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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers


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Just a real quick and basic poll.
#5910568 - 07/28/06 11:15 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm going to go out on a limb and admit to reading alot of science fiction. Many (Almost all?) SF stories take for granted the assumption that faster-than-light travel is possible and that humans (or someone else!) will eventually find ways to move between parts of the Universe quickly.
I'm kind of curious as to what the people here think of this, in a realistic manner. I have to say I really dont think its possible, for this reason. There are alot of stars out there in our galaxy, and I'm a firm believer that since theres life here, there MUST be life around one of those stars. I absolutely do not see how it is not possible. And there are hundreds of thousands of GALAXIES! And we dont see any body from anywhere else here. Why not? Surely someone, somewhere, in that almost INFINITE space has figured out how. I would think if its possible, we'd see someone around here. You know? I dont know alot about the physics side of things, but it could very well be that its just not possible.
But I hate to say anything isnt possible, because it seems like if you give humans enough time to work on a problem, we can figure it out. We seem to have a knack for figuring out new technologies and branching out in new directions.
But yeah. Poll. What do YOU think? Just 2 questions to keep things simple.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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daba
Stranger


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5915668 - 07/30/06 05:14 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Faster than light particles are called tachyons, and they are proven not to exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
See:
Quote:
For ordinary matter, this equation shows that E increases with increasing velocity, becoming arbitrarily large as v approaches c, the speed of light. If m is imaginary, on the other hand, the denominator of the fraction must also be imaginary to keep the energy a real number (since a pure imaginary divided by another pure imaginary is real). The denominator will be imaginary if the quantity inside the square root is negative, which only happens if v is larger than c. Therefore, just as tardyons are forbidden to break the light-speed barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below light speed.
In layman's terms, the energy on that wikipedia article is E. You can't have imaginary energy, so if the speed of your particle, or tachyon, v, is greater than the speed of light, c, then the ratio v2/c2 is greater than one. As a result, the denominator is negative and you have a square root of a negative number, which results in an imaginary number.
So no, it is not possible.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: daba]
#5915901 - 07/30/06 06:24 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm not so pessimistic.
Perhaps faster-than-light travel is not possible in the ordinary way in which objects and light travel, but perhaps there is a shotcut which in effect equates to faster-than-light-travel, but is not.
You might think of distorting either time or space to get from A to B.
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iateshaggy
i haxor 360s


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Asante]
#5916539 - 07/30/06 09:14 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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in order to go faster than light, wouldn't u need something taster than light to propel u?
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Ythan
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5916768 - 07/30/06 10:11 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Saw "quick basic poll" in the S&T forum, thought we were talking something like this:
10 $i = 1 20 INPUT "Poll option " + $i, $p1 30 $i = $i + 1 40 GOTO 20
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Ythan]
#5917047 - 07/30/06 11:29 PM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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i started using BASICA when i was about 5yo :P
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: daba]
#5917709 - 07/31/06 04:16 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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> So no, it is not possible.
Assuming that relativity is correct (that the speed of light is constant).
> Do you think faster-than-light travel is possible?
Depends upon what you mean by travel. We already have experiments that show waves can propagate faster than the speed of light, but not with information (a very important point).
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers


Registered: 03/06/03
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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Seuss]
#5918272 - 07/31/06 11:27 AM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Possible in a travel sense, whether for humans or some type of machine?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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Re: Just a real quick and basic poll. [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5918702 - 07/31/06 02:26 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'm fairly sure Einstein was correct about the speed of light being the universal speed limit. However, I do believe it's possible to get around the speed of light. But I don't believe we'll figure out a plausible way to do that within my lifetime.
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