speed of light

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Postby daap on Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:30 pm

Sorrow wrote:Yeah we need to find a way around it, warpbubbles, shifting into other dimensions etc.


The Alcubierre metric, also known as the Alcubierre drive or Warp Drive, is a speculative mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "Faster-than-light" (although not in a local sense - see below).

In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed in the Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand. The ship would ride this wave inside a region known as a warp bubble of flat space. Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation do not apply in the way they would in the case of a ship moving at high velocity through flat spacetime. Also, this method of travel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense, since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than the ship; it is only "faster than light" in the sense that, thanks to the contraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination faster than a light beam restricted to travelling outside the warp bubble. Thus, the Alcubierre drive does not contradict the conventional claim that relativity forbids a slower-than-light object to accelerate to faster-than-light speeds. However, there are no known methods to create such a warp bubble in a region which does not already contain one, or to leave the bubble once inside it, so the Alcubierre drive remains a theoretical concept at this time
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Postby Sorrow on Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:41 pm

yeah things like that... kind of... impossible to design at the moment. Man I wish I'd be there when it happens.
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Postby Lovro on Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:59 pm

If time travel existed- dont't you think someone from the future would have allready visited us by now?
Or if there are developed civilizations with FTL why dont they contact us?
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Postby daap on Fri Apr 20, 2007 3:30 pm

Lovro wrote:Or if there are developed civilizations with FTL why dont they contact us?


the have.. but when they found out that the american president was a donkey, they returned because we weren't intelligent enough to visit and make first contact with.
OT. ..
Lovro wrote:If time travel existed- dont't you think someone from the future would have allready visited us by now?


why does anybody want to come to this period of time ?
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Postby Sorrow on Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:04 pm

Lovro wrote:If time travel existed- dont't you think someone from the future would have allready visited us by now?
Or if there are developed civilizations with FTL why dont they contact us?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAUR7NQCLA

watch this for a bit of universe into perspective.
(not entirely accurate) but it works

as for somebody from the future to visit us... that's highly unlikely.
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Postby Sathor on Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:09 pm

There is enough space and time in universe for several most highly developed cultures to exist without ever having a clue they are not alone, even when the most advanced technologies etc are available.
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Postby Sauce on Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:10 pm

daap wrote:why does anybody want to come to this period of time ?

Why wouldn't they? If they went back in time and gave us all the information and materials we needed to construct their time machine thingy (whatever it is), then in their present, these time machines would be even more advanced, because they would have been in existence for a much longer period of time, and further research would have been conducted. Think of the advances in technology!
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Postby Sathor on Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:14 pm

Yeah, but then they would not have needed to travel back in time to give us the better technology, because in future, their technology is already more advanced (given that we had their technology in the past) ... time is a paradoxon, you can't just say: we travel back in time and change something, because the reactions to your actions would change the time you come from and thus rendering the whole thingy ... a big chaos that we cannot imagine how to theorize about.
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Postby Sorrow on Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:32 pm

how the hell would stuff change between timelines anyway, *poof* stuff appears where it wasn't ? people appear where they weren't? or do you blow up a part of your own universe?
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Postby Mr. Happy on Fri Apr 20, 2007 6:30 pm

Everything from that point on would be altered; you wouldn't notice the difference. Anyone read "The PHysics of Star Trek"? I haven't, but I meant to when I was younger...then I lost it

daap wrote:
Lovro wrote:Or if there are developed civilizations with FTL why dont they contact us?


the have.. but when they found out that the american president was a donkey, they returned because we weren't intelligent enough to visit and make first contact with.
OT. ..


Nah, they are here right now, but could you imagine hoq freaked out people would be if their existence was revealed? The government has ambassador's with them and everything! Of course, Diplomatic discussions have had to cease for the past seven years, someone couldn't handle it. sigh

Dapp wrote:
Lovro wrote:If time travel existed- dont't you think someone from the future would have allready visited us by now?


why does anybody want to come to this period of time ?


More likely they are walking around in invisible suits
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Postby Sathor on Fri Apr 20, 2007 6:33 pm

Perhaps the superintelligent species of the dolphins ARE the aliens :shock:
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Postby Persol on Fri Apr 20, 2007 7:00 pm

Mr Happy wrote:Researchers have already observed light pulses exiting a test chamber before they entered, thus seeing something before it happened.

However, the light wasnt move faster than c, it was a result of relativity of observers.
Well, yes and no. They can make a PATTERN move faster than the speed of light.

For a simple real world analogy, grab a flashlight and point it a wall far away. No rotate the flashlight a little bit... the spot on the far wall moved far faster. You CAN make that spot move faster than the speed of light, but nobody has ever claimed you can't.

So, if there was something that inherently always moved faster than light, it would, but nothing can accelerate to that point.
Anything that has mass can't move faster than the speed of light. Since e=mc^2, anything with some energy can't either.

In 1994, the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed in the Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity a method of stretching space in a wave which would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract and the space behind it to expand.
There have been suggestions that, if gravity doesn't work exactly as we expect, it may be possible.

Sauce wrote:Okay, to begin with, time is a concept - that is, it does not exist. Therefore, time travel is impossible.
You made my head hurt. Time exists just as much as 'space' or 'solids' or 'you'. Don't bother getting metaphysical.

First off, accelerating to the speed of light. Even if we could accelerate to this speed, it would take so long that by the time we reached the speed of light, we would already be at our destination, and then you have to slow down again in time before you get there.
There is no such thing as accelerating to the speed of light. It isn't possible. At all.. It has nothing to do with how fast you accelerate, but how much energy you have... and, by the definition of infinite, you don't have enough.
There is still one final hurdle; everything surrounding the vehicle would also experience these forces as the vehicle collides with it - air particles would accelerate to deadly velocities, and an enormous pressure wave would result. You would essentially create an explosion in the path of the vehicle.
Huh? First, you aren't going at the speed of light in an atmosphere. Even if you were, you'd leave it less than a second later.

Second, you can't have a pressure wave move faster than the speed of light.

Third, each particle you hit would slow your ship down... not explode. There are objects in the universe that travel .9c.
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Postby Spas12 on Fri Apr 20, 2007 7:41 pm

I once saw a demonstration/lecture on proving that no object can move faster than the speed of light, BECAUSE the mass of the object would and can not keep up with the speed of the moving atoms. Pretty interesting. I really do not think we will ever even come close to the speed of light.
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Postby Sathor on Fri Apr 20, 2007 7:48 pm

Well, we don't need to, do we? If we define the travel with more than the speed of light just as getting from Point A to Point B faster than light, than wormholes and such thingys COULD (!) make us faster than light. I don't believe in any kind of ENGINE to be able to travel close to the speed of light, though.
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Postby EagleStrike on Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:20 pm

I believe we will one day, but not any time soon, and thats only if the human race survives another 10'000 years, which is extremely unlikely.
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