Will humans ever achieve light speed?

[jdlmodelt]

Common'! You can not deny that the speed of light is slowing down and as a result, all things tied to the speed of light are changing!

[Lobo1186]

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?

Base is so much more pure...

[Timco]

Originally Posted by Lobo1186

Base is so much more pure...

And under-powered......:troll:

[Lobo1186]

Underpowered goes for all boxsters I think we can agree! damn porsche trying to save the 911

[jb92563]

Originally Posted by woodsman

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

I second this opinion.

I think that depletion of natural resouces and over population will intersect in 200 years.

We will have our hands full with just trying to survive then, which inevitabilly will lead to wars over dwindling resouces, civil unrest and anarchy in the broad populations, collapse of governments etc

Besides I think Obama already canceled that reseach project.

Traveling at the speed of light is not nearly as problematic as navigating faster than the speed of light to avoid hitting things that you can not see because the light indicating their presence has not reached you yet.

[Timco]

Originally Posted by jb92563

I second this opinion.

I think that depletion of natural resouces and over population will intersect in 200 years.

We will have our hands full with just trying to survive then, which inevitabilly will lead to wars over dwindling resouces, civil unrest and anarchy in the broad populations, collapse of governments etc

Besides I think Obama already canceled that reseach project.

Traveling at the speed of light is not nearly as problematic as navigating faster than the speed of light to avoid hitting things that you can not see because the light indicating their presence has not reached you yet.

You just need the right tires......

[Daniel R]

I am in the JFP and Particle camp, impossible to reach the speed of light.

In terms of traversing great distances however, I believe that in the future we will learn how to use gravity, possibly simulated gravity even, to manipulate space-time. This would effectively make distant places "come to us" if you will, rather than us traveling to them. Better still, nothing about this violates any natural law that we know... yet.

[san rensho]

There once was a man named Bright
Who could travel faster than light
He set out one day
In a relative way
And came back the previous night.

[Timco]

Maybe ludacris speed is more doable?

[jdlmodelt]

we will come to a day when we will realize that we can somehow combine with light and discover travel at the speed of light.

[Nine8Six]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

"Learning more" is not going to help violate the laws of physics......

as per our own understanding of bare bones physics as we know so little of, perhaps. However would you agree there is more than that?!

Who wants to become a lightning?

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Nine8Six

as per our own understanding of bare bones physics as we know so little of, perhaps. However would you agree there is more than that?!

Of course..............

[RawleyD]

If the Sun were to suddenly destroy itself or cease to exist, we would not know here on Earth for a whole 8 MINUTES.

Mind blown!!

The Mindblower {The Kloons + MPGiS Creators} - YouTube

[Bigsmoothlee]

Originally Posted by pothole

There's no reason why you couldn't get so close as to be essentially the speed of light.

99.9999999999999% is possible (though would require epic amounts of energy). That said, accelerating to large fractions of the speed of light in a conventional manner is not the solution to travel large distances in cosmic terms!

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

The mathematics implies that to obtain and sustain just 50% of light speed in a vessel massive enough to be practical for inter galactic travel, the total amount of propulsive energy needed would become staggering to the point of absurdity.

You've both got the right idea, although a recent discovery from the particle accelerator in Sweden showed that the "speed limit" is 99.999% of the speed of light, and time slows down dramatically in the vessel to prevent you accidentally tripping over the the speed of light.

You could hypothetically end up in the future when traveling at almost the speed of light. Two years may pass by outside, while a few minutes go by in the vessel.

Will we ever get there? Well, we'd need an enormous amount of energy... but possibly. I hope Im alive to see it.

[Bigsmoothlee]

Originally Posted by jb92563

I second this opinion.

I think that depletion of natural resouces and over population will intersect in 200 years.

We will have our hands full with just trying to survive then, which inevitabilly will lead to wars over dwindling resouces, civil unrest and anarchy in the broad populations, collapse of governments etc

Besides I think Obama already canceled that reseach project.

Traveling at the speed of light is not nearly as problematic as navigating faster than the speed of light to avoid hitting things that you can not see because the light indicating their presence has not reached you yet.

Yes, agreed on the resource depletion vs population increase.

Obama is an idiot that only serves to make corporations more money. I regret voting for him more than I did Bush.

You would think its a problem to avoid objects, but time is slowed. Steven Hawkings theorized that at the speed of light, we may be able to reach the edge of the universe in 8 years on a vessel traveling 99% the speed of light, while millions or billions of years would go by in the universe.

Time is relative to mass and speed. Mass slows time, for example our GPS satellites run a billionth of a second faster than here on earth and have to be compensated for.

[evan9eleven]

Originally Posted by Timco

My other two thread ideas were :

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

=snip=

Please don't forget to post this topic another day also.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Timco

Possible??

Relative to what's coming it's moot. Eventually the Sun will expand 250 times its current size and flambe the Earth leaving us with 296F temps.
All on the road towards the end of all star formation and the eventual "heat death" of the cosmos where nothing new will ever happen again. It will be the literal END.

in pichers:

[Kenny Boxster]

Interesting. I once had a physics professor tell me scientists can slow down the speed of light when put through some medias. He explained it as almost a light beam going through a fish slowly making it's way across. So in a sense, you could travel at a very retarded speed of light.

[Timco]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

Relative to what's coming it's moot. Eventually the Sun will expand 250 times its current size and flambe the Earth leaving us with 296F temps.
All on the road towards the end of all star formation and the eventual "heat death" of the cosmos where nothing new will ever happen again. It will be the literal END.

in pichers:

Damn. That sucks.

[Jager]

Originally Posted by Bigsmoothlee

Time is relative to mass and speed. Mass slows time, for example our GPS satellites run a billionth of a second faster than here on earth and have to be compensated for.

And meanwhile we have to compensate for the Earth’s rotation slowing down (on-average) approximately 252 milliseconds a year. Ever heard of a Leap Second? I was on a national committee that was asked about leap seconds and how it would impact our systems. I said, “How about waiting 120 years and do a leap minute?” back then everyone laughed but they are not laughing now. After doing 25 Leap Seconds over the past 40 years, and causing significant pain on some complex systems recently, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service might be coming to their senses and have held-off doing any more Leap Seconds (for now).

So eventually the Earth will stop rotating, what will time be then? And to think this will happen way before the sun decides to expand 250 times.
Leap second - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gravity… What the heck is it? Why does it change space-time and light?

One program I supported a few years ago:
NASA - Gravity Probe B: The Relativity Mission