here's my problem with anything traveling close to the speed of light. weight or mass for a better term. Any object with any mass traveling at, near, or beyond light speed would have a distinct gravitational pull on objects it passes. More mass equals greater pull at light speed I see this as being dangerous. Since it potentially could pull asteroids, meteors, comets, and other space objects into different orbits. Or worse pull these objects in behind the light speed object. When the lightspeed object(assuming spaceship) slows it could have dozens if not hundreds of objects coming at it from thje rear

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Time can be distorted as speed increases, as predicted by Einstein's theories. I can't recall the exact logic, because I never had to consider that particular corner of his work while doing my work at very low temperatures (77K = too hot, sub 4K = normal, even a few trips to sub 1K...) - you can have real fun with liquid helium and tomatoes, but that's a different story....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

If something like time should be able to be distorted, you possibly could be able to have a "field" in which time exists or is present when it comes to its existence or precence and possibly be able to come up with a definition of such a "field".

Not necessarily meaning or implying a "gravitational field".

Otherwise there has been the usual way of thinking that gravity and time is closely related to each other and that other factors may not be equally as important in this context.

In which way is it possible to make a definition of a "field" when it comes to the subject of time?

It is easier of you consider "time" as an n-dimensional plane than a linear object. By doing so you can have the time-plane distort without disturbing our geometric planes, or you can distort our geometric planes without affecting the time-plane. Once you've done this transformation you can start to think about exceeding the speed of light in our set of geometric planes, but without exceeding it in the time-plane. The maths is in the "quite exciting" club until you give up trying to work everything back to our view of geometry....


This reminds me of an old sci-fi book that started with the phrase "Time was proceeding at it usual rate of one second per second", and ended, two hundred odd (very odd) pages later with the phrase "Time was one more proceeding at its usual rate of one second per second".

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

but in the emptiness of space.. there is no 'mass' :P

Even in empty space, there is about one hydrogen atom per size of a grape fruit, so not even space is completely void of mass. Years ago, I read of a possible earth based space craft that could theoretically obtain about 86% of the speed of light that would shaped like a huge scoop close to the size of the moon, that would scoop up those hydrogen atoms, and fuse them as a propulsion source that is self fueling. Of course that is not practicle, but theoretically possible.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Mass is a "funny", it is the result of an interaction between gravity and particles, or an interaction between gravity and a wave. Now in which set of dimensions does this interaction occur? That entirely depends on the model you are using.




Can I take another aspirin now please - I'm getting a headache thinking about the prospects of distorting our geometric set of planes in the time domain in such a way that it becomes possible to move faster than light, but without increasing the mass of the object you are trying to move within the geometric/time set of planes....

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

The problem isn't so much fooling physics as being able to manipulate the correct set of dimensions without upsetting our normal set of dimensions.
Our normal set of dimensions, the "geometric", "temporal time" and "gravity" relate to each other in a predicable manner, however there is a lot of theory around that indicates that this relationship is actually controlled by another set of dimensions, which, if we could manipulate them would allow us to change the relationship between say non-temporal-time and temporal-time in such a a way that we could proceed through temporal-time at say 0.001ts per nts, thus be able to approach light speed in our time domain...

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

We happen to know that mass represent extraordinarily amounts of energy because of Einstein's famous equation E=mc2.

Gravity is known to be bending space and time and mass is also the reason for gravity and gravitational fields.

Isaac Newton's three laws of gravity are dealing with this subject. The third law of his is quite complex.

I happened to watch a video from hurricane Sandy coming across and was watching the waves coming ashore from the ocean as a result of this hurricane.

Energy is being moved through the water by means of the waves. When such a wave hits you, the power of it is readily being felt.

The amount of water in the wave shows up by means of the amount of energy passing through it in order to make up a wave of the same amount of water, setting it in motion.

A wave is a constantly or continuously upgoing or downgoing curve. Traveling upwards and downwards along such a wave, it does not represent the shortest line between two separate points when it comes to a straight line.

All particles could be thought of or regarded as waves. Rather than waves we could assume that particles represent energy instead.

Physicists are assuming that Planck's constant is the smallest number which could be related to things in nature directly.

An Adobe Flash Player model mentioned here earlier could be used as an illustration or diagram for this purpose.

On this scale everything that is present or showing up should be waves at best, not necessarily particles.

Gravity is related to mass, but energy is related to waves. Still we are assuming gravity waves in the same way as we are feeling the waves from earthquakes through solid ground, not necessarily only liquid water.

Scientists have been trying to detect gravity waves by means of sensitive underground detectors. I am not sure about whether or not this has been worked out, but as far as I know, they have not been successful at detecting any such gravity waves yet.

but in the emptiness of space.. there is no 'mass' :P

Even in empty space, there is about one hydrogen atom per size of a grape fruit, so not even space is completely void of mass. Years ago, I read of a possible earth based space craft that could theoretically obtain about 86% of the speed of light that would shaped like a huge scoop close to the size of the moon, that would scoop up those hydrogen atoms, and fuse them as a propulsion source that is self fueling. Of course that is not practicle, but theoretically possible.

Steve

You're the last person I'd ever want to argue physics with, Steve, but the Ram Scoop engine you are talking about wouldn't work at higher speeds. Scooping up those atoms robs momentum from the spaceship which is, presumably, gained back when you launch it out the back end. The faster your exhaust, the better, of course but it is hard to imagine a jet velocity of even half of the speed of light. (Just a few percent is more likely.) and attempting to go faster than the jet speed means that it costs more energy to scoop them up than you get out of them.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

but in the emptiness of space.. there is no 'mass' :P

Even in empty space, there is about one hydrogen atom per size of a grape fruit, so not even space is completely void of mass. Years ago, I read of a possible earth based space craft that could theoretically obtain about 86% of the speed of light that would shaped like a huge scoop close to the size of the moon, that would scoop up those hydrogen atoms, and fuse them as a propulsion source that is self fueling. Of course that is not practicle, but theoretically possible.

Steve

You're the last person I'd ever want to argue physics with, Steve, but the Ram Scoop engine you are talking about wouldn't work at higher speeds. Scooping up those atoms robs momentum from the spaceship which is, presumably, gained back when you launch it out the back end. The faster your exhaust, the better, of course but it is hard to imagine a jet velocity of even half of the speed of light. (Just a few percent is more likely.) and attempting to go faster than the jet speed means that it costs more energy to scoop them up than you get out of them.

Fair enough. It was based on a fusion reaction, and I just remembered reading about it many years ago, and haven't seen anything about it since. I am pleased you are familiar with it also. The other point is that there are free floating hydrogen atoms in "empty" space.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

You could accelerate at one g for six months or so and achieve a fair percentage of the speed of light. The problem as I see it is to find an engine that can carry this much fuel especially since relativistic effects must be considered as to increased mass. I suspect that the only solution might be anti-matter annilation which would yield a near 100% mass conversion to energy.

I also suspect that this may be way off in the far far future if ever. If we found a habitable planet in the Proxima Centauri system than maybe we could go there some day.

Albert Einstein's famous equation states that E=mc2.

But where is time in all of this? Are we able to assume t or T for time and if so, is it a constant?

Are we assuming all the time that the speed of light is a constant as well?

Or maybe c rather is dependant on its environment or surroundings?

Musicplayers part post above is interesting. When Einstein drew up his equation
he initially did not set "C" as a constant but just given the value as measured
at that time. Upon pondering over his equation he decided to make "C" a constant
for he "assumed" the speed of light was always that what he measured it at.
The burning question here is, "Was he correct to assume this"?

As Musicplayers further states, " 'C' rather dependent on it's environment"
I think that's a very valid question for if 'C' has had different values over
time then dating the age of the universe is going to be quite impossible. If 'C'
at earlier times was slower, then the age of the universe is going to be less.
I think the speed of light has varied over time but I only think this. Some
physicist have stated that they think there's evidence to show that light at
one time was travelling faster than it is today. Using this this scenario
then the universe could be older than we currently calculate.

Coming back to a point I raised in an earlier post, on creation of our universe,
if light was one of the last components to be formed just how far had the
universe expanded before light came into play. Without light with it's limits
coming into play, though for a very short period of time, the universe could
have expanded to half the size we have today before light came a long to put
some brakes on to it's rate of expansion. At the point that light was finally
created here did this light react with the existing energy so creating then all
the matter we have.

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The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

but in the emptiness of space.. there is no 'mass' :P

Even in empty space, there is about one hydrogen atom per size of a grape fruit, so not even space is completely void of mass. Years ago, I read of a possible earth based space craft that could theoretically obtain about 86% of the speed of light that would shaped like a huge scoop close to the size of the moon, that would scoop up those hydrogen atoms, and fuse them as a propulsion source that is self fueling. Of course that is not practicle, but theoretically possible.

Steve

You're the last person I'd ever want to argue physics with, Steve, but the Ram Scoop engine you are talking about wouldn't work at higher speeds. Scooping up those atoms robs momentum from the spaceship which is, presumably, gained back when you launch it out the back end. The faster your exhaust, the better, of course but it is hard to imagine a jet velocity of even half of the speed of light. (Just a few percent is more likely.) and attempting to go faster than the jet speed means that it costs more energy to scoop them up than you get out of them.

Fair enough. It was based on a fusion reaction, and I just remembered reading about it many years ago, and haven't seen anything about it since. I am pleased you are familiar with it also. The other point is that there are free floating hydrogen atoms in "empty" space.

Steve

<<< Larry Niven fan. :P

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein

(Apologies for the multiple puns ;-) )

Taking a bit of a sidestep, an example of real science in action:


'Twisted light' data-boosting idea sparks heated debate

An idea to vastly increase the carrying capacity of radio and light waves has been called into question.

The "twisted light" approach relies on what is called light's orbital angular momentum, which has been put forth as an unexploited means to carry data. ...


All a question of what effects and what view. However, note how the abstract and encoding can themselves be "faster than light (or the medium being used)"...

Also note the refreshingly public research debate that so often today is so badly stifled by conspiracists and overly sensitive and shallow funding bodies...

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Meade posted this story on my Facebook timeline yesterday. Thought it might make for an interesting read.

NASA's First Warp Drive

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**Check out my wifes cupcakes**

Of course there's the idea of being able to Jump from one point in space to another(A to B), like in the TV Series 'Battlestar Galactica', I don't know if how that could take place, but it's interesting as ideas go and of course, it's not FTL.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Meade posted this story on my Facebook timeline yesterday. Thought it might make for an interesting read.

NASA's First Warp Drive

Well Bill, it's interesting to say the least. If it's feasible then one would
expect to see, in time, more scientist's writing and commenting on it's
practicability.

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The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

Meade posted this story on my Facebook timeline yesterday. Thought it might make for an interesting read.

NASA's First Warp Drive

Nice link bill, thanks.

Victor

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Repeal the USA gun laws, and reach out into space.

Isn't that: fire all the guns at once, explode into space?

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The major problem (besides the obvious technical hurdles) would be the required energy budget.

One of the most basic rules of the universe is that to move an object from point A to point B requires energy. Generally speaking, the further you want to move and object and the faster you want to get it done the more energy you'd need to make it happen.

I have no idea how it would be calculated but I'd guess you'd need the combined energy output of at least several suns to make it work.

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Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

Albert Einstein