FTL now possible

F

fallen phoenix

Spaceman
recently i read in the newspaper in Australia then some scientists have built a device that manage to accelerate a group of electrons up to 1.2 times the speed of light.
How long till we manage to accelerate people as fast from now i wonder?
 
Originally posted by fallen phoenix
recently i read in the newspaper in Australia then some scientists have built a device that manage to accelerate a group of electrons up to 1.2 times the speed of light.
How long till we manage to accelerate people as fast from now i wonder?
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Which Magazine? Issue #?
 
Kinda sorta sounds like it might be a quantum tunneling thing. Hard to tell from the impressively vague citation.

Anyway, quantum tunneling is a known phenomenon. Basically, subatomic particles don't really exist in any one definite location in space and time. Instead, electrons inhabit a probability density function that says "the electron is probably somewhere within this tiny sphere." At any given instant, the electron may be anywhere within the locus of its wave function.

The funky part is what happens when the tiny probably sphere falls on both sides of an "impenetrable" boundary layer. Classical mechanics says that the electron should not be able to cross the barrier. But quantum mechanics shows that if the electron should just happen to randomly occupy the part of the wave function on the opposite side of the barrier, it will go on its merry way as if the barrier were not there. QT is a fundamental process in the way semiconductors work. The Hawking radiation that black holes oxymoronically "emit" is due to a similar phenomenon.

OK, the really weird part is that if you try to measure the amount of time needed for the electron to cross the boundary layer, you find that it happens instaneously. It takes literally no time at all to cross the boundary. Some physicists have created experiments in which they have gotten electrons to jump barrier layers several centimers wide in an instant. This effectively gives individual electrons an average velocity that is faster than c.

HOWEVER (you knew this was coming, right?), this does not mean that Einstein was wrong, nor does it mean that FTL travel or communication is even theoretically possible in any meaningful way. No one has yet performed any experiment in which information has been transmitted faster than light.

Note that if this is what I think it is, it isn't really news. These experiments were done a couple of years ago. It's a minor curiousity of physics, not something that can be turned into any obviously useful technology.
 
Originally posted by milo
...No one has yet performed any experiment in which information has been transmitted faster than light...
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I beg to differ; seems to me that the news of Jacko's weird interview on ABC last week was transmitted FTL... :D
 
Originally posted by milo

HOWEVER (you knew this was coming, right?), this does not mean that Einstein was wrong, nor does it mean that FTL travel or communication is even theoretically possible in any meaningful way. No one has yet performed any experiment in which information has been transmitted faster than light.
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IIRC a couple of years ago they transmitted something (I think some Mozart sonate) with about 4.7 times the speed of light using said tunneling effect over a very small distance.
 
Originally posted by cff
IIRC a couple of years ago they transmitted something (I think some Mozart sonate) with about 4.7 times the speed of light using said tunneling effect over a very small distance.
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Yes, that was precisely the experiment to which I was referring.

The experimenters were quoted in the press as making some grandiose claims, but they were not widely supported as being accurate. The low switching rate of the audio-frequency content used in the experiment made it impossible to determine whether or not FTL communication actually occurred. Just because part of the message arrived FTL does not mean that any information content was transmitted FTL in violation of the causality principle.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has repeated the experiment with higher frequency content and been able to show true FTL messaging. Nor do I expect anyone to do so. Physics is full of these curious loopholes. None of them can be used to send messages faster than light, because the universe would stop making sense if that were possible.
 
It's gonna be a good damn long time before people will be able to travel faster than light.
One of the biggest problems you'll face with that sort travel is how to control weight. The closer you get to light speed the heavier you get so there would have to be some way to negate the effects of weight, even in space.
One thought I haven't been able to answer also relates to light speed.
That is, that scientist have proven the faster you travel the slower you age. So would it be possible to travel so fast you actually regress?
 
A while back I remember reading about a group of scientists who somehow fired a special kind of laser through a chamber containing some type of gas, and before the laser entered the chamber it was on the other side of it, and 47 feet across the lab. The laser somehow existed in 2 places at once leading to the theory that they accelerated the light faster than it's own speed. I don't remember all the details and it was a few years ago. I'm not sure if I can find it again.

Of course, this does not mean Einstein is wrong. Even if we eventually manage to travel faster than the speed of light, Einstein wasn't wrong. I'm not positive, but if memory serves all Einstein said is that as something approaches the speed of light, it's mass increases infinately. People have interpreted it to mean because mass increases inifinately, it is impossible to cross the barrier. Which is true. But Einstein didn't say it was impossible for something to go faster than the speed of light. One theory is that if you somehow can physically make it seem as though your not traveling the speed of light, then mass will not increase indeffinately. Somehow, using gravity and anti-gravity it pull and push you, it should be possible to do this. However, it's just a theory.
 
Actually, the idea that a spacecraft cannot reach the speed of light because infinite energy required is a misconception. Since the energy contained within your spacecraft's fuel is related to its mass (E=mc^2, anyone?), that means that the energy of your fuel increases in direct proportion to the mass of your spacecraft as it becomes more massive. What actually stops your spacecraft from reaching the speed of light is time dilation.

Let's say that the speed of light is exactly 300,000 km/s (it is a bit less than that, but let's assume for convenience, ok?). Now, if your spacecraft were to accelerate at a constant 10 m/s^2, it would take 30,000,000 seconds (a little less than a year) to reach the speed of light. To anyone on board the spacecraft, it WOULD take 30 million seconds to reach the speed of light as he perceives time. HOWEVER, time dilation means that those last few seconds as the spacecraft approaches light speed will be stretched out infinitely. Thus, to the space traveler, time for the rest of the universe would be speeding up until the entire remaining lifespan of the universe is contained in those last few seconds. This is the real reason why one cannot reach the speed of light--it is TIME which is the barrier, not ENERGY.
 
I just want to point out something... Isn't the best way to fly FTL using jump points / wormholes / space folding generators? So you can fold space, like on WC or Dune. Or at least "warp" space, or use "subspace" or "hyperspace" like on FreeSpace or Babylon 5. If you actually accelerate a ship to FTL speed, it would, as you know, have passed 300 yeard when they get back. It would not be that useful.
 
Folding space like WC or Dune would be great. But if they can't use it for space travel, could they use it for comunication like tv or something. I'd love to get a FTL internet connection. It would be great, but for those who download porn, if the chix gain weight as the accelerate to the speed of light... :D

-Girlfriend: "Do I look fat?"
-You: "Of course not honey. Just slow down a little."
 
haha - actually most theories these days are targetted at using hyperspace, subspace, wormholes, and the like (in fact the most convincing theory is basically the warp theory on Star Trek). Bend space time into a warp bubble in subspace. Inside the bubble would be the vessel. Because of the time dialation, as well as mass being increased (I'm pretty sure it's both, but I could be mistaken... really doesn't matter for what I'm saying) it is impossible to go FTL in normal space. That's why they're focusing on subspace and the like.
 
Those are different things. To warp space and create a bubbles is one thing. To fold space is the WC jump point thing. And theres the hyperspace/subspace, a kind of different dimention.
 
No - the idea is to creat a bubble in the space time continum - in subspace (subspace bubble), that something would be able to travel in. You would bend space time to create a bubble in the fabric of space time (also known as subspace). I think that's how it's supposed to work anyway. Only geniuses can understand this stuff completely.
 
Yaeh, the basic concept in "warp" transportation is that instead of your spacecraft trying to move faster than light through space, SPACE ITSELF moves. The expansion of the universe is proof enough that space can move and expand/contract--the universe was theoretically expanding faster than light early in its existance.

Think of it as being like the wake of a ship travelling through the water. At above a certain speed, the ship creates a shock wave in the water. However, if the WATER is also moving in the same direction as the ship, then the ship can go faster without creating the shock wave. Likewise, if we can make the space immediately surrounding a ship move with respect to external space, then the ship itself can remain stationary with respect to the space nearest it, yet move faster than light with respect to more distant objects.
 
Yeah I understand. I was only pointing out that this concepts is different from the sci-fi concept of hyperspace/subspace from stuff like Babylon 5 and FreeSpace. You can also call it chikenspace, whatever.
 
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