Will we see FTL travel in our life time?

There are several hypothetical ways to cheat the laws of physics and break the cosmic speed limit. Do you think this will happen in the next 70-80 years?

I think we might see them in our life time if technology extends our lifespans enough. I seriously doubt it could happen in even a hundred years or so, mainly because the various ways of cheating lightspeed require either materials that violate basic principle of mechanics, technology that shatters well tested physical laws or just makes a random guess that we'll discover hyperspace for no adequately explained reason.

Well isn't star trek style warp travel technically possible without necessarily violating any laws of physics in a relative way?

Tachyon fields might also be possible, though you would need, like just about everything, more energy than we could produce.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Well isn't star trek style warp travel technically possible without necessarily violating any laws of physics in a relative way?

At a minimum a Class II civilization (we're .75 and it's exponential) would be required to provide enough antimatter to power even a single ship unless we discover a way to suddenly turn matter directly into antimatter en masse.

We have already observed MATTER traveling faster than light in our particle colliders. I have been out of the particle physics "community" for so long that I am not sure on any of the details. However, that is supposed to be impossible, but it happened. I'm not sure if it is some sort of temporal illusion that on the "books" has FTL matter travel or if it is grade-A FTL with no tricks or convoluted explanations.

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Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
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Originally posted by Darth Macabre
Wow, awesome contribution to the thread. 😛

I wrote something and thought..."No, too many paedophile jokes will come from this"

Now your going to be scratching your head to think of what it could have been...

It was my impression that you would have to cheat in some way since only something with 0 mass travels at the speed of light and only something with a negative mass travels faster.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
It was my impression that you would have to cheat in some way since only something with 0 mass travels at the speed of light and only something with a negative mass travels faster.

Actually I think an object with negative mass would destroy the universe or something. At the very least it wouldn't be able to interact with anything and thus wouldn't be able to move at all.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Actually I think an object with negative mass would destroy the universe or something. At the very least it wouldn't be able to interact with anything and thus wouldn't be able to move at all.

Nah, it would move in a different set of dimensions. We wouldn't detect it because it wouldn't follow our set of physics, etc.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Nah, it would move in a different set of dimensions. We wouldn't detect it because it wouldn't follow our set of physics, etc.

Barring some unforeseen discovery or development: No. The energy requirements alone (let alone some new physical loophole law) are waayyy beyond our current tech capability.

Originally posted by dadudemon
We have already observed MATTER traveling faster than light in our particle colliders. I have been out of the particle physics "community" for so long that I am not sure on any of the details. However, that is supposed to be impossible, but it happened. I'm not sure if it is some sort of temporal illusion that on the "books" has FTL matter travel or if it is grade-A FTL with no tricks or convoluted explanations.

Nope, but something different is possible.

Originally posted by Mindship
Are you referring to the quantum teleportation experiments with photons (IIRC)? I don't know if that's exactly what we're referring to in this thread (or is it?). I mean, if that's case, we've known about quantum leaping/tunneling for decades. But my impression is, in this thread, we're discussing nontelelportive, macroscopic FTL. And I'm pretty sure that has not been done, because if it had -- hell, if the physics community had managed to propel even a single subatomic particle faster than light (in nonteleport fashion), this would be historic news, on par with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The details would be well documented, not to mention the flurry of additional experiments conducted to confirm this result.

What you're describing is a bit more recent than what I'm describing. It was probably over 5 years ago when I found out about it.

I'll see if I can look it up.

For all intents and purposes, it would have required an infinite amount of energy to get one subatomic particle to travel FTL...so it's probably not euclidean FTL.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
There are several hypothetical ways to cheat the laws of physics and break the cosmic speed limit. Do you think this will happen in the next 70-80 years?

Hell No !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who would pay for that ???

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Actually I think an object with negative mass would destroy the universe or something. At the very least it wouldn't be able to interact with anything and thus wouldn't be able to move at all.

Would it have negative gravity? As in, the law of universal attraction would actually repel other matter?

Breaking the LS barrier is only one of many problems, we'd also theoretically have to provide the environment/protection for that future traveller(s) to survive going that fast, let alone at light-speed.

If it happens, it will be far far into the future. Barring any outside nonhuman help.

Originally posted by Red Nemesis
Would it have negative gravity? As in, the law of universal attraction would actually repel other matter?

I don't think so, but I'm not a physicist.