What is Digg?104 Comments
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@ithaqua
First, the word is Tachyon, it's Greek for "Swift", which is the perfect definition for a particle that would travel FTL.
Second, you don't need an infinite amount of energy to accellerate to light speed. It could be done with a finite (however, very large) amount of energy, but the problem is, as you accellerate, Einstein says you gain mass, and thus requiring even more energy to get you there.
Thirdly, all current FTL theories get around this by saying "Okay, instead of accellerating to the speed of light, we'll either a) go discontinuous to space-time" (a "warp bubble"), which would allow you to travel at far sublight speeds and travel great expanses quickly, or b) "we'll catch a ride with particles that are already going faster than the speed of light (Tachyon-transferance, teleportation in a nutshell)". Neither have been proved to be possible.
However, I'm having a hard time following what this guy is even talking about (it seems like yet another physics student babbling about what he thinks the Universe works like and not what we know), so for now I'm going to abstain from digging. - breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It is hard to fathom how little we really understand about the nature of the universe. If we manage not to destroy ourselves I think it is highly likely that eventually we will find a way to travel distances faster than than 186,000 miles per second.
- LocalScope, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Sorry I saw Event Horizon, someone else can go first.
- cyenobite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I read some time ago that this has already been achieved. I remember it had something to do with sending a beam of "light" containing information (waves/frequency?) through a gas and the information arrived there faster than the speed of light. It turns out there is some truth to this, but also some questions:
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/9/3
Cyen
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An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
- Charles F. Kettering
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http://cyenobite.blogspot.com/ - outcast81, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4DID ANYONE ACTUALLY READ THE F'ING ARTICLE ????
It doesn't say anything about traveling faster than the speed of light by "ripping time and space". It only shows why FTL travel is impossible because it would create causality paradoxes.
I can't believe this site was promoted to the front-page. It seems like all you need to do here to get diggs is to write a false/misleading, but *cool*, headline, a complete BS, but *cool*, summary and no one will ever notice.
Seems like democracy doesn't work when you got a bunch of lazy idiots voting... I'm going back to /.
Jeez.... - dknighton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Forget going somewhere at warp 9.95, try "jumping" 100,000 light years in seconds. This article show that it is possible."
An article doesn't show that it's possible...someone actually DOING IT shows that it is possible. These types of article really bring the Star Trek nerds out in force. - Pocky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Did any of you read the article? It doesn't suggest FTL travel/communication is possible at all. Rather, it simply reaffirms the idea that if it was possible it would either violate causality, or suggest a flaw in special relativity. Nothing new here for anyone who knows anything about special relativity.
- LynchMOB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I hope I get my FTL drive spun up tonight.
- laplacian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No. If you actually RTFA you would have the answer to this question:
". . . faster than light travel or communication, special relativity and causality cannot coexist." - rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2urusal, the article pointed out that out of these three things:
a) Einstein's theory of relativity
b) Causality
c) FTL
Only two can exist. He basically proved that if we accept a), then c) removes the possiblity of b). I think it's safe to assume causality exists, so either Einstein is wrong (very very possible - after all, Newton was wrong), or we should give up on FTL. - ithaqua, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You need an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light, the idea is that you could use particles that has been always with a speed higher than c (Thachions), the only trouble is that they have to have the square of their mass negative, and there is no experimental evidence of them just theoretical results
- tazamore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How about posting a How-To with photos?
- Mapou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Actually, d4r7h3v1l, that's the whole point of 'special' relativity: the speed of light is a constant no matter what frame of reference you're in."
What you mean is that the **measured** speed of light is a constant. The real speed of light is certainly not a constant unless you're living in voodooland. Why is the measured speed of light constant? Because it is already part and parcel of the tools we use to measure it. This is like using a tape measure to measure itself. Whether the tape shrinks or expands, the measured value will always be the same. But don't tell this to the relativists. They're liable to chew your head off. ahahaha... Cheers. - dargon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1or you could just learn how to teleport an atom 1 atoms distance in a specified direction. Do this over and over and you have the appearance of movement. Increase the rate per second and you appear to increase your velocity without actually increasing it. Do it fast enough and you'll appear to go faster than light only you'll have a velocity of zero which means you could stop on a dime ;)
- n00854180t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it's possible to move a mass such that to an outside observer, the mass would be traveling at >c speeds. Miguel Alcubierre's warp theory is a good example of this.
- lateralus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The intelligent comments and posts at the end of the article reminded me of Digg.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to eat a delicious hamburger from McDonalds. - battybattybatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"...Folks, in the very near future, we'll all have existence in The Matrix. By that time, all it'll matter will be the new physics there, not here.
So, free your mind. :)
posted by kirakun (0) at..."
I cannot stand it when a geek quting movies mixes the movies up, like the last biit is from TOTAL RECALL. What an idiot sevante! - Pocky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"No. The article shows that it is theoretically possible."
No the article does not show it is theoretically possible. The misleading headline and description suggest that is what the article is about. It isn't. - martinus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No. We cannot be faster than light, get over it. But we might be possible to take shortcuts. When Cern's new particle accellerator is finished they will soon try to prove the existence of Gravitons. If they really exist, it means that we have several dimensions that are too small to be visible for us. Maybe we can use these to travel, because the speed of light is irrelevant in them. Or something like that :)
- battybattybatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"...Dugg for the simple fact thats theres a BSG reference in the description. that, and I just got a D in Physics.
posted by 4g3nt_Smith (0) at 02..."
Take it again from the same teacher and I will bet the farm you get a B or A the second time. I did. The first time I just sepnt lookin at Pom-pon bbob cleavage and never got around to studying GARVITIATIONAL bodies - instead of just flesh globes. The second time, the class was filled with guys, and 2 skanky hoes - not a problem! got the B, baby, yeah! - brhad56, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I broke the speed of light running once when her husband came early.
- Mapou, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3This is Star-Trek physics crackpottery, in my opinion. No better than time travel and the like. What would be more in keeping with actual physics while being equally astonishing, would be instantaneous travel from anywhere to anywhere without going through the intermediate positions. This is possible because space (distance) is an illusion of perception. This is already corroborated in experiments with quantum tunneling. In certain circumstances, particles are observed going through barriers in a way that defy classical physics. Interestingly, they seem to do so at speeds greater than the speed of light. For more on nonspatiality, see this link: Nasty Little Truth About Space: [http://www.rebelscience.org/Crackpots/nasty.htm#Space.
Quantum tunneling (long distance quantum jumps) is not to be confused with teleportation which just another example of Star-Trek physics nonsense. Imagine a world where you can travel from anywhere to anywhere instantly. Cheers! - zeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh, come on. Just use a Stargate.
:) - tpodr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From the article:
"In fact, I don't think we can prove physical theories at all..."
"the existence of faster than light communication necessarily implies causality violations."
Yea, and a blow to the head with a hammer necessarily implies pain. But you don't see me writing it up in my blog.
No digg for you! - Osiriscky3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01.21 JIGGAWATTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Please, God, somebody with some physics knowledge step in here and agree or disagree with me:
The author of that article is conflating "phase velocity" and "group velocity". Essentially, in his 'faster than light' situation, he has already set the information up that he wishes to propagate. Thus, the "phase velocity" appears to go faster than light, but the actual speed of information is far less than the speed of light.
An example:
Light takes about 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the Sun. Now, say you had a row of 100 spaceships evenly spaced from the Earth to the Sun. If each ship fires off an enormous flare precisely one second after the previous ship, it will appear that some signal travelled from the Sun to the Earth in 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds). Thus, it will appear that the signal travelled faster than the speed of light.
The Article in question does essentially this. But looking at our row-of-spaceships example, we can see that *information* was not transferred faster than the speed of light. The information was already in place after you set the ships up and timed them to launch flares in sequence.
So the "phase velocity" of the sequence of flares appears to violate the speed of light, but the "group velocity" or actual signal does not violate the speed of light. - TheMJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0they lost me at "P"
- jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01) Suppose A is not true
2) Construct reasonable theory around 1)
3) Realize 2) doesn't prove A is not true (forget its assumed)
4) Thus A must be true
Excellent, I would give it 50 diggs if I could - Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow. All these people here, and damn few of them actually RTFA.
The answer is "no, it's not possible", and it says so right in the damn thing. This article simply explains WHY it's not possible. - regedit2D, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Everything has to start somewhere, and I won't pretend to understand this, but I wouldn't be surprised if FTL became easily done. Maybe not in my lifetime, but still it'll probably happen.
- docxxvi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0id say that if someone wants to invest in this then it a fantastic idea and we should all get on the payroll.
if not then someone should spend more time on inventing highways that let you drive faster... i mean where is my rocket car huh? - fasterthanlight, on 12/28/2008, -0/+0www.ftl-theory.org
no need for anything but to go out and push harder
if true, at some distance, mass will stop increasing, in fact it will return to rest mass and velocity will increase
The theory doesn't discuss Einsten's equations. They are not in question. It postulates that nature of time is such that change in rate of time is tied to probability to observe exact time of random event.
The factor for time dilation (or mass increase) is then adjusted to account for masses and distance.
Math is very simple, even if idea may not be. - LiquidFusion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Long answer: "Yes, with an if..."
Short answer: "No, with a but..." - Mocib, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Forget all this 'faster than light' stuff, it's so old skool and slow.
The "Infinite Improbability Drive" is the real deal :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Improbability_Drive - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well...i was going to read it but...
"A brief note to my recent visitors: If you've arrived here from sites with highly misleading blurbs and expect to find a discussion of how faster-than-light travel is possible, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. This article outlines an argument commonly accepted by physicists which demonstrates that in special relativity faster-than-light travel is not possible." - Dcscanner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Boy am I dumb I didnt understand one bit of that.
- normmccray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0According to Phillip R. Heufenhaffer of the Detroit Institute of Modern Physics, the speed of light varies depending on the local gravity. He states that, if one can create a massive enough object in free-space and bend it in such a way that it fits perfectly the contorted fabric of space-time, there will around this object form a tear in the cosmos that could instantly transport information far across our universe. Now, if we assume this to be a farely accurate hypothesis, let us take one more man's studies into account - Thomas Creech of Wadham College. His studies have proven that any "hole" in space-time can be contorted by the use of beta-decayed carrageenan, allowing for the control of information transfer through them and thus a type of "teleportation." A leading researcher in the field, Vincent Wing, has taken BOTH of these accounts and shown that what "teleportation" occurs is really only an illusion and can only do transmit data at just below the speed of light. If we were to take in account Hanseatic Regression, however, we could show that any slower than light travel IS faster than light travel when viewed from a 4th point reference frame.
Hope this clears some things up! - WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What a total load of crap that article is!
Deep down, the writer knows that if you got enuff edumacation, you can maybe get other ignorant folks to mistake your own ignorance for brilliance! Pathetic losers! You might even get grants from the richer ones among the ignorant.
It is total foolishness and arrogance to pretend to understand and even to purport to explain 'causality', in such a speculative way, without having first penetrated the actual laws of process itself, and the nature of being-as-such.
The pseudo-scientist-fool of the article throws around many words (such as time, causality, space, etc.) naming things he just doesn't understand....so he, basically, doesn't KNOW what he is talking about!
I prefer to study actual truth!
They ought to ban the use of the term 'science' in most cases. Our language is deteriorating into just so much hype.
Did he say "warp bubble"? LMAO
It's like a star trek episode, but without the good writing!
- drakaan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So, he says you can't have Special Relativity, FTL travel or communications, and causality coexisting. If I have to pick one to get rid of, it's either Special Relativity or causality, then, I guess. ;)
- lollerskates, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Philosophically speaking, there's no such thing as causality and everything is random.
Scientifically speaking, the above statement is total *****. - WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cyenobyte commented:
"I read some time ago that this has already been achieved. I remember it had something to do with sending a beam of "light" containing information (waves/frequency?) through a gas and the information arrived there faster than the speed of light. It turns out there is some truth to this, but also some questions:"
Yeah...there was a digg article, a couple of weeks ago, perhaps closely related to this FTL business.
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/9/3
http://www.primidi.com/2005/08/20.html - WikiTerra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Nope, sorry--this isn't about how to achieve FTL, it's about how special relativity is incompatible with FTL (assuming that the universe is deterministic).
No diggity. - Casedot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0SyDIGG said "I think we should worry about traveling AT the speed of light before FTL. Crawl before you walk."
but if you knew how to run before you could stand, wouldn't you do it? - plefno, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have to agree with the the first comment on that site:
"My God! What gorgeous diagrams! Sorry... what was the point you were trying to explain again?"
The author of this article isn't really saying anything. - tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0according to this, then TECHNICALLY you wouldn't have to go "FASTER THAN LIGHT" or even the speed of light. RTFA and look at the graphs. For instance, in graph 2 it shows that in one case event P happened before event Q, but from another case it was backwards, Q had already happened and was waiting for P. Anyway, the point is that you're not necessarily "traveling" at ANY SPEED, it's more of a time-travel theory than it is a speed travel theory. According to this article it is showing how you could get from one point to another before you left, after you left or at the same time you left simply by manipulating/tilting space/time. Hence the whole having to "rip time and space" to do it. It's not really moving, it's more like instantly appearing somewhere like an ansible. If you would read the article, we wouldn't have so many ignorant comments...
- normmccray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"What you mean is that the **measured** speed of light is a constant. The real speed of light is certainly not a constant unless you're living in voodooland. Why is the measured speed of light constant? Because it is already part and parcel of the tools we use to measure it. This is like using a tape measure to measure itself. Whether the tape shrinks or expands, the measured value will always be the same. But don't tell this to the relativists. They're liable to chew your head off. ahahaha... Cheers."
That's one of the general ideas... it's relativity... we keep measuring it, and it keeps coming up the same, even when it should rightly be different. We've slowed time down enough to have radiation move faster than the "measured" speed - we're talking about the value, not the speed light is actually traveling though the various gasses and such that pervade our area. - nneonneo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://picard.ytmnd.com/
- the_penguin_boy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Digg for the BSG Reference.
- tdyer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0the answer.....is no.
rnelsonee find me a boundary condition that mr einstein does not have correct, and soon enough somebody will find a new theory. this however, aint it.
as for the walk beofre you crawl comments, i urge these people to travel at exactly the speed of sound, why you ask? because the sonic boom that you are emitting will never leave you, and the incredible force that is the sonic boom will continue to build on top of itself becoming ever stronger and stronger until...your plane disintegrates from the incredible forces that are crushing it.
if FTL was possible, it isn't, you would also be destroyed when you reached c.
the only way it would be possible is the proposed c'/c proposal which proposes that c is not a universal constant but merely a local constant that can change due to local conditions. it just happens that in our locality c = 3.00*10^8m/s
try "faster than the speed of light: the story of a scientific speculation" ISBN 0-7832-0525-7 - Salith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This blog entry dates from 2003!
... seriously old news. -
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