Light Speed Travel Theory

Vicarius Filii Dei · Oct 7th, 2004 9:49 AM

As is stated here: http://armageddononline.tripod.com/aliens.htm ,

i quote:

Accelerating to the speed of light would require infinite energy, which is impossible.

Also stated here: http://armageddononline.tripod.com/science.htm ,

i quote:

If the 1 trillion degrees that is produced is sufficient, some calculations say that infinite energy would be released from the collision.

So to accelerate to the speed of light, infinite energy is needed, and if the calculations that were made from scientific experiments should be correct, this may somehow form some basis on how light speed travel can be attained.

I mean, in theory, if this 'power' can somehow be harnessed or 'trained', maybe using some kind of vaccum or electromagnetic force, or burning up the energy before it is released into the atmosphere, light speed travel may be obtained??

Just an observation, what do you think?

**Keeblergiant** · Oct 7th, 2004 12:50 PM

But, the infinite energy produced by a quantum vacuum collapse is only infinite with an infinite amount of time. In order to break the light speed barrier, we would need an infinite amount of energy in a finite time. And besides, the collapse of the quantum vacuum goes against Dirac field theory...

***dutchie*** · Oct 8th, 2004 1:53 AM

Keeblergiant, are you some kind of scientist?!? You seem to have more than average knowledge of the advanced sciences...

***lazserus*** · Oct 8th, 2004 1:07 PM

Yet leaves comments expecting the rest of the population to have the same knowledge.

**Donsun** · Oct 8th, 2004 2:17 PM

Originally Posted by dutchie

Keeblergiant, are you some kind of scientist?!? You seem to have more than average knowledge of the advanced sciences...

No i don't think he is a scientist he just stayed at a holiday inn express last night.

**Keeblergiant** · Oct 9th, 2004 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by dutchie

Keeblergiant, are you some kind of scientist?!? You seem to have more than average knowledge of the advanced sciences...

Naw, but I hope to be someday...

**Zach** · Oct 9th, 2004 7:07 AM

Originally Posted by Keeblergiant

Naw, but I hope to be someday...

Exactly, science just kicks

<-----Wants to be in some kind of science too

**Donsun** · Oct 9th, 2004 2:42 PM

Originally Posted by Keeblergiant

Naw, but I hope to be someday...

Din't you get my joke it was a good one? Science is cool good luck. Stay in school.

**Zach** · Oct 9th, 2004 6:05 PM

yh Donsun, got your joke, made me chuckle.

Yay, 100 posts!

***lazserus*** · Oct 9th, 2004 10:05 PM

:kngt: I didn't get it.

**Keeblergiant** · Oct 10th, 2004 1:09 AM

Din't you get my joke it was a good one? Science is cool good luck. Stay in school.

Yeah man, I liked it. I even showed my friend, but he didn't seem to care (apparently internet message boards aren't as interesting as the MGS3 demo

)

**Zach** · Oct 10th, 2004 6:41 AM

lazserus,
There are a couple commercials like this. You will see some random pedestrian walk into a building full of like rocket scientists. They will all panick and try to find a solution for a problem. This guy will just walk in and say something really smart, and the rest of them will be like, who are you and such. God, this is hard to explaiin. They ask him if hes like an engineer or something and he says no. But i did stay at the Holiday Inn last night.
NOTE: the commercial is much funnier. This is just a lame example.

***dutchie*** · Oct 11th, 2004 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by lazserus

Yet leaves comments expecting the rest of the population to have the same knowledge.

Laz, you impatient man... I was WAITING for an answer...

Never mind - another chance to have a party throwing tomatoes gone to waste...

**Einstein700** · Oct 14th, 2006 10:45 PM

How does one come to that conclusion that infinite amounts of energy are required?

I figure that breaking the light barrier would be just the same as breaking the sound barrier and totally possible, with a similiar effect happening with the light as it does with sound. Instead of a sonic boom you would probably get some type of visual flash and a delay in whatever you are seeing relative to the real physical position of whatever is travelling f.t.l.

Originally Posted by wiki

The Sound Barrier was once believed to be a physical barrier preventing large objects from traveling faster than sound.

***liberdave*** · Oct 15th, 2006 1:29 AM

Originally Posted by Einstein700

How does one come to that conclusion that infinite amounts of energy are required?

Causality.

Say you are trying to push a friend who is tied up in a wheeled office chair across a bloody basketball court. Say the basketball court is as long as the entire universe, and you start pushing him. Your goal is to push him faster than the speed of light (for now on light = 'c', while FTL = '>c') So you start pushing him. Electrical pulses fire off in your brain, to send pulses through your nervous system, to flex your leg muscles to push off the bloody floor, to exert force through your skeletal frame, to push on your skin, that pushes the chair, that pushes the wheels, that pushes your screaming friend across a macabre plane. So, if you are going to to get him to go >c, then that whole process is going to have to go >c. Since you cannot get the fist step to even approach c, how can the rest of it even hope to? For sake of argument, let's say that your brain DID fire off the pulses @ c, you would experience loss as the pulse traveled through the synapse, the synapse is not a perfect conductor. Nothing can. There are no perfect motors. All motors have at least a small % of inefficeincy. So now apply this to a rocket, the USS Enterprise, our poor and tied up friend, or whatever.

NOW, with this in mind, if you had a power source with infinite energy, then fuck the motor's inefficiency, you can just pour enough power in it to compensate for the loss. OH, but wait. Could anything in this universe handle an infinite amount of energy? The 318 in my old Chrysler 5th Avenue couldn't even handle 350,000 miles. As Marvin Martian would say, "Back to the old drawing board."

DISCLAIMER-

Now that this is said, I would like to stipulate that I have had about 4 fingers worth of Bacardi and it took me an hour to type this. It is pretty vulgar as far as explanations go as far as the reasoning behind it goes.

Now that I think about it, I don't think this is a very good argument. It is almost the same argument as the "God exists because something had to be the Prime Mover" argument. And that argument is shaky at best. Since I have questioned myself, at this point I would just delete the whole post and go think about it. But since it took me forever to type this shit, then I will leave it in the light to dry out and get the mildew smell out of it.

Someone smarter than I, can you show me where the reasoning is flawed, if it is?

**General Seph** · Oct 15th, 2006 6:35 AM

as light is a wave and wave has no atoms or mass it is the fastest thing in the universe. As light is given from a sun you would need a massive amount of energy with hydrogen particles fusing. But black holes have infinte energy as a black hole holds loads of antimatter and time stops inside the black hole and no reactions take place so a constant infinte energy level is there. If you manipulate a black hole and use its energy you might be able to travel at the speed of light.

**Perfectionist** · Oct 15th, 2006 7:07 AM

What happens if you are in a space ship traveling at light speed ..... and a small rock gets in your way !!

At that speed would it be possible to navigate or even maneuver the ship so it doesn't collide with anything ??

***Jupiter*** · Nov 3rd, 2006 3:27 PM

I imagine if deceleration were required, it would take a lot of energy and take a long time. Sounds like a problematical maneouvre. Impossible anyhow.

***lazserus*** · Nov 7th, 2006 10:18 PM

Firstly, Dave, your explanation was a good one. There are many approaches one could take on light travel. Dave took a mechanical approach, which made perfect sense.

Originally Posted by Einstein700

How does one come to that conclusion that infinite amounts of energy are required?

Considering your username, I'd assume you'd already know the answer to the question. Einstein's E=mc^2 tells us this, and has been tested with accurate results for 100 years.

General Seph, you're part right and mostly wrong. All matter (including nonmassive particles such as photons and neutrinos) adhere to the wave/particle duality. Photons (the particles of light - obviously associated to the particle portion of duality) Are the fastest entities directly observed in the universe. There is much debate here if you accept gravity's instant results and the Cosmological Constant. There are some things that "act" faster than a photon travels.

As far as black holes are concerned, I haven't a clue where you're getting your information. Black holes do not contain antimatter, nor an infinite supply of energy. A black hole's energy is not only consistent with its predecessing star, but directly proportional to the matter it feeds on. Answers could be found beyond the event horizon, but you won't find substantial answers outside.

Originally Posted by Protostar

What happens if you are in a space ship traveling at light speed ..... and a small rock gets in your way !!

Considering no massive matter can do such, it's moot. But, if you wanted to conjecture, then consider basic nuclear physics. A vessel the size of a 2-door Honda traveling at relativistic velocities would impact with a stone the size of a dime as if it hit a freight train. As far as control is concerned, there's no theoretical way to do such. Considering radar is restricted to c and if your vessel was traveling at c, then you'd never receive notice before impact because you'd be traveling at the same speed as the signal.