is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

Kyle_Anderson

Newbie

Posts: 1

is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« on: July 15, 2011, 02:31:05 AM »

i have heard that FTL (faster then light) travel is impossible. but is it? we don't know so how can we say its imposable? maybe we just haven't figured it out yet. but i think if there is a way to travel unthinkably huge distances between stars and Galaxy's it would have something to do with wormholes/portals. or maybe the universe is not as big as we think? i have always wonder that.. if we can't go there then how can we say how big it is? i have the same problem with carbon dating, we weren't there so we guess. and it dose not make it right. its the accepted theory that the earth is 4.5 what ever billion years old, BUT it is still Just a theory. for all we know its only 1 million years old, and all our information is just a off. anyways i believe we are visited daily by, i hate saying aliens, but other beings that came here from grate distances. so they did it somehow, that makes it possible. im not a nutcase i just find it hard to believe that out of the Universe's vastness that we are the only ones with the most advanced Technology, just doesn't add up to me


	Logged

CogitoErgoCogitoSu

Newbie

Posts: 4

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2011, 07:41:05 AM »

As far as we know, it is impossible. That is, of course, within our current understanding of the theories that we believe govern reality.

We dont believe it is possible for anything in space to travel faster than light speed. BUT, there are no limits to how fast space itself can travel. Some people believe that space can be manipulated or moved. This is the theory behind wormholes and warp drives. And there is nothing in the laws of physics, as we know it, preventing this.

There is also the idea of shifting ourselves along another dimension where the speed limit isnt the same. This is the idea of a hyperspace in some scifi shows. Get where you are going then shift yourself back into normal space. Current theory suggests that other spacial dimensions are possible.


	Logged

Scampi

Newbie

Posts: 2

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2011, 06:13:51 PM »

Loads of species in space are likely able to travel vast distances, however it is very hard to find a single planet especially with so much life out there. Besides, someone would fire a missile at them anyway so it's probably a good thing that no one has landed just yet.


	Logged

Kim

Newbie

Posts: 8

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2011, 06:49:34 PM »

We can say how big the universe is by seeing distant sources of light or radiation. We know how fast light goes, so by knowing how long it took to reach us we can calculate the distance (or vice versa).

As for FTL travel, there's several trends in the universe which make it hard to imagine faster than light travel. For example, a time appears to pass slower for a fast object, relative to a slow object. At the speed of light, time would stand still. Faster than light travel would mean a negative passing of time, which brings all sorts of other problems with it.

There are however less conventional ways of achieving "faster than light" travel. Wormholes, though mostly hypothetical, are essentially a "shortcut" through space--you don't need to travel as far through them. Unlike in science fiction, though, wormholes are small and disappear essentially instantly. This means they're not really a viable means of travel. Other ideas include bending space, but all of this is highly speculative. We can't hope to travel faster than the speed of light in the "normal" universe, we would have to do something to make different laws of physics apply.


	Logged

Raymond

Newbie

Posts: 14

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2011, 10:31:27 PM »

What the theory of Relativity shows is that it is impossible to take an object with mass, from our frame of reference, and accelerate it in such a way that it ends up going faster than light.

The theory does not "forbid" FTL, it just makes it impossible to take an object going slower than light and make it move faster than light in a vacuum.

Faster-than-light speeds are already observed in situations where we can slow down the speed of light (but that is not what you have in mind).

The speed limit (c) is the speed of light in vacuum. However, light itself travels slower through some mediums. For example, in water, light travels at (2/3) of the "speed-of-light".

Sub-atomic particles that are emitted by nuclear reactions at very close to c (for example, at 0.95 c) can, therefore, travel faster than the speed of light IN WATER, and that means that the particles will emit Cherenkov radiation, making them detectable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

The theory of Relativity allows the existence of particles that go faster than light (and they even have a name: tachyons), but they too have the same problem - in reverse - they can't be slowed down below the speed of light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyons

However, we have never observed any, and we have never found any evidence that these things even exist.

---

In science-fiction, there are three ways that are used to invent FTL (at least, by the authors who try to make it sound believable).

1. Remove the ship from the fabric of space and make it travel outside of normal space. Where the ship reappears usually depends on a mix of luck and the navigator's skills (and the requirements of the plot).

2. Create a bubble and cause this bubble to "surf" along the warped hyper-surface of space. Objects inside the bubble (including the ship) are not moving relative to their local space (the inside of the bubble). However, the "warp engine" must warp the fabric of space.

3. Use corridors that connect different regions of space (wormholes) so that the vehicle only travels a short distance in the space of this corridor, which is a shortcut between two points in space.

All three ideas are based on some theoretical ideas that do exist in cosmology, but have NEVER been observed in the real universe.

All three ideas (and the tachyons) have been used in Star Trek (if you consider all the series).


	Logged

Tieria

Newbie

Posts: 1

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2011, 11:05:33 PM »

By all traditional means, it is impossible.

However, as the universe expands, there are galaxies which are receding faster than the speed of light. This indicates that space itself is expanding into a fourth dimension that we cannot see. If we can locate this fourth dimension, we may be able to use the same principle to overcome the speed limit.

As for the other issues, our estimates may just be estimates, but they are EDUCATED guesses. One must always accept that current knowledge might be wrong, but must also realize that it's currently the BEST shot we have at being right. I'm not about to go second-guessing the age of the universe, the Solar system, whatever when there's no evidence for my guess, and more than I can list for the existing estimates. We have observed the way radioactive carbon decays. We have observed it to be fairly constant. We have observed other radioisotopes to behave in similar ways over different time spans. Therefore, using radioactive carbon to date objects is a safe estimate. It's not something someone just pulled from where the sun don't shine. Do you have a better method? What do you have to support your ideas?

When you get right down to it, gravity is just a theory too.


	Logged

quantumclaustropho

Newbie

Posts: 14

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2011, 11:20:08 PM »

So far as we know, FTL travel is not possible. As our technology and research continues, we may find a way,

I share your opinion in that I feel there must be other races out there.... however, I do doubt we're visited daily. It could be we're the first species to advance to this state of technology; I doubt that also - but it's possible.... the universe is still fairly young - 14 billion years - with a projected life span of trillions...


	Logged

Meklar

Newbie

Posts: 12

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2011, 11:34:05 PM »

>i have heard that FTL (faster then light) travel is impossible. but is it?

Everything we know suggests that, in the most literal sense, yes, it is impossible. Or at least, it is impossible to accelerate a slower-than-light object past the speed of light. There is no reason why particles could not exist that ALWAYS go faster than light, these are called 'tachyons', but it's not clear that we could detect or use tachyons even if they existed.

>i think if there is a way to travel unthinkably huge distances between stars and Galaxy's it would have something to do with wormholes/portals.

That's totally theoretical at this point. We don't know of any way in which a wormhole could be created where none already existed, and we have not found any naturally occurring wormholes. Furthermore, in order to hold the wormhole open so that particles can be safely passed through, you would need some negative matter (that is, stuff with negative gravity), and we don't know how to get that either. And even once you'd solved both those problems, the enormous stresses on objects passing through the wormhole would probably make it impossible to send anything through larger than microscopic size. It might still be useful, you just wouldn't have giant starships flying through like you see in movies.

>its the accepted theory that the earth is 4.5 what ever billion years old, BUT it is still Just a theory. for all we know its only 1 million years old

We have very good reasons for thinking it is 4.5 billion years old. To justify a figure significantly different from this, you would need to explain away a great deal of evidence. Right now, we have no good reason for doing that. Everything fits together by far the most consistently if we accept the 4.5 billion year figure.

>anyways i believe we are visited daily by, i hate saying aliens, but other beings that came here from grate distances.

Um...on what basis?


	Logged

Mr__Immortel

Newbie

Posts: 15

Re: is FTL Travel possible? or would we use other methods to travel to other worlds?

« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2011, 11:51:13 PM »

The idea is, because space is like a sea with waves, that man could build a vessel that can facilitate the riding on or within the waves (in the aspect of space itself, pressure, gravity, or others) found naturally in space to travel faster than light, without physically doing so. This would prove to be a shortcut through space within space. Matter cannot truly travel at light speed. Imagine a ship being surrounded by and within a wave of the sea which moves faster than the ship itself can travel.

The use of wormholes is a different, yet faster than light travel, then physically traveling within a wave in space. Wormhole travel involves matter being converted into all its energy and being sent through a wormhole to another open end to transforms the matter back into its original form. This too is faster than light speed.

Traveling faster than light in the future will take a more advanced understanding of the make up of space itself and how to utilize its natural properties for faster than light speed travel.

EDIT: The two postulated avenues of FTL travel are the physical way through hyperdrive in hyperspace (traveling through celestial waves) and the way by means of energy through wormholes.


	Logged

Pages: [1]

« previous next »