Good expansion of what I meant by “perceive”.
Also for anyone looking for a good read regarding interstellar war, “Forever War” is a fantastic read. To get to each mission generally takes 100+ years earth time, but only feels like a year or so to the troops, so the battlefield technology changes drastically from mission to mission, and of course all their friends/family are dead when they get back, and society is completely different (the writer was in Vietnam).
Meh, light speed. A bunch of muckity-muck about nothing. Though, do let me know when we’ve got those food replicators. “Tea; Earl Grey; hot.”
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
asusvenus wrote:
MikeyKBiatch wrote:
If we find the ability to travel at the speed of light.
We won’t.
You’re 18 and already know enough about physics to say we won’t travel at the speed of light? Humility isn’t a virtue around here, is it?
The complexities of near and at light speed travel are great, but general relativity certainly allows a few ways around special relativity’s apparent “speed limit” of light.
The fact is that even light-speed travel isn’t theoretically impossible, but we wouldn’t need to hit that speed anyway to make interstellar travel feasible. [/quote]
Could you lead me to the ideas of how to reach the speed of light? As it is now, traveling by the speed of light, requires an infinit amount of energy.(disregarding tachyons)
If you’re talking about reaching a destination faster than if one would travel at the speed of light, by influencing the spacetime, well that’s a whole different story, but that wasn’t what I was denying.
Oh, and this is just me wondering:
Let’s say a ship does in fact reach the speed of light. How would the ship ever stop traveling when it reaches it’s destination? Since time has stopped from it’s frame of reference.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Meh, light speed. A bunch of muckity-muck about nothing. [/quote]
What are you talking about?
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Meh, light speed. A bunch of muckity-muck about nothing.
What are you talking about? [/quote]
Food replicators. Standard Federation technology.
I believe it only requires an infinite amount of energy if the object has a positive mass… since we are still searching for the higgs atm, you don’t think we could ever get to the point where we could control an object’s mass? A hundred years from now, maybe a thousand?
[quote]MikeyKBiatch wrote:
Could you lead me to the ideas of how to reach the speed of light? As it is now, traveling by the speed of light, requires an infinit amount of energy.(disregarding tachyons)
I believe it only requires an infinite amount of energy if the object has a positive mass… since we are still searching for the higgs atm, you don’t think we could ever get to the point where we could control an object’s mass? A hundred years from now, maybe a thousand?[/quote]
Like… Stripping away higgs-bosons from particles?
I honestly don’t see that happening. As it is now, just actually being able to detect one, requires the destruction of that particle.
Though that would be helluva cool.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
asusvenus wrote:
MikeyKBiatch wrote:
If we find the ability to travel at the speed of light.
We won’t.
You’re 18 and already know enough about physics to say we won’t travel at the speed of light? Humility isn’t a virtue around here, is it?
The complexities of near and at light speed travel are great, but general relativity certainly allows a few ways around special relativity’s apparent “speed limit” of light.
The fact is that even light-speed travel isn’t theoretically impossible, but we wouldn’t need to hit that speed anyway to make interstellar travel feasible. [/quote]
Last i checked, the only way for an object with mass to travel at light speed is if he had infinite energy. Last i check, that’s not possible.
We might find a way around light speed (worm holes, space-time folding) but that shit will not happen in our life times or many life times to come.
And warp drive is faster than the speed of light…wonder what Einstein would say if he knew he had been refuted?
Does anyone know what happens to matter as it approaches the speed of light…?
[quote]Like… Stripping away higgs-bosons from particles?
I honestly don’t see that happening. As it is now, just actually being able to detect one, requires the destruction of that particle.
Though that would be helluva cool.
[/quote]
I really do not know as I am not a physicist lol, but I remember reading that there is a chance they will not even find the higgs and it will shake up the current theories… either way I just don’t understand when people flat out say things are impossible when a lot of these theories sound crazy to begin with… I mean come on, a big bang? Thats nuts!!! 
[quote]asusvenus wrote:
Could you lead me to the ideas of how to reach the speed of light? As it is now, traveling by the speed of light, requires an infinit amount of energy.(disregarding tachyons)
If you’re talking about reaching a destination faster than if one would travel at the speed of light, by influencing the spacetime, well that’s a whole different story, but that wasn’t what I was denying.
[/quote]
No need to lead you, you already said it yourself. General relativity allows for various “faster than light” travel through warping space time in various ways. This isn’t “a whole different story” as you suggest though. If one can travel between two stars in a shorter time then their own light, then one has traveled faster than light, no matter how it was done. If you’re getting hung up on some of the ideas of special relativity, like the fact that the relativistic form of mechanics seems to imply lots of impossibilities about going the speed of light, remember that the special theory is an incomplete theory that is limited to talking only about inertial reference frames. The general theory, what we take to be a complete theory of space-time, does seem to allow for this.
A proper physicist I’m sure could give you a much more complete explanation, but just remember that the special theory is essentially incomplete. It does not allow for a description of a host of physical phenomenon that the general theory does allow for.
Ah, you’re trying to apply intuitive thinking too much to a very unintuitive problem. I’m no physicist, so I don’t have an answer for you, but whether or not stopping once you hit the speed of light contradicted special relativity would be a purely mathematical problem. Using the relativistic equations of motion you would have to see whether you could coherently describe such a thing, or whether such a thing lead to impossibilities. The simple idea that “time stops” once you hit the speed of light doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about the coherence of slowing down.
As I vaguely recall some of the equations though, I believe problems do come up with “slowing down” from the speed of light, but they have more to do with energy and mass then time. I could be wrong though, and at this point I’m talking out my ass…
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
And warp drive is faster than the speed of light…wonder what Einstein would say if he knew he had been refuted?
Does anyone know what happens to matter as it approaches to the speed of light…?[/quote]
No it’s not, it affects space, not the actual velocity of the ship.
Mass increases… Couldn’t a "pseudo"black hole appear?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Meh, light speed. A bunch of muckity-muck about nothing.
What are you talking about?
Food replicators. Standard Federation technology. [/quote]
That wasn’t what I was talking about… I asked why you thought talk of “light speed” was “muckity-muck about nothing”?
[quote]MikeyKBiatch wrote:
I believe it only requires an infinite amount of energy if the object has a positive mass… since we are still searching for the higgs atm, you don’t think we could ever get to the point where we could control an object’s mass? A hundred years from now, maybe a thousand?[/quote]
That wasn’t what I had in mind, but that is an interesting thought.
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
Last i checked, the only way for an object with mass to travel at light speed is if he had infinite energy. Last i check, that’s not possible.
We might find a way around light speed (worm holes, space-time folding) but that shit will not happen in our life times or many life times to come.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light[/quote]
See my response to asusvenus. While a proper explanation would require lots of details that I can’t give, the general idea is that the special theory is essentially an incomplete theory that does not allow for a full description of many possible things. Exactly how you explain how the general theory of relativity gets around some of these problems would be a horribly complex matter that I won’t pretend to understand.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
And warp drive is faster than the speed of light…wonder what Einstein would say if he knew he had been refuted?
Does anyone know what happens to matter as it approaches the speed of light…?[/quote]
If I were you I’d quit while you’re ahead. Snide remarks about “what would Einstein say if he knew he had been refuted” are totally ignorant, since Einstein was well aware of what his own general theory of relativity implied as far as faster than light travel (and, interesting enough, time travel).
Would you like to try again? I’m curious how many more ignorant statements you can let fly. First you mock me for talking about “inertial mass”, now this?
[quote]MikeyKBiatch wrote:
I really do not know as I am not a physicist lol, but I remember reading that there is a chance they will not even find the higgs and it will shake up the current theories… either way I just don’t understand when people flat out say things are impossible when a lot of these theories sound crazy to begin with… I mean come on, a big bang? Thats nuts!!! :P[/quote]
That’s ok, neither is anyone else here.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
asusvenus wrote:
Could you lead me to the ideas of how to reach the speed of light? As it is now, traveling by the speed of light, requires an infinit amount of energy.(disregarding tachyons)
If you’re talking about reaching a destination faster than if one would travel at the speed of light, by influencing the spacetime, well that’s a whole different story, but that wasn’t what I was denying.
No need to lead you, you already said it yourself. General relativity allows for various “faster than light” travel through warping space time in various ways. This isn’t “a whole different story” as you suggest though. If one can travel between two stars in a shorter time then their own light, then one has traveled faster than light, no matter how it was done. If you’re getting hung up on some of the ideas of special relativity, like the fact that the relativistic form of mechanics seems to imply lots of impossibilities about going the speed of light, remember that the special theory is an incomplete theory that is limited to talking only about inertial reference frames. The general theory, what we take to be a complete theory of space-time, does seem to allow for this.
A proper physicist I’m sure could give you a much more complete explanation, but just remember that the special theory is essentially incomplete. It does not allow for a description of a host of physical phenomenon that the general theory does allow for.
Oh, and this is just me wondering:
Let’s say a ship does in fact reach the speed of light. How would the ship ever stop traveling when it reaches it’s destination? Since time has stopped from it’s frame of reference.
Ah, you’re trying to apply intuitive thinking too much to a very unintuitive problem. I’m no physicist, so I don’t have an answer for you, but whether or not stopping once you hit the speed of light contradicted special relativity would be a purely mathematical problem. Using the relativistic equations of motion you would have to see whether you could coherently describe such a thing, or whether such a thing lead to impossibilities. The simple idea that “time stops” once you hit the speed of light doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about the coherence of slowing down.
As I vaguely recall some of the equations though, I believe problems do come up with “slowing down” from the speed of light, but they have more to do with energy and mass then time. I could be wrong though, and at this point I’m talking out my ass… [/quote]
Yes, ultimately you’re right. I would go as far as saying that taking advantage of general relativity is the better way, as it would let the traveler stay in the same timeframe as home.
But still it doesn’t change the fact that getting there faster isn’t the same as moving faster. But that’s just semantics, and I guess it doesn’t really matter.
About time stopping. I don’t know if you misunderstoof me, but, how can the ship even start slowing down? Since a computer surely won’t function if time has stopped, it won’t be able to give the command.
Btw, what are you studying ?
[quote]asusvenus wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
And warp drive is faster than the speed of light…wonder what Einstein would say if he knew he had been refuted?
Does anyone know what happens to matter as it approaches to the speed of light…?
No it’s not, it affects space, not the actual velocity of the ship.
Mass increases… Couldn’t a "pseudo"black hole appear?[/quote]
What could it possibly mean to say that something is affecting the space around a ship but not the actual velocity of the ship?
Another good thing to point out is that at some point easy-to-understand descriptions of relativistic phenomenon break down. Both special and general relativity both mathematically describe a host of things that are difficult, if not impossible, to describe using our common stock of vocabulary like “velocity” and “travel”. The warping of space-time is one of those things, and bickering about whether or not warping space-time “counts” as traveling faster than light is a bit silly.
The real meat of physics is in the mathematical theory anyway, a theory that requires more then a little bit of interpretation. My point is that when talking about whether or not faster-than-light travel is possible, I wouldn’t get too hung up on the interpretations of the mathematics, but instead would look at the mathematics. If the generally theory makes it possible to describe travel that is faster then light, what else would you call it than faster-than-light travel?
They could be possible in theory, but in practice they are very improbable.
By the time we develop the technology (who is going to develop that sort of technology other than something like NASA, which keeps having budget cuts? Maybe CERN?), the world will be a very different place. Add increase in human population and increase in use of resources and building something of that magnitude would be very difficult.
The Hadron collider cost over 5 billion euros and took decades to perfect (and it’s still not perfect).
I can’t even begin to fathom how complexe and delicate such an act as creating worm holes could be. We do not know the consequences of a “failed opening”, we don’t know how much energy is required and so forth.
Same goes for something approaching the speed of light (or passing it).
It’s not a matter of the how you do it (theory), but of how you build it and apply it (practice).
I mean we’re still having problems with billion dollar rockets/shuttles going into space. The LHC has also had a few technical difficulties.
I just don’t see it happening.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
what else would you call it than faster-than-light travel?[/quote]
Shorter-than-light-has-to-travel-travel
Okay, that sounds pretty bad.
[quote]asusvenus wrote:
Yes, ultimately you’re right. I would go as far as saying that taking advantage of general relativity is the better way, as it would let the traveler stay in the same timeframe as home.
But still it doesn’t change the fact that getting there faster isn’t the same as moving faster. But that’s just semantics, and I guess it doesn’t really matter.
[/quote]
I’m not sure if what you’re saying about general relativity and the same time frame is really correct, but I don’t understand enough about general relativity to flesh it out.
As for whether or not part of this debate is semantics, I think so too but as I said in the post above I think it’s also taking intuitive physical interpretations of mathematical theories too seriously. For example, there are equations in special relativity that say, on the normal interpretation, that an object with mass cannot reach the speed of light. What those equations really say though is that if such and such relationships hold between certain variables, then other relationships hold between those same variables. The problem then is to figure out if given a certain physical situation the antecedent conditions apply. Since the special theory is a limited, incomplete theory the antecedent conditions sometimes don’t apply. In some cases we need the more complex theory, like general relativity, to adequately describe a situation. Hence we cannot just say “oh, but special relativity says that nothing can go the speed of light”, since those sorts of interpretations only apply when certain conditions are met.
Again, you’re trying to apply intuitive reasoning to a mathematical problem. How could it happen? I don’t know, work out the math and see. What exactly does it mean for time to stop anyway? Since we’re never experienced this, we have no idea what sort of experience it would be.
If you’re going to pursue physics you should get used to lots of weird things happening. I had lots of classmates who always had to understand things in intuitive terms and could not accept a more formal theory. Lots of times through quantum mechanics after the prof would get done some derivation of strange properties of elections someone in the class would ask “but how is that possible”? The answer always was “look at the math”.
Currently my thing is mathematical logic. I had math and physics minors as an undergrad though, which is where I learned most of my physics.
If you’re really interested in some of this stuff and can’t wait for the grad level physics classes were they’ll actually cover it in any detail, I’d check out Hans Reichenbach’s two books “The philosophy of space and time” and “The direction of time”. You probably won’t get through them without at least a little background in physics and a grasp of calculus, but in them Reichenbach first paints a good, compact picture of the special and general theories and then discusses man of the implications of the theories, like what they mean for causality, time travel, etc. They are certainly older books, but I’ve never seen any modern books that have near the coverage and clarity as his. The essential ideals of the special and general theories haven’t changed, so while Reichenbach is a little out of date he’s not incorrect.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Sloth wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Meh, light speed. A bunch of muckity-muck about nothing.
What are you talking about?
Food replicators. Standard Federation technology.
That wasn’t what I was talking about… I asked why you thought talk of “light speed” was “muckity-muck about nothing”?
[/quote]
Because I found it boring? Well, at least compared to the possiblity of food replicators becoming reality.
[quote]legendaryblaze wrote:
I can’t even begin to fathom how complexe and delicate such an act as creating worm holes could be. We do not know the consequences of a “failed opening”[/quote]
Oh we know. The pieces are already in place… Video Game News & Reviews | Engadget
It was fun while it lasted. If the headcrabs don’t get me I’ll see you around the bend. I need to stock up on my crowbar stash.