Gil Hamilton wrote:Me, I'm just kinda disillusioned. All my old science fiction lied to me! We should be on the Moon and Mars in a variety of ways, the Discovery should already be on it's way to Jupiter, we should be beginning to fight the Forever War with the Taurans, and a variety of other things that failed to live up to reality.
On topic, probably not, but there is no harm dreaming, eh?
I'm kind of glad to be skipping the Forever War. I wasn't too jazzed by the society he returned to the first time. The one with the Shakespeare style clothes and makeup on guys.
By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
Travelling at c is impossible, but there is nothing saying going faster than c is against physics. Though really I don't expect FTL in my lifetime or my children's or thier children's.
It will take a whole new understanding of physics to get there and some funky tech and power requirements, but I hope that some day it may be real.
I don't believe in saying something is impossible until it is actually proven to be so. Right now we have little to go on and it may just happen be it Alcubierre warp drive, wormholes or what have you, just don't expect it anytime soon.
When you say FTL, do you mean where the ship is actually traveling at speeds faster than light, or do you mean if a ship is effectively traveling FTL, as in the case of a wormhole?
Right now, we can't truly close the door on wormholes.
I have an interesting idea; say you have a civilization with all the power of several galaxies at their disposal. Would such a civilization, with complete understanding of physics, actually be able to change the laws of physics in certain areas?
Oh and on the "NASA engineers predict only .01C in 5 centuries, I think that is being overly pessimistic. It seems almost like some shipbuilder in 1800 predicting that sea travel will only cross the atlantic in 3 weeks or more in the year 2300, or when even that one Russian professor who thought about space travel in the early 20th century thought that humans wouldn't travel in space until 2017.
Oh, and on multi-generation ships, I can not imagine any body who would risk their lives and the lives of their descendants on such an impossible voyage. Think of how expensive it would be, and difficult, to maintain a ship for hundreds of years in interstellar space, without the political structure inside the colony not dissolving into chaos?
FTL travel is not possible, according to the rules we know. But what span of the rules have we tested as yet? Where do the 'holes', the discrepancies start to appear? Theoretically, time travel is possible, given the right circumstances, so why not FTL? I tend to not rule something out entirely... Given the right circumstances, a photon may be slowed to walking speeds, or even stopped entirely, and then released to move on later. That was unthinkable a mere 20 years ago. Who knows what we'll know in 20 years? In 200? In 2000? As they say on Discovery Channel, "The Golden Age of science is now"...
I believe that an object with mass can travel less than the speed of light, faster than c, but not at c, correct me if I'm wrong. If mass is aded to an object travelling at c, I would think it would decelerate to loser than c. I'm confused.
Autochton wrote:But what span of the rules have we tested as yet?
Alot. Haven't you ever heard of a particle accelerator? Have you ever heard of math?
Theoretically, time travel is possible, given the right circumstances,
Bullshit and irrevelant
so why not FTL?
Yeah, and monopoles are theoretically possible, so FTL must be possible too.
Given the right circumstances, a photon may be slowed to walking speeds, or even stopped entirely, and then released to move on later. That was unthinkable a mere 20 years ago.
Even if that's true, SO FUCKING WHAT! Scientist have known for decades that light propogates at different speeds in differend mediums. How does that relate to FTL travel?
Who knows what we'll know in 20 years? In 200? In 2000?
We'll probably know that FTL travel is impossible.
As they say on Discovery Channel, "The Golden Age of science is now"...
People have been saying that for decades if not centuries.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:I believe that an object with mass can travel less than the speed of light, faster than c, but not at c, correct me if I'm wrong. If mass is aded to an object travelling at c, I would think it would decelerate to loser than c. I'm confused.
Speed is not the issue here, acceleration is. Nothing can accelerate beyond the speed of light because the energy required is infinate. Energy however is not needed for speed within a vacuum. Think of the speed of light as a brick wall. You can travel on either side of it, but you can't go through it.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:I believe that an object with mass can travel less than the speed of light, faster than c, but not at c, correct me if I'm wrong. If mass is aded to an object travelling at c, I would think it would decelerate to loser than c. I'm confused.
Speed is not the issue here, acceleration is. Nothing can accelerate beyond the speed of light because the energy required is infinate. Energy however is not needed for speed within a vacuum. Think of the speed of light as a brick wall. You can travel on either side of it, but you can't go through it.
Didnt some say that about the sound barrier?
That aside, We cannot say what will be possible in the future because no one can see the future. 2000 years ago no one would have seriously thought that people would go from one side of the planet to the other in flying machines, the technology didnt exist, nor the knowledge.
It may be that FTL is impossible, but I would not be so arrogant as to think that what we know now is the apex of kowledge .
I won't rule FTL travel out, but I will rule out any FTL travel in the next hundred years at the least. It won't even matter worth a damn until we get something better than chemical propulsion for STL.
Stuart Mackey wrote:Didnt some say that about the sound barrier?
No, not at all. Bullets and rockets exceeded the sound barrier long before Chuck Yeager's historic flight. The real technological challenge was discovering the physics of shockwave drag and designing a craft that could withstand it and be large enough to carry a pilot.
2000 years ago no one would have seriously thought that people would go from one side of the planet to the other in flying machines, the technology didnt exist, nor the knowledge.
Birds, bats and flying insects existed then didn't they? Man knew flight was possible because he could observe other species do it. You are confusing technological limitations with the laws of physics.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Let's put this another way: every technological feat we have ever accomplished before has been accomplished by Nature first. Flight? Birds and bees were doing it for millions of years before we did. Space travel? Sorry, ordinary rocks have been doing that for billions of years. Supersonic flight? Ejecta from a volcano, not to mention asteroids. Nuclear fission? There's a natural fission reactor somewhere (I think it's Oslo). Nuclear fusion? Stars have been doing it for billions of years.
But FTL travel? In all out observations, we have not observed any example of the universe, in all its transcendent glory, accomplishing this once in its 15 billion year existence. It is hardly arrogant to think it is impossible; no, on the contrary, I say that it is incredibly arrogant to say that it must be possible just because we humans are so damned smart.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:Let's put this another way: every technological feat we have ever accomplished before has been accomplished by Nature first. Flight? Birds and bees were doing it for millions of years before we did. Space travel? Sorry, ordinary rocks have been doing that for billions of years. Supersonic flight? Ejecta from a volcano, not to mention asteroids. Nuclear fission? There's a natural fission reactor somewhere (I think it's Oslo). Nuclear fusion? Stars have been doing it for billions of years.
But FTL travel? In all out observations, we have not observed any example of the universe, in all its transcendent glory, accomplishing this once in its 15 billion year existence. It is hardly arrogant to think it is impossible; no, on the contrary, I say that it is incredibly arrogant to say that it must be possible just because we humans are so damned smart.
Well the points you make are all quite correct. The question of FTL is one that may well be impossible. However, I am not willing to beleive that a means of travel from one star system to another in a efficiant manner is impossible, as we simply do not know what the state of technology will be in 200 years from now, or 1000 years. What I think is arrogant is to presume that we are at the height of our abilties now which would rule out such a development in the future.
I do know that it will not be some trekkie wetdream called warpdrive however.
Stuart Mackey wrote:Well the points you make are all quite correct. The question of FTL is one that may well be impossible. However, I am not willing to beleive that a means of travel from one star system to another in a efficiant manner is impossible, as we simply do not know what the state of technology will be in 200 years from now, or 1000 years. What I think is arrogant is to presume that we are at the height of our abilties now which would rule out such a development in the future. I do know that it will not be some trekkie wetdream called warpdrive however.
Who said we were presuming to be at the height of our abilities? Our abilities will continue to grow, but they will grow within the limits of the universe's physical laws.
What I'm saying that it's more arrogant to presume that our abilities will eventually grow so limitless that we can eventually accomplish that which the entire universe has failed to accomplish in 15 billion years.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
It's also arrogant to assume we have observed everything in the universe and know for certain that nature cannot do something because we say so.
Tachyons for example at least theoretically go faster than light, and as our understanding of the universe grows we may make new discoveries about this too, it can't just be dismissed for certain for all time.
All members of the Imperial Redshirt Troopers are expected to die horribly for their Empire!
Go, and get killed in the most pointless way imaginable!
Imperial Federation wrote:It's also arrogant to assume we have observed everything in the universe and know for certain that nature cannot do something because we say so.
We have observed many things that go close to the speed of light, but never past it.
Tachyons for example at least theoretically go faster than light
A tachyon is simply the name that you give to something that goes faster than light. Having a term for something doesn't indicate its existance. Moreover, has I had said before, it's ACCELERATION that matters. An object cannot be ACCELERATED beyond the speed of light. Why is it that you people can't seem to comprehend this?
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
Imperial Federation wrote:It's also arrogant to assume we have observed everything in the universe and know for certain that nature cannot do something because we say so.
Tachyons for example at least theoretically go faster than light, and as our understanding of the universe grows we may make new discoveries about this too, it can't just be dismissed for certain for all time.
Thing is that laws we do know about can hinder these new discoveries. If Tachyons do exist and we can use them, then they won't be used for FTL comms since they still break the laws of causality and passing info at FTL.
Imperial Federation wrote:It's also arrogant to assume we have observed everything in the universe and know for certain that nature cannot do something because we say so.
We have observed many things that go close to the speed of light, but never past it.
Fine, but I'm saying we can't have observed EVERYTHING, especially considering we haven't been looking for that long.
Tachyons for example at least theoretically go faster than light
A tachyon is simply the name that you give to something that goes faster than light. Having a term for something doesn't indicate its existance. [/quote]
Yeah, but there is a possibility that such a thing might exist but we haven't found it yet.
Moreover, has I had said before, it's ACCELERATION that matters. An object cannot be ACCELERATED beyond the speed of light. Why is it that you people can't seem to comprehend this?
With what we know now, you're right, based on our current knowledge it's impossible, but it doesn't mean it never, ever will be.
All members of the Imperial Redshirt Troopers are expected to die horribly for their Empire!
Go, and get killed in the most pointless way imaginable!
Tachyons for example at least theoretically go faster than light
A tachyon is simply the name that you give to something that goes faster than light. Having a term for something doesn't indicate its existance. Moreover, has I had said before, it's ACCELERATION that matters. An object cannot be ACCELERATED beyond the speed of light. Why is it that you people can't seem to comprehend this?
Who's talking about accelerating to lightspeed?
Wormholes are still seen as viable, albeit, way ahead of our technical expertise. You can go FTL yet not accelerate anywhere near that speed since it is a distortion in space-time. Same with warping the space around you like Alcubierre said.
Only other alternative is inertialess or I should really say near inertialess drives. Inertia is still something that may be altered as a property of matter, but then if this fabled inertialess field were made, sod all would work on the ship since inertia makes the world go round.
But I think trying to fly at FTL is never going to happen without finding another plane of existence that allows FTL like hyperspace which may be possible using M-theory, but don't expect it to happen. Wormholes are to me the only way I can see that are realistic.
Darth Wong wrote:There's a natural fission reactor somewhere (I think it's Oslo).
I believe that there's one in South Africa.
"I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."
-- James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) Scottish physicist. In a letter to C. H. Cay, 5 January 1865.
In E space, (Einstien)the faster you go, the more massive you become. The more massive you become, the more energy it takes to further accelerate you.Eventualy, there isn't enough energy in the universe, much less the galaxy, to boost your velocity higher. To attain C, you will become infinitly massive. Also, the faster you go, the slower time passes for you. (Tau factor, twin pardox)Time will stop passing for you. Traveling faster than C, requires MORE than an infinite amount of energy.Inherantly impossilble, by definition.
Now, about black holes. All black holes are the same size. 1 point. (As such, they do not exsist in E space) The more mass, the larger the event horizon, or point of no return. Well before you reach the event horizon, the gravitational shear, from tidal forces, will rip you to quarks, and possibly to subquarks!
You can go through as juice, but Not as an orange!
As for wormholes, they are, by nature, so unstable, (like the higher transuranic elements) that there life is measured in billionths of a second. Further more, the larger a wormhole, the less stable it is. Anything that is big enough to go through, will not exsist long enough to be observed, much less gone through.
All these mathmatical models, claiming that time and FTL travel, (The same thing realy) are possible, only happen in the realm of the subatomicly small, or close to infinitly massive scale.
Every black hole we know of, by definition, is a quasar. Get close enough to one of those, (sorry, TWO of those) move them both to a third location,(without being fried by radiation, or torn asunder by gravity) at a predetermined distance, get them spinning at an unbelievable RPM, with their axis of rotation parralel, and 90 degres from each others presence, and travel through the very center of the two. (like the brushes in a car wash)
Or, get two cylinders of degenerate matter, (neutronium)and spin them the same way. By the way, how do you work neutronium? Hammer and chisel are out.
Well fuck, if I knew it was so easy, I'd gotten two.
Some things, like solid matter at 1meg degres F, just won't happen no matter what out tech level is. We are NEVER, going to be able to manipulate nuetronium, or remove a singularity from the center of a quasar. Matter just won't take the forces needed. Nor will "Force fields" either. See Master Wong's shields explanation. The motor will NEVER apply more power to the wheels than the motor MOUNTS will take.
I realy wish it weren't so. Even if humanity is alone, I'd still like to see what's out there.
Hmmmmmm.
"It is happening now, It has happened before, It will surely happen again."
Oldest member of SD.net, not most mature.
Brotherhood of the Monkey
