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Ways To Travel Faster Than Light Without Violating Relativity
StartsWithABang writes: It's one of the cardinal laws of physics and the underlying principle of Einstein's relativity itself: the fact that there's a universal speed limit to the motion of anything through space and time, the speed of light, or c. Light itself will always move at this speed (as well as certain other phenomena, like the force of gravity), while anything with mass — like all known particles of matter and antimatter — will always move slower than that. But if you want something to travel faster-than-light, you aren't, as you might think, relegated to the realm of science fiction. There are real, physical phenomena that do exactly this, and yet are perfectly consistent with relativity.
Danger Will Robinson, Danger! This article doesn't actually provide what its title claims. Clickbait, pure and unadulterated. Plus, it's not even that informative. All stuff we see in Slashdot comments any time anyone mentions FTL travel.
Relativity requires that nothing can move through space faster than light.
Relativity requres that nothing can move through space as fast as light (c). Nothing with mass moving slower than c can reach c by moving faster, due to increase in mass and infinite energy required to reach c, and nothing moving faster than light can slow down to c, for the same reasons. The quote from teh article is at best misleading and at worst, false.
The Admin and the Engineer
Except, you know, cases where we slowed down light itself. By a lot.
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You can go faster than light goes in certain materials because then it travels slower than c. If you do that, badass things happen.
That said, the article is pretty well written IMHO, so if you've never heard of this before, go ahead and read it.
Light goes slower than c in any medium different from vacuum. Some objects can go faster than light in that medium (but not faster than c of course).
The whole thing hinges on the phrase in the first paragraph; "depending on what you mean by a "thing", "faster-than-light", and "travel""
If you want to play around with semantics and definitions, then you've got an article. Otherwise, nothing new here. Speed of light unchallenged.
we have no technology remotely capable of this, but:
1. a quantum entangled version of yourself moves away from you (at "normal" speed, less than c)
2. say... many light years away (i know, i said we have no technology remotely capable of this, bear with me here, just a thought experiment)
3. the "copy" of you can't violate c, but at the last moment, one version of you interacts with its surroundings, collapsing you to that single copy. such that you have achieved instantaneous transportation across light years of distances
doesn't that happen faster than c?
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You're at a very straight, very long beach. Imagine parallel waves striking the shore at a vanishingly slight angle. The point that the wave meets the shore moves along as the intersection of wave and beach occurs. As the waves get closer and closer to parallel with the beach, but not quite parallel, eventually that intersection point will be moving much faster than c.
But the interesection point between waves and shore doesn't have mass, isn't really a "thing" that's moving.
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The whole thing hinges on the phrase in the first paragraph; "depending on what you mean by a "thing", "faster-than-light", and "travel""
If you want to play around with semantics and definitions, then you've got an article. Otherwise, nothing new here. Speed of light unchallenged.
Yeah ... came here, read the article, want my money back.
... however if you shout at the door, the sounds will be heard softly on the other side? In this case of "breaking the light speed barrier" our calculations show that not only are your vocal sound waves traveling faster than the speed of light but since light never got through the door and time still marches on, you are approaching a speed infinitely faster than the speed of light!
What a complete waste of time this article was!
Did you know that if you try to send a photon through a solid wooden door, it won't ever make it
Mind blown? Or are you just angry that I got you to read that horseshit?
It's very easy to travel 100 light years in less than 100 years. Thus for all intents and purposes, one can travel distances at faster than the speed of light. The theory of relativity does not prevent this. You can without violating any laws accelerate a rocket ship at a comfortable 1g for as long as your fuel holds out. You will not get more massive. It will not take increasing amounts of fuel to maintain the 1g acceleration. If you accelerate for 1 year at 1g then you will know that you covering the distance to your destination at faster than the speed of light.
What is true about relativity is this: and OUTSIDE observer will see you traveling at less than the speed of light. But from your perspective you can travel across galaxies in your lifespan with ease. So for all intents and purposes, you can go faster than the speed of light provided we everything from your point of view (which is all that matters). We define speed as the distance to your destination measured in an inertia frame, divided by the time it takes you to get there, all measurements from your perspective.
the way reletivity is taught totally confuses people on this point: A HUMAN COULD EASILY TRAVEL ANYPLACE IN THE MILYWAY WITHIN THEIR LIFETIME WITH EXISTING TECHNOLOGY, except for the part about bringing your own fuel. we just don't know how to bring enough fuel to maintain a 1g acceleration for 50 years. This is why these new reactionless EM drives that NASA and others are toying with are really interesting. No doubt they are bullshit since they seem to defy newtons laws, but if it turns out they work.... see you on on the other side of the galaxy baby.
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You're at a very straight, very long beach.
But, I'm in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike so I think I'm screwed.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For a more thorough and slightly more technical approach to the same subject, check out the Usenet Physics FAQ's article "Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible?". Here's the conclusion:
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I realize that this is a very simplistic explanation, but think of quantum entanglement like this:
You have 2 cubes. Each cube can be only either blue or green. You have no idea what color each cube is as you packed them into boxes for mailing across the galaxy in a completely dark room. They are then mailed.
Now, you open your box. Turns out that your cube is green. You instantly know that the other cube is blue, even if it's on the other side of the galaxy, however, you have no way of communicating your discovery to the other party.
You now have instant knowledge of what color the remote cube is, but no information has been transferred.
Simple enough?
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must I do it with a pair if scissors, or can I just use one?
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