While tachyons are a theory, we do have proof of particles moving faster then light in a medium. this creates what known as Čerenkov radiation. This is only true outside of a vacuum, So hypothetically faster then light travel is possible..
So, in the future warp "gates" might be real, creating a tunnel in space to fly through. who knows with our current limited understanding of the universe as a whole.
Čerenkov radiation is when particles (electrons, I believe) move faster than the speed of light of the material. That is, the speed of light in the material when the refraction index is taken into account. Once again, the particles aren't moving faster than c, the speed of light in a vaccum.
| |
Generally speaking it is Protons, but that is not a rule.
Čerenkov radiation happens when beta c(speed of particle) of the particle exceeds c/n (speed of radiation). Basically the particle is exceeding the speed of light within that medium. So if the medium is not a vacuum, a particle can move faster then light. the problem is of course known space is a vacuum. | |
Garthor wrote:
In all fairness, part of the reason why Galileo got screwed over was also because he was mocking the pope. Yeah that's true. Forgot about him mocking the pope. | |
GM Productions wrote:
Yeah that's true. Forgot about him mocking the pope. "You made-a the pope look-a like an idiot!" [looks up] "SMITE THEM!" [waits] "He's-a cookin'-a something up." | |
Jtgibson wrote:
GM Productions wrote: Hah hah - Family Guy. But all Galileo got was a house arrest :\. | |
No. We already went over this. How about an analogy:
Let's say the speed of an awesome high-five is 20 miles per hour. Now, we get a line of people twenty-five miles long, and pass a high-five down the line of them. First person high-fives second person, second person turns and high-fives the next person, and so on. A high-five would, theoretically, travel the 20 miles in one hour. However, the awesome high-five is not in transit the whole time: when somebody receives a high-five, they must turn around to the next person and then high-five them. So, say, it takes two hours for the high-five to go 20 miles. This does not mean that the high-fives are being made at a wimpy 10 miles per hour: each high-five would still travel at 20 miles per hour, it's just that there is time where the high-five is waiting on one person to start the next high-five. The high-five never slows down, it just goes full speed, then stops on contact until the next instance of the high-five starts. | |
Things are ripped apart at intense speeds, for instance, meteorites going through the atmosphere. But, if we -did- travel at the speed of light, we would turn into light itself. But this is based on the current theory of whatever, it could be completely wrong. Or not.
| |
If I was travelling going faster than the speed of light, I imagine the car and me would be turned into energy.
| |
Wow - I make the most talkative topics...
Anyway - I guess we WOULD dissolve, but when we dissolve would we go back into time? Eh, I guess we'll haev to wait a few hundred years if humanity makes it to see if we can go faster than light. | |
A better analogy is light is current c. and the medium is a resister that resists/slow's down the current. the particle p however is able to pass this barrier without being resisted. (this is cheating as it never go's faster then light consent)
in any case what I'm trying to get out is, general relativity and quantum physics contradict one another. we can't create one cohesive model of how it all works together. Einstein himself rejected quantum physics manly because of how causality works in relativity and does not work the same with quantum physics. So in truth, relativity as we know it could be all wrong. I think a unified theory might not happen and in fact relativity as we know it will be proved incorrect (but close enough for everyday stuff), but as it stands today we need both relativity and it's counter part quantum mechanics. | |
Correction: If you were going faster than the speed of light, you would have consumed yourself and the car (and the rest of the universe) in order to summon the energy to accelerate to that speed. =)
| |
Alright, no, you're wrong. Meteorites passing through the atmosphere burn up because of friction caused by entering the atmosphere. The only time something travels at high speeds is when it accelerates too fast. When something accelerates past the G-forces it can stand, it might rip apart, but that I'm not sure.
Also, it's a useless question to ponder what would happen to anything (with a real, non-zero mass) travelling at the speed of light. There isn't enough energy in the universe to do so, so it can never happen. The question is like asking what's north of the north pole. There just isn't an answer because the question makes no sense. | |
Anything travelling at the speed of light, meaning photons and other particles with zero rest mass, do not experience time. We wouldn't go back in time, but we wouldn't go forward in time either. Time would stand still. Also, as I already stated, the question about what would happen to us at light speed is a completely useless question, as it doesn't make sense.
| |
That isn't fair saying it is useless. Almost everything we have learned is nothing more then theories we can prove right. There may come a time when, something we thought right, is proven wrong and works in a completely different way we never thought possible.
| |
That has already happened, but, crazy as it is, these theories have had the evidence out of favor with them. Save for the most extreme cases (i.e. the insides of black holes and the beginning of the universe) relativity predicts everything correctly. When a quantum theory of gravity is formulated, there is no reason to believe that it will show us any way that one could reach superluminal, or luminal, speeds without an infinite amount of energy.
| |
To clarify: light "slowing down" through a medium isn't light ACTUALLY slowing down. It just hits an atom, is absorbed, and is later released again.