Will humans ever achieve light speed?

[Timco]

Originally Posted by Nimbus117

Is this another 3.2S vs Boxster base thread?

With enough mods, an S can get close to Warp speed, but I've never claimed it can get to light speed.

Or is that a Delorian I'm thinking of......

[j.fro]

Great thread. Unfortunately, the vehicle that can do it will probably experience an IMS failure first and LN/Raby will have to sort things out before we get there.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by j.fro

Great thread. Unfortunately, the vehicle that can do it will probably experience an IMS failure first and LN/Raby will have to sort things out before we get there.

Nah, the AOS would crap out first................

[The Radium King]

sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that the number of planets is a law of physics or that Einstein was involved in the uncertain status of pluto. rather, my intent was to make the point that things are presented to us as certainties that are not necessarily so.

further, i'm not presumptive enough to say Einstein is wrong. newton's f=ma still works in most cases and is still taught in school (as an infallible law, that you don't discover isn't so until you get to university). Newtonian physics falls apart when certain things are asked of it, however. perhaps the appropriate things have yet to be asked of relativity or quantum mechanics - you don't know what you don't know.

as such, the pragmatic approach is to assume the law is fallible until proven otherwise. to thieve from Wikipedia:

"a proof must demonstrate that a statement is always true, rather than enumerate many confirmatory cases."

ie, just because no one has proven something wrong, don't make it necessarily so.

[coreseller]

Originally Posted by Timco

Possible??

Only if you gave your car a Feminine name, had unusual luggage in tow with the "Greatest Guitar Riffs" CD blaring over the stereo, your wife / girlfriend / SO gave you prior written approval and lastly you were young in years since we all know that “Anything really new is invented only in one’s youth. Later, one becomes more experienced, more famous – and more stupid.”....................

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that the number of planets is a law of physics or that Einstein was involved in the uncertain status of pluto. rather, my intent was to make the point that things are presented to us as certainties that are not necessarily so.

further, i'm not presumptive enough to say Einstein is wrong. newton's f=ma still works in most cases and is still taught in school (as an infallible law, that you don't discover isn't so until you get to university). Newtonian physics falls apart when certain things are asked of it, however. perhaps the appropriate things have yet to be asked of relativity or quantum mechanics - you don't know what you don't know.

as such, the pragmatic approach is to assume the law is fallible until proven otherwise. to thieve from Wikipedia:

"a proof must demonstrate that a statement is always true, rather than enumerate many confirmatory cases."

ie, just because no one has proven something wrong, don't make it necessarily so.

Unfortunately, I can not agree with Wikipedia's rather unusual position; in my world, the more challenges to a widely accepted concept that ultimately fall apart, only end up ultimately making the original concept that much stronger, as they end up demonstrating yet again that the unsuccessfully challenged concept is remains true...........

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by coreseller

“Anything really new is invented only in one’s youth. Later, one becomes more experienced, more famous – and more stupid.”....................

Believe it or not, that was the man's response in the 1950's to a reporter's question about why he had not done anything important lately..........

[The Radium King]

the wiki quote was just a convenient source for the standard definition of 'mathematical proof'. the same definition applies to physics (physics and chemistry all turn into math in the end anyway) only the variables are much much more. as such, one could postulate that any 'law' of physics is never truly proven and is always waiting for the one exception that destroys the rule. possible? who knows. until then they remain the 'best guesses' we have. my point is that we don't treat these things as best guesses subject to change, but rather as laws and rules and how things are so accept it. someone wants to break the speed of light? i say go for it; let me know how you make out.

apologies for hung-over rambling, hack-science gobbledygook, and any hijack that may have occurred as a result!

[coreseller]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

Believe it or not, that was the man's response in the 1950's to a reporter's question about why he had not done anything important lately..........

Believe it or I actually knew that lol......More contemporary guys that I read / follow are Timothy Ferris and Michio Kaku. They have an innate ability to relate theories in terms for an everyday-man like me to catch on to.

[gj3ny]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

I would hardly call Einstein's equations "theoretical"; people have been trying to prove them wrong for over a hundred and ten years, and every challenge only to end up reconfirming their validity............

Even the concepts those equations predicted way back then that were considered "wildly unrealistic dreaming", like black holes and dark energy, have come to pass.

But yet the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics could not be reconciled without a complete revision like string theory.

Einstein was great but he is not the end all of science. Lets face it the guy dumped his wife and married his cousin. He is not perfect he just points the way. And he did a very good job of that but I for one hope that science does not stop and say "It's all been discovered, let's go home". It hasn't and laws of physics change as we discover new evidence.

[Timco]

Originally Posted by heliguy

What were you smoking last night?

My other two thread ideas were :

At what point does a fly turn upside down before landing on the ceiling?

Or

Does the technology and do the needed materials exist to build a light saber?

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by gj3ny

But yet the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics could not be reconciled without a complete revision like string theory.

Einstein was great but he is not the end all of science. Lets face it the guy dumped his wife and married his cousin. He is not perfect he just points the way. And he did a very good job of that but I for one hope that science does not stop and say "It's all been discovered, let's go home". It hasn't and laws of physics change as we discover new evidence.

And the lack of congruity between relativity and quantum theory in no way disproves either theory, it simply points to a transitional gap in our understanding; perhaps string theory, or perhaps something else yet to be tested.

[Johnny Danger]

Originally Posted by coreseller

Only if you gave your car a Feminine name, had unusual luggage in tow with the "Greatest Guitar Riffs" CD blaring over the stereo, your wife / girlfriend / SO gave you prior written approval and lastly you were young in years since we all know that “Anything really new is invented only in one’s youth. Later, one becomes more experienced, more famous – and more stupid.”....................

You left out the DIY 10 hp exhaust mod.

[JFP in PA]

This could go on all night, with various vapid or circular arguments; to wit: The speed of light is supposed to be the highest velocity obtainable in the universe; but whenever light arrives, it arrives in an already dark place, which implies that darkness is quicker because it got there first.......... Or how about how many angels can do the lindy on the head of a pin?

Sorry guys, but I have to go home for dinner.

[woodsman]

of course not - we'll be lucky to be alive ( our species) in 40 years

[jdlmodelt]

So, to mess things up a lot, we are all taught that the speed of light is a constant. Look it up. It is changing, very slowly it is slowing down. Some theorize that it is a at the bottom end of a plot that would suggest that the speed of light was exponentially faster in the past, when you incorporate this into the equation, things get pretty strange to say the least. If the speed of light as considerably faster in the past than it is now, how much have the constellations changed over the millennium? Now, about us travelling at the speed of light or faster...isn't it pompous for us to assume that we got it all right the first time? Quantum physics wasn't a part of the equation all that long ago. We learn more about science and we learn that we don't know as much as we thought we did. That's a given.

[Jamesp]

All y'alls are looking at it all wrong. If I could step from my living room into yours with one step, how fast would I be going? Answer? Walking speed. Google JSC warp engine.

[thstone]

Wow. I go race for a weekend and you guys end up debating the infinite universe.

My take: We really know very little about the universe and how it works. For example, the universe is expanding but the density remains close to constant. It seems that "new universe" is continually being created.

Ok, I'm going back to Boxster stuff now that my head hurts .... Who wanted to debate S models vs base?

[Jamesp]

Originally Posted by thstone

Wow. I go race for a weekend and you guys end up debating the infinite universe.

My take: We really know very little about the universe and how it works. For example, the universe is expanding but the density remains close to constant. It seems that "new universe" is continually being created.

Ok, I'm going back to Boxster stuff now that my head hurts .... Who wanted to debate S models vs base?

Nah, this is the string theory string. Bell's inequality theorem anyone?

[Ckrikos]

I will tell you after I get a good run in the turbo and see it hit full boost. Great thread by the way.