this is because Light has 0 Mass, there for anything of equial mass must travel at the same speed.

in order to travel faster than light one must have imaginary mass, which is defined more clearly in 'special relitivity' as when looking at FTL moving particals such as Tachyons.

 

[Maze1125]

the Inertia-Less Drive is acctually something which scientists are trying to construct in modern day which was spawned from current studies in Tachyon, which is a partical that travels faster than light.

And it's existence is pure conjecture.

 

[RagnorakTres]

Hrm...let me put it this way: yes, it is possible. Almost anything is possible, even within the laws of physics.

Do I believe it is a good route to take to the stars? No. Not at all. Not yet. AFter we have a firm foothold in our solar system and perhaps even Proxima Centauri (if there are habitable planets there).

Based on my knowledge of astro-physics (next to nil, that is) cryostasis and auto-pilot is the direction we need to be funneling our funds to. My idea/plan is as follows:
1) Design a colony ship, one designed to take off once and land once, forming a hub to operate from upon arrival at the destination planet.
--->a) The majority of this colony ship will, in fact, be deep-space survival technology, including cryostasis pods (designed to be reusable: this is expanded on later) and fuel for acceleration/deceleration in the near-frictionless near-vacuum of deep space.
2) Train a crew of five-hundred to crew the ship and take over if the auto-pilot begins to fail. This crew will work in shifts of one-hundred a year. They will be encouraged to have children and train them in the same technology they are, just in case this trip takes upwards of 32,500 (500x60) years.
--->a) Between shifts, the crew will have their own cryostasis pods.
--->b) We'll have to hope the trip takes less than four generations in this style, since inbreeding would be most difficult to avoid after that point, though a generous person might be able to stretch this to ten or even fifteen generations (given that even the products of close incest do not begin to develop birth defects until the second generation).
3) Select colonists based on certain desirable qualities, a mixed bag of leadership, artistic and scientific ability. Ensure a colony of at least one-thousand, possibly more if fuel/weight ratios don't top out.
4) Launch.

 

[Donttazemehbro]

.... okay here is my theory. U know how we can jump on the moon, because we are lighter and our legs are stronger. So if you reduced the mass of a spaceship to 0 then it could theoretically go faster than the speed of light. This is Mass effect's idea. If you reduce the mass of something to 0 it should be able to go FTL.

incorrect.

having a mass of 0 through normal relitivity is defined as moving At the Speed of light. this is because Light has 0 Mass, there for anything of equial mass must travel at the same speed.

in order to travel faster than light one must have imaginary mass, which is defined more clearly in 'special relitivity' as when looking at FTL moving particals such as Tachyons.

Ah, Okay

 

[olicon]

But you guys already go faster than the speed of light in bed, or so she said!!!!

Although I agree that space folding is definitely the way to go, one have to wonder if that is actually cheating. I mean technically speaking, you're traveling pretty slowly--just over a much shorter distance.
I've heard a bit of some quantum-level electron twins, which could work to similar effects. I forgot the actual name, but the theory goes that there exists an exact copy of matter somewhere in the universe (although particles are considered to be identical at quantum level, they usually aren't relatively larger levels). If you can somehow harness this exact copy that is floating around somewhere out there, you might be able to recreate a copy of yourself there too. Not that you'd actually travel, perse. It'll probably be more like cloning yourself, then destroying your present self.

Mmm... improbability drive. Dilisch..

 

[sarkeizen]

Ooo Ooo Ooo!!!!!!

We may already have FTL!

Quantum entanglement!

If I remember correctly, it's possible to send 1's and 0's a FTL speed. Ok, it's just data, but:

INTERGALACTIC EVE ONLINE!!!!!!!!!!

Quantum entanglement might work but has at least two serious flaws. First, we can't control whether a one or a zero is sent until after it has been sent. Second, the energy and difficulty of entangling particles increases the further away from each other they are. Meaning that either you need to entangle the particles at home and send one a sub-light speed to the destination of we need to develop much better methods for entangling particles. On the upside however, the information transfer is (as far as we can tell) instantaneous, regardless of distance. I know this because I spent a summer as a lab assistant at the Institute of Quantum Computing.

Personally I believe that humans will one day find ways to effectively travel faster then light. I have no idea how, but I think we they will. My reasoning is simple.

It would be AWESOME.

The universe is made of awesome stuff that allows us to do awesome things (like fly). FTL is so awesome that there must be a way for it to be possible.

Ya know, I used to believe that bit about having no control over the data sent. It kept the universe sensible. Then a read a host of articles (I'll have to search for them later) showing how that really isn't the case, that we can can control the data. My head popped.

I don't really know what people mean by "can't control the data" but Bells Theorem - and there is a fair bit of experimental evidence to support it - implies you can't use entanglement for superluminal communication. I'm willing to bet that if you think those papers say otherwise that you're misreading them (just like the way people thought 'quantum teleportation' was FTL travel...sheesh).

 

[Jark212]

They say that you can't go faster than the speed of light, but many years ago they also said that you couldn't go faster than the speed of sound. But eventually we'll probably find some sort of cheat code that works in the universe to get around it.

Yes, there's always ways around. We are very good at cheating nature, we just need time, good old fashioned human ingenuity, and plenty of resources...

 

[The Candyman]

To go the speed of light, you would have to be made of light particles. To go faster means that you would have to find a material that could withstand that speed and beyond so that it could carry you and your relatively slow atoms.

 

[Captain Blackout]

Enter cheat code: No Clip
Enter parameters: Higgs field
FTL enabled

 

[oppp7]

So I read about quantum entanglement on Cracked and Wikipedia and I'm confused about what it is. The Cracked version doesn't seem consistent with the Wikipedia version, and it seems kind of false, with it saying electrons are entangled to each other and react to stimuli that the other has. The Wikipedia version is confusing, as Wikipedia normally is when it comes to physics concepts.

 

[TotallyFake]

They say that you can't go faster than the speed of light, but many years ago they also said that you couldn't go faster than the speed of sound. But eventually we'll probably find some sort of cheat code that works in the universe to get around it.

Yes, there's always ways around. We are very good at cheating nature, we just need time, good old fashioned human ingenuity, and plenty of resources...

No, no we don't. There is a difference between "this is difficult" and "this is impossible" FTL is impossible.

 

[Keepitclean]

There's also the string theory.

It states that time is like a piece of string, and to get from one spot to another, you simply fold the string together to put them next to eachother.

I saw a crappy movie that was loosely based on that. If that is possible that would be pretty cool, however I don't think it is 'simply folding the string' is the way it works. It would be more like 'using a very complicated process to fold the string'. But you never know, in the future you migiht be able to get an app for the iPhone to do it.

 

[yoshimickster]

The speed of light is about 186000 miles per second. Do you know what's bigger than that? 186,001 miles per second! There, mystery solved.

 

[Wehms2]

The speed of light is the same in all reference frames however, so in our reference frame the light should get here.
I haven't studied this though, so i'm probably missing something like expansion behaving differently to relativistic frames...

Actually, I believe that light travels slower through water than air for one example.....(?). It's possible I'm wrong but i seem to remember reading that somewhere.