[RD] Will we ever travel faster than light speed?

[caketastydelish]

I'm not buying that we won't. If you showed people from 1,000 years ago what we have today, they would find it indistinguishable from magic. You can argue that "it violates the laws of physics" or whatever, but that's without taking into consideration this all from what we know now. What we know 1,000 years in the future could be light years ahead (pardon the pun) of what we know now. I am almost 100% sure we won't live to see FTL speed travel ourselves. But this is about the future of humanity, not just us.

Technology is also accelerating extremely fast in this information age. Again, I don't think it will happen in our lifetimes. But so many things that are possible now were thoroughly impossible even as recent as 100 years ago.

 

[brennan]

I'd like to be proven wrong, but i'm gonna say no to FTL.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I like to think we'll figure it out or at least a way to go around it. (i.e. space folding, subspace tunnels or some other method that's currently beyond our understanding.)

Spoiler :

*Obligatory Spaceballs Reference*

 

[El_Machinae]

Here's my thinking. Existential risks to the progress of humanity make it less likely that we will ever find out the answer to the question in the opening post. By taking action to reduce the odds of existential risks, you're buying time for the science and technologies to occur that we all kind of dream of

 

[Phrossack]

Gods, I hope not.

If such tech becomes common, like FTL drives on every ordinary freighter as in most spacefaring sci fi, all it will take is a single terrorist or unhappy and suicidal person to destroy a continent or even a planet in a 9/11-style attack.

There could be no defense against FTL weaponry.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If we have space freighters, we won't need hyperdrives to take out continents. Dropping an ordinary and suitably large rock in from the belt will do the same job.

I don't think we can go faster than light ever. I do think that given enough time we'll render it a moot question through space time manipulation. I expect by that time we won't be human any more, rendering the we in the question of 'will we ever reach light speed?' a moot point as well.

 

[El_Machinae]

There's already no defence against nukes, keep in mind. Your only hope is preventing the infrastructure and causes of the launch.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Geeze thanks for reminding us we live under fear of nuclear holocaust debbie downer

 

[Hygro]

We will when it’s time.

 

[Zkribbler]

People who say something is impossible are usually interrupted by someone else doing it.

Assuming we can avoid the imminent collapse of civilization brought about by climate change , a collision with a massive asteroid , an eruption of a super volcano , a worldwide pandemic , or the re-election of Donald Trump , then I say yes!

Exceeding the speed of light doesn't necessarily require going fast.
We could use wormholes, or like John Carter in the Princess of Mars using noxious fumes to instantaneously transport us, or improbability drives.

 

[Phrossack]

If we have space freighters, we won't need hyperdrives to take out continents. Dropping an ordinary and suitably large rock in from the belt will do the same job.

I don't think we can go faster than light ever. I do think that given enough time we'll render it a moot question through space time manipulation. I expect by that time we won't be human any more, rendering the we in the question of 'will we ever reach light speed?' a moot point as well.

Towing an asteroid may be a bit more noticeable and preventable than FTL acceleration. But it is one of the two reasons I'm terrified of asteroid mining.

As for nuclear weapons, not every truck driver has one, at least.

 

[red_elk]

FTL travel doesn't directly violate the laws of physics, IIRC. The main problem with it is that travelling faster than light is equivalent to time travel, according to modern physics. Even sending information faster than light makes it theoretically possible to talk with future self, which is considered paradoxical.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Poke a tiny hole into a fiber optic cable and blow into it. Lightspeed + spitwad velocity.

 

[Hehehe]

As far as I know, all the FTL travel methods (Alcubierre drive, opening up wormholes) require hypothetical matter which has never been observed or proven to exist. As much as I'd like to believe that we could exceed the speed of light, I doubt it. Barring some unforeseen scientific advance, it seems like a no-go.

Perhaps the more interesting question is, could we colonize the galaxy traveling much less than the speed of light? There was a paper which suggested that, given the huge amount of planets in the universe, it is very likely that there would have been intelligent life out there. And that, given the age of the universe, this intelligent life would have had more than enough time to colonize the entire galaxy, even if they were traveling only a small fraction of light speed. Yet try as we might, there is no sign of anyone else in this universe.

 

[Michkov]

Why is this in the Off Topic section?

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'd say no on traveling faster than light.


What if the universe had no limit to how fast light could go?
Or if there was no time dilation for objects approaching light speed?

If there is an almighty creator, I suspect that the speed of light was established for a very important reason.

At least the universe has some limits on how large things can get.

**Edit**
Oh right, time dilation and a limit on the speed of light enable everyone to experience the same laws of physics no matter where they are and how fast they are going.
Things would get really weird without that time dilation.

 

[brennan]

From the point of view of light, light travels infinitely fast.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

There’s no need to. Suspended animation is the key. Much more plausible.

 

[caketastydelish]

Please elaborate on what that means.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Very high velocity, when nearing the speed of light, distorts space-time. The faster you move, the more time gets "accelerated" for things standing still around you, and the space around you gets "flattened" as well. At the speed of light, there's no more "time" and no more "space".

A photon moves at the speed of light. That means that the photons which are leaving the sun takes 8 minute to reach your eye when you look at them. If the sun would magically disappear, you will still see it during 8 minutes. However, from the photon's point of view, that whole distance was travelled instantly. And if you look at Andromeda Galaxy in a telescope, the photons you'll see have taken 2.55 million years to reach your retina. But to those photons point of view, it happened instantly as well.

As such, the inability to move the speed of light is not what prevents us to travel far, it only makes the return trip quite problematic because everything you knew which stayed at home has aged faster than you, if it still exists.