Faster-than-Light Travel?

[Souron]

In regards to information traveling out of a black hole, it might be possible, at least according to scientific ammerica.

The idea, as I understand it is such:
Virtual particles are a way of explaining how particles seem react to things that haven't happened yet. By a meathod called quantum entanglement they comunicate information of other particles at potencially faster then light speeds. Since Hawking radiation is virtual particles, it follows that those particles can be used to get information about the particles in the black hole.

The problem is that quantum entanglement does not give any usefull information. It's just the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen but with black holes. Yes, it's information traveling faster then light, but it is compleatly useless.

 

[ChrTh]

Hawking later changed his mind about this (not that reality is dictated by a what Hawking says).

I quote Homer Simpson: "Larry Flynt is right!"

Actually, he didn't just 'change his mind', I'm pretty sure he produced a paper on the issue. Caused him to lose a bet, too.

On the original topic:
iirc, Light can go faster than light, apparently, if it passes by a large gravitional source that causes it to accelerate (like the slingshot effect they use for spacecraft). It was awhile ago since I read about it, though, so it's possible it's been denied since.

 

[Souron]

iirc, Light can go faster than light, apparently, if it passes by a large gravitional source that causes it to accelerate (like the slingshot effect they use for spacecraft). It was awhile ago since I read about it, though, so it's possible it's been denied since.

Nope can't happen. The speed of light is constant.

If a spacecraft were traveling at near light speeds and tried to slingshot, it would be desopointed to find that the acceleration effect is not as great as it would be at slower speeds. Light is at a maxed out speed so it won't accelerate at all.

 

[Stile]

What about warp drive? By shrinking space in front of a space craft, and expanding space behind it, one could travel faster than light would normally travel across some distance without the unfortuate side effect of everyone being much older when you come back.

 

[Perfection]

Actually, he didn't just 'change his mind', I'm pretty sure he produced a paper on the issue. Caused him to lose a bet, too.

You say "actually" like it's a correction, but only provide a couple of minor details.

Such bahavior is rude!

On the original topic:
iirc, Light can go faster than light, apparently, if it passes by a large gravitional source that causes it to accelerate (like the slingshot effect they use for spacecraft). It was awhile ago since I read about it, though, so it's possible it's been denied since.

That's bull

What about warp drive? By shrinking space in front of a space craft, and expanding space behind it, one could travel faster than light would normally travel across some distance without the unfortuate side effect of everyone being much older when you come back.

These require highly exotic items such as negative nergy to be workable. You can't make a warp drive under using currently accepted phyiscs.

 

[blargh]

What about warp drive? By shrinking space in front of a space craft, and expanding space behind it, one could travel faster than light would normally travel across some distance without the unfortuate side effect of everyone being much older when you come back.

Maybe... interesting very offical linky

 

[col]

Not in this universe

 

[Samson]

I was reading an interesting articale about how you could get information to travel between 2 points in less time than light could in a vacum. It was new scientist, but I cannot find the link right now. I shall try and explain it as well as I can.

Gravitons and one special type of neutrino are "closed" strings, ie. are loops rather than linear. They are not bound to our brane and so can travel outside of what we know as 4 dimensional space.

If (say) 5 dimensional space is curved then these particales could travel between 2 points on our brane by travelling a shorter distance than we would have to. So we could emmit normal neutrenos in the uk towards the centre of the earth. Some of these could spontaniously turn into the special type of closed string, and travel by a shorter route through 5 dimensional space. Some of these may then spontaniously turn back into normal neutrinos and be detected in australia. If 5 dimensional space just happens to be curved in the correct way then these could be detected in a shorter time than light in a vacum would have taken. I think they said that because the earth is rotating you could detect them before they were emmited.

I am far from an expert, and have probably got it wrong, but this is how I understood it.

 

[El_Machinae]

The truth is: we don't really know yet. We suspect 'no', but we shouldn't assume such.

As long as there are people who get their kicks working on this problem, we might as well let them. Because a scientist who is working on something he likes is much more useful than a scientist conscripted into something he doesn't like.

Breakthroughs can happen because some motivated kook was actually correct.

 

[Truronian]

Or if you're a tachyon:

Slower than light travel?

So, is it possible?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

As far as I understand, FTL transfer of information (including travel) violates causality according to general relativity. Which one do you want to throw out?

(There's a long and brilliant explanation involved using distorted spacetime cones here.)

 

[deo]

So, if i understood correctly, traveling faster than light isnt possible but reaching point B from point A faster than the light is possible (somehow) right

 

[El_Machinae]

It might be possible. And if we figure it out, we'll probably be quite happy.

 

[the mormegil]

It's possible, though we are no where near to doing it (assuming it is possible) and current theories allow no room for faster than light travel (at least for 'normal' matter like us anyway).

 

[Shaihulud]

There are some form of interactions such as quantum teleportation that have been mentioned, however it seems that no transfer of normal information can take place at faster than light speed. This phenomenon seems unique in the physical world as no other forms of interaction that are faster than light can be observed to take place.

 

[Perfection]

So, if i understood correctly, traveling faster than light isnt possible but reaching point B from point A faster than the light is possible (somehow) right

Not by our current knowledge of physics.

 

[Lotus49]

Option G: SpaceTime Fabric
Contrary to popular belief, Einstein never claimed that it was impossible to go faster than light, it was assumed from his equations. He however has no objections to accepting that spacetime fabric can travel faster than light. It is hypothesized that at the creation of the universe, spacetime fabric travelled faster than light. Therefore, if we could bend spacetime, we could travel faster than light. Miguel Alcubierre theorized that it would be possible to "warp" spacetime by shrinking spacetime in front of you and expanding it behind you. Mitchell Pfenning worked out the math involved and discovered that you could only warp a small amount (1/100th the size of an atom) and the energy required is 10 billion times that of entire universe.

...using what level of technology? Current??

 

[ChrTh]

You say "actually" like it's a correction, but only provide a couple of minor details.

Such bahavior is rude!

Followed immediately by

That's bull

How can you fail to maintain consistency within a single post?

EDIT: link of a report of Hawking's presentation. Haven't found a 'formal' link yet.

 

[greenpeace]

Actually it is believed that information travels faster than the speed of light. take this for example:

there are two stations 2 light years apart. I throw a green ball at one and a red ball at the other. Once they reach one of the stations then if I, say, get a green ball than I know that, faster than the speed of light, that the other ball is red. Isn't that fascinating! It is possible to know about objects two light years away. But it gets even more amazing..

There was an actual experiment were we transported one atom to a place one mile away, how it was done you may ask, well..

atoms A and B are similar in every way and are a mile apart. I want to teleport atom C to location A (from B). What was done was that all the information from atom B was transferred to B (thus destroying the atom) and what happened was fascinating! Atom a became atom C thus making it teleport to location A (faster than the speed of light).

 

[Paradigne]

FTL in normal space is probably NOT possible. Getting from point A to point B in a shorter time than light can is highly probable...