About half the time I post on Universe Today, it's about faster-then-light travel. When I say "faster-then-light", I mean actually faster-then-light travel, not time dialation that happens at near-light-speed. But now after posting on Universe Today for about a year, I see that faster-then-light travel will NEVER be acommplished. The human race will either blow it'self up, or simply that physicts will nver allow it. FTL travel will always belong to the realm of science fiction. The evidence is everywhere. Go on amazon.com, you can find books on interstellar travel everywhere, but not ONE on FTL interstellar travel. Warp Drive is good TV, not good science. From now on I will post NORMAL topics, not topics that were written by a half scientist, half trekker mutent. And I have erased signature that put hope into FTL travel. I'm just bringing this up so everyone knows that theres a explanation behind my change of posts. If I were to join NASA, they would fire me in a instant. Thank you for bringing me back to my senses.

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<span style='color:green'>&quot;We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be add to our own. Resistance is futile.&quot;
Borg Hail</span>

what about wormholes? they are theoretically possible. you dont have to travel faster than light to warp spacetime and *poof* you're somewhere light years away without really travelling faster than light.

I agree, FTL is impossible but wormholes are and many other ways we don't yet know about. In science it has always been possible to bypass a forbidding law without violating it.

It's ashame, I've spent nearly half of my life on FTL travel.

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<span style='color:green'>&quot;We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be add to our own. Resistance is futile.&quot;
Borg Hail</span>

Well, if you've given up hope on FTL, at least don't give up hope on your planet. You see many ways in which humanity will prevent itself from reaching the stars. Can you see ways that you can either: slow humanity's descent, or prevent our descent?

I too wonder if we're going to make it much further, before a scarcity of resources draws us back to the stone age. However, I'm optimistic that by pushing both advancement and conservation, we can do it.

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Live long enough to see Space!

We can get to space as a species. The above link is information about life-extension (living longer) so that you can personally see a space-based civilization.

The MPrize (a prize to encourage life extension research now contains over 3 million dollars.

Amen

Your right StarLab ! We shouldn't give up on FTL travel. People who believe in FTL travel, ARE YOU WITH ME? FTL is possible, and I'll dedicate my life to it! It will happen before I die! We shall preveil!

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<span style='color:green'>&quot;We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be add to our own. Resistance is futile.&quot;
Borg Hail</span>

I guess I let my inner skeptic take the better of me.

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<span style='color:green'>&quot;We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be add to our own. Resistance is futile.&quot;
Borg Hail</span>

Remember, Ziggy, that humanity has managed to achieve every advancement we have dreamed of. Humanity wanted to travel by sea and the boat was invented. Humanity wanted to ease the labor of hauling heavy stuff and invented the wheel, the chariot, the cart, the train, the truck, and the car. Humanity wanted to fly and invented the zepplin, blimp, hot air ballon, and plane. Humanity wanted to ease labor in general and invented the industrial process, automation, and now robotics. Humanity wanted to reach for the stars and invented the suborbital and orbital rockets, the space shuttle, space stations, and interplanetary probes. One day, as long as the dream is kept alive by people like you, humanity will achieve FTL travel!!!

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...and we'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere; and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys...

...also, don't forget Alcubierre...

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"Critical thinking and skepticism form the cornerstone of intelligence."
-me

Amen!! FTL is one of my more pleasant fantasies. But it is only a fantasy. However physically possible it may be found to be (I think it won't), navigation becomes a problem. Flitting through wormholes or warping spacetime could leave you in strange and uncomfortable locations in a somewhat unpredictable fashion. One such outcome could leave you stranded between galaxies with a scarcity of resources; another could leave you inside or uncomfortably near the surface of a star perhaps even one about to supernova. OK, so I'm chicken; Occam is still my friend.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

I dont get it. I just don't get it. No one has ever payed attention to the wise words of A. C. Clarke: "They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships."
Such is the great StarLab's belief. Everybody is ranting on about Ftl-travelling spaceships. What about humans, if we don't wipe each other out, gradually replacing our bodyparts with mechanical stuff, which is only beginning to happen today, what with mechanical limbs and 'pacers. After this, when humans completely leave the realm of flesh and blood (a good few thousand or million years), we, the 'machine-entities' as Clarke calls our future descendants, would "learn to store our memories in space-time itself." At this point, we would be masters of the cosmos, and Ftl travel would be a reality.
Clarke is the true Mashiach of SciFi.

The possibility of FTL is not a matter of "belief" (pro or con), it's a matter of science. At the moment it looks impossible but we are constantly expanding our knowledge of physics and the realms of the very large and the very small. As long as we limit ourselves to our current best theories of physics such as Special and General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model of subatomic particles FTL is ruled out, but these theories will certainly not be the last word anymore than Newtonian physics and classical thermodynamics was.

Lots of potentially revolutionary work on string theory, M-theory and loop quantum gravity is being done as we speak, who knows what that may reveal over the next 10-50 years?

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David S.

&quot;Why are the pretty ones always insane?&quot;
-- Chief Clancy Wiggum, The Simpsons.

I'm voting on the "anything is possible" portion of the ballot. And, who knows, all it might take for FTL to become reality is for someone to have an insightful dream, and remember some interesting and novel geometric configuration when they wake up.

It could happen tonight!

Hang in there Ziggy!

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Pre-Quote: 'To survive one has to experiment. When the environment changes, the traditional way of doing things doesn't work.'

Quote:
&quot;It's the outriders, the organisms that seem to be maladjusted before the change, which are the only ones that survive these changes...in that way a species continues.&quot;

Carl Sagan

I agree Tom2Mars, nothing is impossible. StarLab, I also believe we as humans will become our machines; beyond that, perhaps reaching a state of 'pure energy' with galaxy-sized minds a la Stephen Baxter.

Within a less remote time frame, I think science should focus on 'conning' our way to the stars rather than dragging ourselves by our eyelids to them.

Whatever do you mean? Please elaborate. The laws of physics seem to prevent both methods of travel. What the laws of physics do not allow is indeed impossible.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Stowing aboard an alien craft?

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Everyone rises to their own level of incompetance.

Note 1 :
Einstein explained the above given equation as a limit on particle accelerator to accelerate the particle to only sub C as proven mathematically and by particle accelerator experiments. He then said "because" a particle accelerator has to provide the energy to accelerate the particle from a rest frame base to a relativistically increasing mass towards infinity so the energy required tended towards infinity. "In relativity calculation do not mix frames of reference. "It did not rule out a different machine being found that provides the energy from a different frame reference so would require the energy calculation being redone with the proper frame of reference" "Experiments can be poorly designed so as not to prove what they are intended to such as particle accelerator experiments and the Michale-Morleson experiment" -Einstein (1955)

I can fairly assume that Einstein was the leading authority on relativity till 1955, and not Gibbs or others before and after who interpreted his equations some other way to mean a machine cannot be found to exceed C. There is zero evidence such a velocity of light speed limit mechanics was ever constructed and Einstein denied in 1955 that he ever constructed such mechanics as he taught that a massive object could be accelerated beyond light speed. He than explained "How" it could be done.

He then explained the wide spread public misconception tying his relativity theories to a C speed limit to a "German to English" translator he hired to translate his relativity papers to English.

The Translator knowing basically as a second language German and some basic physics and less relativity physics and some of Henry Poincare's workwas looking for a C speed limit mechanics so Jumped to the conclusion he had found it translating some of the equations adding his own interpretation comments to appear falsely as from Einstein to say:

"It appears we cannot accelerate an object beyond light speed" in the English translation. By the time Einstein came to America and had learned enough English to correct the mistranslations he found the misinformation so widespread that correction was found impractical so then he confined his teaching of the possibility of acceleration beyond light speed to his personal students at Princeton and private students and from that time on authorized only those works signed by
him to be published. The one signed in 1955, I read in 1963.

So my list of math or experimental proofs of any C limit for massive objects
velocity contains no data.

Universal speed limit at C Proof list
.............................................
(Empty-Null Set)
.............................................


Note 1
Of rocket velocity (V)
90.227 % Propellant = 902.727 tons propellant
6.000 % Structure = 60 tons structure
3.773 % Payload = 37 tons payload
u = .90227 = 902.727 tons of propellant / 1000 tons of rocket
Vexaust= 81840 miles/sec therefore:

Vf = (81840 miles/sec ) (LN(1/(1-.090227))
=(.44 times 186,000 miles/sec ) (LN 10.)
=(81840 miles/sec)(2.3255467)
Vfinal =190,322.7 miles/sec = 1.023 C or warp speed 1.02 arriving with 37 tons of payload and 60 tons of structure.


Note 2 :
I found that machine in an atomic rocket so calculate the energy requirements
from converting a small part of exhaust mass to energy via M=E/C^2. This
calculation uses the proper frame of reference taught Einstein as the "local"
frame refereed to only in particle accelerator physics as the misnomer
"target frame" as in common use today. Switching from particle accelerators
to rocket engines "local" is the correct terminology.
Just in last 50 years a math error was found that changed the calculated
distance to the stars by a factor of "TWO" changing the size of the known
universe to twice or 1/2 it's former size.

No telling what math errors will be found in the future. It would seem wise
not to consider a minimum energy requirement journey to any star for the
reasons you gave. Perhaps a craft would have to have enough energy to go
anywhere in the universe and back to succeed. I found some good numbers
indicating that very possibility even if the speed is limited to just below
light speed. The only difference from C + V travel is your earth twin would
be ancient bones if you return with the C -V ship.
Here are the numbers for C -V ship dilated time near c Vs earth time at 10 g
acceleration.

Grasshopper,
Star travel is no place for girlie boys.
Yoda

How did yoda get in here?

Here is the energy available for star travel calculations.for C plus or minus
v ship.

An ordinary chemical rocket can control by throttle an exhaust flow rate to
give 1 g acceleration for several hours based on tests of rockets reaching an
average 15g for many minutes such as "Helios".
At less than 1 year = 356 days time 24 hours =8544 hours of 1 g acceleration
are needed to exceed c.
Versus present chemical rockets, 8,544/3(several) times more power is needed
so that acceleration time can be measured at greater than 356 days to exceed c.
The chemical Vs atomic power to mass unit ratio based on atomic bomb and
reactor test measurements are best "guesstamated" at 1,000,000 to 100,000,000
times the power possible with chemical rockets so atomic rockets of good
design can maintain 1 g acceleration for 351 to 35100 years.

quote...........................
The apple(t)
Plugging in above calculater 4.25 light years to near star at 1 g
acceleration the calculator gives:
Trip length: 4.25 light years.
Acceleration: 1.0 g.
Time on earth: 5.8780560467144 years.
Time on ship: 3.544401860293398 years.

The distance between the earth and a near star does not change.
Next make some effort on your part to calculate with v = d/t and v'=d/t'
the different velocities as v=d/t measured by the earth observer and v'=d/t'
Calculate v as always less than c and v' can be C-Vx, C or C + Vx. In the
short trip given v'= C+Vx with Vx being some calculated velocity added to C
or subtacted from C. If you do not want to take the effort
4.25 years light years/3.5 years ship time gives Greater than C for v wrt ship
There are two distinct cases above for calculating faster than light
velocities. One C + Vx value from 1 g acceleration wrt the earth give C + V
wrt ship velocity due to time dilation effects and the second case 1 g
acceleration wrt the ship giving both C + V wrt the earth velocity and
providing the 1 g artificial gravity environment required for crew comfort.
Bon Voyage!

For numeric methods of Rocket simulations see
http://www.execpc.com/~culp/rockets/rckt_sim.html

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Thomas Hulon Jackson
Scientist/Engineer/Technician

Well, first, I should point out that Einstein was not the first one to say that one cannot go faster than light. That distinction actually goes to James Maxwell, who unified the electricity and magnetism. It was his laws that clashed with Newton's which led to Einstein discovering relativity.

If you go at .9999c, and outside observer would indeed see you barely lagging behind a light beam, but from your vantage point, the light beam would be rocketing ahead of you at (guess what?) the speed of light. It's the effect of time dilation.

Starship, most of your calculations here are based on Newtonian physics. Newton did say that we could go faster than light, but he was wrong. Newtonian physics work great for current, everday situations like an airplane, or Cassini, but near the speed of light, they break down. The answers they give are totally inconsistent with nature.

"Note 1" completely ignores relativity. What it represents is a ship simply accelerating up to 1.023c, which is impossible.

Also, just like you've done before, you're taking the spaceship's frame of reference. I agree 100% that, from the ship, it would take only a few years to zip around the galaxy, but real FTL travel would have flight times of a few years as measured by a person at rest. In your only relativistic calculation, the outside observer doesn't measure the ship ever going faster than light.

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"Critical thinking and skepticism form the cornerstone of intelligence."
-me