Faster than light travel

[Encryptshun]

So, first there were neutrinos.

Now, counterpoint.

What will happen?

Is FTL travel possible?

[bigbadberry3]

Really not too bad for physicists, look at tachyons. Mathemagicians hate it though.

[MinisterofDOOM]

We thought Mach was an impenetrable physics barrier back in the '40s. Now we've got supercruise jets that lope along at nearly Mach 2 without much effort.

Our collective understanding of physics has increased a lot over the past couple centuries, but we still don't understand everything. It may not be as simple a solution as surpassing the sound barrier was, but I have we'll eventually find a way "around" the problems with FTL travel.

[rc1honda]

Well I don't know much about those particles. Meaning i don't know what they consist of but it seems that neutrinos have mass.

And of course if it has mass then it cannot travel faster then the speed of light or even at the speed of light. We can get it to 99.99% the speed of light but just can't get it any faster That's because anything that has mass it would take literally more energy then is available in the know Universe to propel that extra .01%.

Even assuming we could harness every star, quasar, and blackhole to use it's energy it still would not be enough. That's why it's the ultimate speed limit.

Pretty basic stuff, but that's not to say we can't manipulate the space-time fabric in the future to travel distances faster then light would travel between 2 points. The speed of light after all is a measure of distance and not velocity. In that sense we may very well one day break the light barrier without ever having to actually propel a transport to any specific velocity.

So say it takes 400 light years to get to the nearest habitable planet. And we find a way to bend space-time in such a fashion that we can travel the distance in 2 hours while still going at reasonable rate of speed say mach 10, then we have in essence broken the light barrier. As before try not the think of the speed of light as an actual velocity but as an unit of distance such as mile, or kilometer.

And light as we have come to find out acts as both a wave and a particle simultaneously, if could harness it in particle form ir wave form to serve our purpose such as we do with sound waves, anything is possible.

[orangeNblue]

Now, counterpoint.

sounds like even the geeky nerds can still be haters....or should I say h4t3r5

[C-Kwik]

We thought Mach was an impenetrable physics barrier back in the '40s. Now we've got supercruise jets that lope along at nearly Mach 2 without much effort.

Our collective understanding of physics has increased a lot over the past couple centuries, but we still don't understand everything. It may not be as simple a solution as surpassing the sound barrier was, but I have we'll eventually find a way "around" the problems with FTL travel.

Back then, breaking the sound barrier was not something that was theoretically prohibited. Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur. While solved by the move to jet turbines, there were many engineering problems with high rates of speed from an aerodynamic perspective that made it difficult to control the aircraft. The speed of sound was never thought of as a physical limitation. Only an engineering limitation.

Speed of light is defined as a physical limit. It can only be proven indirectly, but it has never been proven wrong. This neutrino speed finding is probably one of the first credible findings that challenge it, but even the researchers who discovered it are cautious.

That said, supposing the data is correct, it does not serve any practical purpose for FTL travel. We are made up of atoms, not neutrinos. FTL travel by a specific particle does not automatically imply FTL travel by all other particles. Not saying its not possible if the data is correct, but its a huge leap to jump to such a conclusion without even understanding how the neutrinos would be traveling faster than light first.

[Encryptshun]

Philosoraptor says:

"If light could travel faster,

would it?"

[C-Kwik]

Philosoraptor says:

"If light could travel faster,

would it?"

LOL!

[IBCoupe]

That said, supposing the data is correct, it does not serve any practical purpose for FTL travel. We are made up of atoms, not neutrinos. FTL travel by a specific particle does not automatically imply FTL travel by all other particles. Not saying its not possible if the data is correct, but its a huge leap to jump to such a conclusion without even understanding how the neutrinos would be traveling faster than light first.

My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.

[C-Kwik]

My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.

If Neutrinos are constrained to the speed of light, it would still take 4.3 years to reach the next solar system. If the results the research group observed are an accurate indication of a natural speed of neutrinos, it will get there 0.0000002469% faster.

That said, I would love to see neutrino based cell phones. No more signal degradation from being indoors or on the other side of the planet.

[allenms240]

Faster than light travel huh, that's crazy stuff. I'm more of a chemist than a physicist, so I don't know much on this matter.

I was told one in HS, if humans traveled the speed of light, they wouldn't be in the same form (physical humans as we know them). Particles maybe? IDK. Enlighten me.

[IBCoupe]

My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.

If Neutrinos are constrained to the speed of light, it would still take 4.3 years to reach the next solar system. If the results the research group observed are an accurate indication of a natural speed of neutrinos, it will get there 0.0000002469% faster.

That said, I would love to see neutrino based cell phones. No more signal degradation from being indoors or on the other side of the planet.

Well, that beats my back up plan: two cups with a really long string.

[Encryptshun]

which is still better than two girls, one cup.

[300ZXttZMAN]

which is still better than two girls, one cup.

[AZhitman]

Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur.

Other man-made devices achieved this long, long before the propeller. Pretty neat. Wanna take a "crack" at what they were?

[MinisterofDOOM]

Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur.

Other man-made devices achieved this long, long before the propeller. Pretty neat. Wanna take a "crack" at what they were?

Yo, check out my new whip, dawg.

[szh]

That said, I would love to see neutrino based cell phones. No more signal degradation from being indoors or on the other side of the planet.

Um, no. Not a good thing.

Not to be too geeky here, but the word "cell" in cellular has very important meaning ... that is how the same frequencies are re-used over and over. The RF use patterns within a cell are designed to avoid interference "a few cells over" where the same frequencies are re-used. I am generalizing a bit (since CDMA works differently from GSM - which is what I described above), but you get the idea.

If your cell-phone could transmit directly to the other side of the planet, then it would jam every other cell phone using that same frequency. Instant noise as billions of people tried to talk at the same time.

Point is, in general, your cell-phone only communicates to the nearest cell-tower - this means from about 1/4 mile in dense urban areas to about 5 to 10 miles in urban settings. Rest of the "call" to whoever you are calling - whether it be down the street or around the world - is handled by the land-line communications network

Z

[S13_love]

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html

It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame.

Physicists had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory near L'Aquila that appeared to make the trip in about 60 nanoseconds less than light speed. Many other physicists suspected that the result was due to some kind of error, given that it seems at odds with Einstein's special theory of relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That theory has been vindicated by many experiments over the decades.

According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.

[alms24sebring]

Aww what a let down, I was excited about that. But, Im glad they found a mistake

[snwbrdr435]

Neutrinos travel at the speed of light.The instant we can see a supernova we are being bombarded with neutrinos from it. If any of you have a scope there is a supernova happening right now in M95 (Leo)

[stebo0728]

When'd we get a science forum?!? LOL

I love this topic though. Personally I think we'll figure out worm hole travel before FTL travel.

As far as the new comm tech, I think the next break through there will be quantum entangled particle devices of some sort. Quantum entanglement is instantaneously transmitted, as far as we can tell, therefore distance is irrelevant.

This whole speed of light speed limit thing, I dont buy it, at least completely. Light, afterall, is affected by gravity, requiring it to have mass right? I mean a photon has mass, which it somehow only has at rest? Does it react differently with the Higgs field at rest, than it does in motion? Why do we even say its massless in motion, just to get around the FTL arguemnt, to make it work? Not to mention, gravitational lensing occurs when photons are in motion, if they are massless in motion then how is gravity affecting them? The theory needs a bit of tweaking, perhaps there's another inverse coefficient missing that would account for reallllly small mass holders moving at light speed?

One personal theory I have, is, lets assume for a moment the possibility of moving massive objects at light speed. I theorize that any bonds holding the object together, covalent bonds, ionic bonds, what have you, would break down at momentums nearing speed of light, resulting in particle disintegration.

But its possible we could travel distances at many many times light speed, relatively speaking. Through worm hole technology, thought you'd pass from A to B nearly instantly, if you clocked it as linear travel, the speeds would be insane.

[alms24sebring]

Thats how I used to understand light until I realized that a photon is pure energy with no mass. I think there are certain characteristics that have not yet been discovered about light tho. I dont know about light at rest and the Higgs. But, I see what your saying about if a photon didnt have mass then why would it gravitational lens moving with gravity or get sucked in by black holes. Its a fair question but I think there might be a simple answer that maybe someone else can answer. Gravity effects everything, massless or not, including time.

[C-Kwik]

This whole speed of light speed limit thing, I dont buy it, at least completely. Light, afterall, is affected by gravity, requiring it to have mass right?

Problem is you are trying to describe a relativistic problem using Newtonian physics. I didn't study this in depth, but my understanding is that at slower speeds (non-relativistic), the relativity equations describing gravity reduce to the Newtonian equations for gravity.

I mean a photon has mass, which it somehow only has at rest? Does it react differently with the Higgs field at rest, than it does in motion? Why do we even say its massless in motion, just to get around the FTL arguemnt, to make it work?

Actually, you have it backwards. A photon's rest mass is considered to be zero. Again, not something I studied much, but the equation for the mass at a given velocity vs an object's rest mass concludes that a photon's mass is zero at any speed. I'm also not sure anyone says light has mass anyways. It has momentum, which is a function of the frequency of the light, which is actually a function of the photon's energy. And this is where the photon is important and why we view light as a particle. Light energy is quantized and a photon is used to describe that quanta of energy.

Not to mention, gravitational lensing occurs when photons are in motion, if they are massless in motion then how is gravity affecting them? The theory needs a bit of tweaking, perhaps there's another inverse coefficient missing that would account for reallllly small mass holders moving at light speed?

You have to think in terms of space time. Its not something we can observe easily, but my physics text provides 2 simple analogies. The first is to picture two people heading to the south pole from 2 different locations. Both are heading south, and from their own frame of reference, they would appear to be going parallel, but from the outside we see that that are converging. The other example is to imagine two objects falling towards earth that start at the same height but perhaps a few meters apart. Again, they would appear to be going parallel to each other, but in reality, they are converging such that they would meet at the center of the planet. This convergence to a point is what gives us our gravitational "forces" that we can observe. But what it actually is is a bending of space time. Objects of higher mass cause a larger bending effect. Light doesn't bend space time, but is affected by the bend in space time as it passes through it.

It may not help understand this concept completely, but this video might help (The discussion about space time starts around 6:30, but it might be helpful to watch everything leading up to it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-p8yZYx ... outu.be&t=

[stebo0728]

Ok now that all sort-of makes sense. The wave energy just passes through the medium of space, conforming to its shape as it passes. Gotcha. Still I "feel" uneasy with that model, thought I realize what I "feel" is irrelevant.

Also, so dark matter, sitting in pockets around the universe. Question: does dark matter absorb or reflect light passing into it? If it reflects, how do we differentiate an object being observed as being positioned straight ahead from an object's reflection being observed from the dark matter? Or to extrapolate that question, realistically dark matter would not perfectly absorb or reflect, but somewhere in between, causing some sort of distortion, which I assume we are not in any position to predict such distortion as we dont know what dark matter consists of. Maybe light accelerates or decelerates when passing through dark matter or dark energy? I realize these are all unknowns, but they are pretty significant unknowns.

[stebo0728]

And do you really believe quantum dynamics and newtonian dynamics are seperate? I realize, for productivity sake, we handle them seperately, but I believe that is only due to the absence of a working unifying theory. In reality the 2 worlds are the same, and the unifying theory would theoretically effect both worlds, making newtonian physics more complicated probably, but also possibly making quantum physics a bit less fuzzy.

[szh]

And do you really believe quantum dynamics and newtonian dynamics are seperate? I realize, for productivity sake, we handle them seperately, but I believe that is only due to the absence of a working unifying theory. In reality the 2 worlds are the same, and the unifying theory would theoretically effect both worlds, making newtonian physics more complicated probably, but also possibly making quantum physics a bit less fuzzy.

Unification of QED and Relativity, etc., is one of the goals of M theory ... the latest version of string theory.

Brian Greene's books on the topic are excellent.

Z

[C-Kwik]

Also, so dark matter, sitting in pockets around the universe. Question: does dark matter absorb or reflect light passing into it? If it reflects, how do we differentiate an object being observed as being positioned straight ahead from an object's reflection being observed from the dark matter? Or to extrapolate that question, realistically dark matter would not perfectly absorb or reflect, but somewhere in between, causing some sort of distortion, which I assume we are not in any position to predict such distortion as we dont know what dark matter consists of. Maybe light accelerates or decelerates when passing through dark matter or dark energy? I realize these are all unknowns, but they are pretty significant unknowns.

I don't know much about dark matter, but Wikipedia indicates it does not absorb or emit light. I suspect that means that it does not absorb it either otherwise we may be able to see direct evidence of its existence. I'd probably read over the page on wikipedia to get a better understanding before making any assumptions about it.

And do you really believe quantum dynamics and newtonian dynamics are seperate? I realize, for productivity sake, we handle them seperately, but I believe that is only due to the absence of a working unifying theory. In reality the 2 worlds are the same, and the unifying theory would theoretically effect both worlds, making newtonian physics more complicated probably, but also possibly making quantum physics a bit less fuzzy.

I don't think there is an issue of separation between quantum physics and Newtonian physics. The big divide is between quantum physics and general relativity where these two can not be unified currently. The difference between quantum and Newtonian physics is that Newtonian physics occurs at a larger scale where the quantized values that occur at sub-atomic levels only appear to us as the limits of statistical probabilities.

Newtonian physics ignores relativistic effects as most relativistic effects in the type of problems we describe using Newtonian physics are so small that they are practically zero. You can use equations that include the relativistic effects in everyday applications easily enough. But the values of that part of the equation will exist so many zeros after the decimal, it makes no sense to complicate the math.

That said, I don't think unification will necessarily simplify or complicate those things we already know. Unification will just allow us to understand how they interact. Much the same way unification of electricity and magnetism allows us to see the interrelation between the two and use them for practical purposes. The unification of these two concepts did not change the way we looked at each of these concepts individually. What we knew about each of the forces on their own are still used. That is, you don't need any of the unification equations to calculate the force between two magnets. You don't need unification equations to calculate the force on a charged particle in an electric field. You do need them if you are building an electric motor that is using a magnetic field generated by a current.

In other words, Newtonian equations will still be the same after unification as will general relativity, E&M and quantum physics. Unification equations will only be relevant in problems where we are tying these things together.

[stebo0728]

Dark matter is hugely unknown. Its something that "has to exist" to account for what the rest of known theory says about the composition of the universe. My questions above are really currently unknown. Any info on wiki would be current theory, and thats cool and all, but still some of the nuances of how it behaves, whats it actually IS, and what not, is still up for grabs, and answers to those questions could have small insignificant, or huge effects on other aspects of current universe theory.

I understand what you mean about marrying relativity and newtonian theory. My point was that, once we join the two, newtonian theory would be exacted more, when necessary. Usually when figuring large scale motion or whatnot, quantum issues are ignored anyway because they have little perceivable effect on results, a body might end up 2 microns off from where you calculated it, but who cares. BUT, if we ever need more exacting calculations, they would then be available.

Interestingly, this could possibly lead to one day having computer models that can rather closely predict future results, in areas you might never imagine possible. Things that appear chaotic or random now, may end up calculated by highly precise computer calculations. I've often postulated, that were someone able to calculate particle motion at the quantum level, they might just be able to tell the future. Possibly even decision made by a human brain.

[C-Kwik]

Dark matter is hugely unknown. Its something that "has to exist" to account for what the rest of known theory says about the composition of the universe. My questions above are really currently unknown. Any info on wiki would be current theory, and thats cool and all, but still some of the nuances of how it behaves, whats it actually IS, and what not, is still up for grabs, and answers to those questions could have small insignificant, or huge effects on other aspects of current universe theory.

My point there was only to say you should understand it better in order to try and make better hypothesis about what its effects are. More specifically with regards to your comment about light, since it appears that dark matter does not have any effect on light, your previous hypothesis would be incorrect.

I understand what you mean about marrying relativity and newtonian theory. My point was that, once we join the two, newtonian theory would be exacted more, when necessary. Usually when figuring large scale motion or whatnot, quantum issues are ignored anyway because they have little perceivable effect on results, a body might end up 2 microns off from where you calculated it, but who cares. BUT, if we ever need more exacting calculations, they would then be available.

We're pretty much on the same page here. If we do unify all the theories though, I think we'll just have a better understanding of the interactions of the physical world and perhaps some ability to manipulate it more for very specific applications.

Interestingly, this could possibly lead to one day having computer models that can rather closely predict future results, in areas you might never imagine possible. Things that appear chaotic or random now, may end up calculated by highly precise computer calculations. I've often postulated, that were someone able to calculate particle motion at the quantum level, they might just be able to tell the future. Possibly even decision made by a human brain.

I've speculated the same thing myself, but the processing power for that would probably be impractical anyways. It would probably be limited to small and specific interactions. Not so sure we can predict the future though. At best, we might be able to theorize an outcome at quantum levels, but since we have to know the initial conditions to base it on and measuring the state of certain things without affecting the state (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), there might be no way to predict a real outcome. The other question that one might ask is how long would it take to even make such a prediction? If it takes longer to make that prediction than would occur naturally, it would only be a corroboration of the result.

[alms24sebring]

Dark matter does not absorb or emit light, thats the problem. That why it is not understood in what it it. But, its bends light the same way that normal mass does, causing gravitational lensing. By some probably disgusting and very tedious calculus, you can recreate where the mass of dark matter is. If you look in another thread, I posted a good link with a direct and obvious pic of a cloud of dark matter gravitationally lensing light.

Its hard to believe that perhaps 2/3 of the Universe is Dark Matter (that we can understand by math) and we are just now seeing proof of it but we have no idea what it is huh.

Im not sure about the Newtonian vs modern physics and math. I think Newton is less right because its less exact when talking about mass on a large scale because relativity comes into play. I do remember seeing something about calculating the motion of an atom and it showed a 3D model through space, but that may have not been so accurate.

Seriously, check out "Through The Wormhole" on Netflix or anywhere online. They give POVs about the Universe that you not have ever thought of.