What If We Can Never Travel Faster Than Light?

Still quite optimistic but good video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WtgmT5CYU8

 

Then it will take longer than 4.22 years to reach Alpha Centauri - no sweat


Hotwater

 

John Varley illustrates Squeezer technology, in his Dark Lightening book, which make a space ship go 78% the speed of light. And then comes up with something that does go the speed of light, by folding space/time.

I think thoughts go the speed of light....when we learn to ride them, we will be able to go anywhere in an instant....like god does.

 

thoughts can only travel as fast as the electro-chemical impulses in our nervous system fire, and that is far slower than the speed of light.

 

And Alpha centauri doesn't even seem that interesting (from here at least ). It's merely the closest sun to ours...

 

We'll never travel faster than light.
It's not possible.

But we could possibly fold space or use some sort of quantum travel someday.

 

If there is no hipforums at faster than light speeds, I don't want any part of it!!

 

faster-than-light travel is actually a theoretical possibilty (look up Miguel Alcubierre). and Harold Sonny White is currently working on a warp drive at NASA based on the initial theoretical principles worked out by Alcubierre. his work has high promise.

the thing is, while there are a vast number of planets and stars, and spectacular galaxies out there, human life existence is so brief that we cannot wholly absorb all of the information out there. all the planets will have interesting physical data to be explored, and it will assist in our understanding of evolution of life and space. but it will take generations upon generations of human beings to make sense of it on a cosmic scale.

the most meaningful outcome of interstellar travel would be to discover other life and intelligence, civilizations out there. that is where our hopes and dreams are aimed at as intelligent species. and connecting with such other life/intelligence is improbable, unfortunately. even if we found them, there's no guarantee we'd understand each other or get along.

moreover, cosmology/physics has moved towards the multiverse theory, multidimensions, cyclic expansion and contraction of the universe, and other exotic ideas. those things are not impossible, but they are quite meaningless to human existence. us trying to reach other universes, whether by accessing other dimensions, or trying to take a supposed black hole shortcut, is highly unlikely.

it might just be possible that universe and space can be manipulated to a degree, but the energy and resources needed to do that would have to be equivalent. and injecting such energy into the space at will is also bound to modify the universe on an equvalent scale.

i think human race will definitely reach the nearest stars, and we should aim towards that. but i find there's more meaning on Earth among other people, than out there in space. so i'm not that concerned about breaching the speed of light.

 

Most of us can't be bothered going to Canada

And its right there

Why get excited about another rock with trees and snow

For long term settlement, a planet would have to be exactly like earth, our bodies evolved for this planet

 

Why do we pretend we want to travel at light speed for noble reasons like preserving our species when really we all just want to look super cool traveling at light speed?

 

You in a hurry?

 

I thought you were going to say all we really want is to find sexy aliens.

 

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/49360/20150428/nasa-may-have-accidentally-discovered-faster-than-light-travel.htm

 

Cool stuff there, ChinaCat, but technically, it sounds like it's not truly faster-than-light travel, it's more like warping spacetime... since they mentioned it's like a warp bubble.
I could totally be wrong about that, since I only skimmed the article and I'm not a scientist.
But, it sounds to me like it's not travel as much as it's displacement or something like that.

 

to meet funny looking people who evolved on other worlds, within a single natural lifetime.
otherwise, there's only a very small handful of other solar systems within reach of anything other then a one way cryogenic ticket,
and no way for them to report back while anyone here will even remember their having left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud6LiVJkwyA




realistically of course, its more like 20 long boring years out and another to get back, that's to the nearest likely system to have advanced life,
but of course the song is to illustrate relativistic time dilation effect. you would likely be able, without cryogenic suspension, to make no more then one such trip in a lifetime,
and if you really did get close enough to light speed, then yes, for the 20 or so years each way for you, hundreds of years could pass on earth before you got back.
long enough for earth itself, to have become as alien to you, as any place you get to on your trip.

 

Anybody been looking at the em drive?
http://www.sciencealert.com/independent-scientists-confirm-that-the-impossible-em-drive-produces-thrust

 

The link that ChinaCat posted is about that.
But the link you posted is a more recent study and appears to be the results of testing what was found in the earlier story.

Or something like that.

Maybe.

I didn't really read them.
(Hard to read about EmDrive technology when watching a couple kids, one of which is about 8 months old.)

 

that's also what i was talking about, Harold Sonny White and the Alcubierre drive. White is the guy who's working on it.

true, it is a displacement, and not actual movement. nothing can move faster than light. at least not in this universe.

 

I'm going to put money on there being some kind of work around with the architechure of the universe

 

Maybe it will be more like how we modern explorers first explored a pyramid: with dynamite and explosions