Will the FTL barrier ever be broken?

[Azale]

I have been wondering this question ever since I was a kid and my interest was piqued again when I read an Economist article about possible scientific discoveries in my lifetime.

I am definitely no scientist though, so I'm wondering what you more scientifically gifted individuals on CFC thought on the subject.

Thanks.

 

[Padma]

While I am certainly no expert, I think it is probable that it will be 'broken' at some point.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

 

[ainwood]

It already has been broken... sort-of. Cherenkov radiation is the radiation given-out when a particle moves through a medium faster than light will travel in that medium.

Note: This is not faster than the speed of light in a vacuum - light slows down in other medium (refraction).

 

[Padma]

That's one of the reasons I think it will be 'broken', to use the OP's term.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, it will only happen if enough people are exposed to high-level maths and physics, and then are able to further push our physics knowledge. So, even if you're not a 'science person', if you increase the average level of knowledge in the population, you're making it more likely.

 

[armathas]

I do not know about broken. While Cherenkov radiation does act as the poster specified the simple logistics of having enough energy on hand to propel a object of significant mass at such velocity..not to mention maintaining cohesion at such speed.

I think it will be broken by other means. Think more like a jump engine of some sort. My opinion is that it is far more feasible to simple find a way to ignore the distance between two points. Thus jumping. Why bother with traveling all the dimensional distance between point a and point b when you can simply fold space (No idea how this would be done. Wormholes?) and make the actual physical distance traveled negligible.

In my admittedly uninformed opinion the energy requirements for such a transit would be within the realm of possibility far sooner than trying to accelerate an object to superluminal speeds.

 

[Perfection]

I vote no. FTL (defined as faster then light transfer of information) impossibility appears to be a fundamental part of the universe much like conservation of energy. There are some proposed tricks out there that allow for it (wormholes, exotic particles, weird modifications to relativity etc.), but they all rely on reaching assumptions about what the universe is like.

 

[GoodGame]

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of currently unknown particles traveling faster than light, but I wouldn't try to speculate on their discovery.

 

[warpus]

Do wormholes and/or the folding of space count?

 

[Perfection]

I'd say so (provided they fulfill my definition)

 

[Zelig]

No.

The universe fails when using any model that allows for practical FTL.

 

[dutchfire]

I don't think real faster than light travel is possible (that would make Special Relativity all wrong). I don't know enough about wormholes, exotic particles and other crazy stuff.

 

[uppi]

FTL travel: No, I don't think that will ever be possible.

FTL communication: Might be possible. It's not clear, if the assumption of locality is justified in quantum mechanics, and if it was shown that quantum mechanics is non-local, there might be a way to exploit it. However so far noone so far has been able to come up with a way to test this.

 

[peter grimes]

I thought that entanglement experiments have already shown that information can travel faster than the light

 

[uppi]

I thought that entanglement experiments have already shown that information can travel faster than the light

The information travel is only one interpretation of those experiments. If there is any information transported, you cannot use it with these setups, because the entanglement effects can only be seen, when you correlate the measurements at both ends. For that you still need a classic channel.

There are other interpretations that preserve locality (but violate other assumptions). There is no way to decide between them, yet and so there is no way to know whether the assumption of locality is valid or not.

 

[SG-17]

Physically, as in a space ship acceleration to past the speed of light, I doubt it. Would not be very practical either.
However going around the speed of light by either folding space, accessing wormholes and/or subspace to relatively move fast than the speed of light then I very much think so.
If we do not at some point in our technological evolution then I believe we have failed as a species.

 

[Padma]

Indeed. The mathematics tells us that nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. (As a particle's speed increases, it's mass also increases, until at light-speed its mass is infinite. Only mass-less particles (like photons) can actually move at light-speed.) So instead of 'breaking' the barrier by going faster and faster until we exceed it, we will have to do an end-run around it.

 

[Riffraff]

Indeed. The mathematics tells us that nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light. (As a particle's speed increases, it's mass also increases, until at light-speed its mass is infinite. Only mass-less particles (like photons) can actually move at light-speed.) So instead of 'breaking' the barrier by going faster and faster until we exceed it, we will have to do an end-run around it.

I think it's a lot less confusing to only ever consider one mass (which you would call rest-mass) and use the relativistic momentum to 'explain' why it requires more energy to speed up objects at higher velocities.

If you work with a 'relativistical mass', you end up with a mass which is different depending on the frame of reference you are looking at it from - quite awkward imo.

 

[El_Machinae]

If we do not at some point in our technological evolution then I believe we have failed as a species.

It certainly makes a big difference with regards to 10,000 years from now. Either we'll have migrated out 9,500 ly from Earth, or we'll have the ability to travel much further.

This is why I advocate funding the physicists, and why I think we should be increasing the lay knowledge of physics in the population. The more intuitive we can make physics for people, the more intuitive leaps there will be.

 

[Olleus]

I agree with you Machinae, but when a considerable percentage of the population if unable to rank 1/2, 1/3 and 2/5 in order of size; should explaining relativity really be at the top of a government's educational programe?