I can't speak for what scientific advancments will come about in hundreds of years, much less tomorrow. But the limitations of travel at teh speed of light has to do with our mass, and the mass of any vehicle we were using to get to our destination. Light is tiny particles of radiation. It's hard to imagine organic matter traveling at that speed with out disintegrating. So, the most probable question of travelling at light speed would likely be some technology akin to transporters from star trek, where organic particles are dematerialized, transported, and then reassembled into their original pattern.
(Raises flag! It’s International Physics Years, it’s 100 years ago that Einstein published his first articles on relativity and other goodies).
When we observe the Universe, we see things blasting away at different velocities. But INSIDE the Universe itself the thing that moves the fastest has mass=0. Those are the light-particles, photons among friends. And the speed are over a BILLION kilometres and hour!
Now, we’ve never seen or observed anything moving FASTER than the speed of light. If something COULD it should have negative mass (odd concept), and we should be able to observe it.
We never have. So the Universe comes with a kind of speed limit if you like. And to move at that speed you need to have mass=0.
Stuff, that is the Earth, you me, the stars, plants etc. all have mass greater than zero. If you try to accelerate the Universe starts to act like a kind of membrane if you like, the faster you move, the incredibly more energy you’ll need, until you’ll need an infinite amount. So – no. It’s not a question of us figuring out HOW to reach light-speed. We have to warp space instead (as in Dune, Contact or Star Trek).
You won’t stop aging aboard a space-ship going close to the speed of light. Your clock will tick away happily as always. But RELATIVE to us back here on Earth, your clock will tick slower. When you return, you’ll have travelled into the future.
__________________ "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire
"That includes ruining Halloween because someone swallowed a Bible."
"I just thought you were a guy."
"... Most guys do."
speed of light travel IS possible. Light manages to do it.
It is possible to have a particle decay into various other particles and release a photon. THerefore, some of the mass-energy of the original particle has been turned into light.
Light travels at the speed of light (by definition).
Therefore, a part of the original particle has managed to achieve light-speed
Gender: Unspecified Location: In a place between heaven and hell
Simple. We will never EVER travel at the speed of light. It's too ahead of our time and will always be. Light isn't human therefore it can haver this speed because it has it's energy for awhile and not till way later it looses it. We don't have that kind of energy because it is utterly impossible for our bodies to get that but with light everything is different, It's not a body it's a source that was made to be beyond our physical powers, It's a part of science and science is something that works totally different then us because it's not real and someone can't make another human have this because their not some machine but light isn't human. I'm a little confused about what I'm saying. I couldn't put this into better words so I probably sound dumb but I'm only a kid so it's not that embarrasing.
__________________ The end of the world part I:I am speechless...Boom!!!!! To be continued...
The end of the world part II:Maybe the world just blew up and shattered into a billion pieces but time will never end,My friend To be continued...
The end of the world part III: The big bang has just been redone and the earth is a darker, colder, stranger and different place
The saga is complete! Buy the beginning of the end trilogy in stores today
Even if we thought it possible to go the speed of light. It would take a couple hundred years of constant acceleration for a ship to get to that speed due to the fact that the human body can only take so much acceleration at once. Not to mention we would need to find a fuel source that would last long enough to get us there. It won't happen. unless of course we did find a way to negate gravity.... but since we still haven't really figured gravity out (the source of it really) we can't do it. I still found it intregueing that theoritcally if someone threw a grain of sand just right it would orbit you (of course only if there were no other forces acting upon it *cough* the earth's gravitational pull). Well thats my 2C
Gender: Unspecified Location: In a place between heaven and hell
Thank you now I don't feel any bit embarassed.
Trust me just because aliens have very futuristic and '' Ahead of our time '' Technology doesn't mean they can travel at the speed of lightning. Not only they can't but their machines & spaceships or whatever they have can't either because it's not in their blood. They might not be human but they are bodies not equipment and no invention of their's will ever get to or pass the speed of light because they don't have the powers of god in their palm.
__________________ The end of the world part I:I am speechless...Boom!!!!! To be continued...
The end of the world part II:Maybe the world just blew up and shattered into a billion pieces but time will never end,My friend To be continued...
The end of the world part III: The big bang has just been redone and the earth is a darker, colder, stranger and different place
The saga is complete! Buy the beginning of the end trilogy in stores today
speaking in terms of physics based on general reletivity and quantum affects, when things gain a certain velocity their mass increases, very very little at lower speeds but more n more as they get closer to the speed of light, at the speed of light, the mass of any particle that has a mass initially would be infinite{AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, NOT OVER IT}, so to accelerate anythin to the speed of light, you would have to apply a force of INFINITE, n THAS where the problem lyes, nuthin can produce an infinitely large force, not even the energy the entire universe. well that the things anyway, and only light can travel at lightspeeds cause its particles{photons} dont posses the property known as MASS, which means that they can aquire the speed of light with even the smallest possible force, but since things have mass, theyd need an infiinitely large force to accelerate their infinitely large mass to lightspeed. thas the basic theory anyway
but i admit that im not exactly as knowledgeble as to be able to understand the literally millions of advanced theoretical physics theories that are beein discovered theses days, eg, space warping, space compression, energy constriction, resonating fields, quantum foam warping etc. so there probably will be a theory in the near future that lets us travel at or above lightspeed.
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Apr 18th, 2005 08:22 PM
