Thread: Idea to move faster than light

Please feel free to poke holes in this. If there was a hollow, circular tube, being spun at as close to the speed of light as possible, with another hollow tube inside of that, being spun at the same speed, wouldn't the second tube be moving faster than light? It would work in the same way a man walking up the aisle of a plane moving at 500 mph would be moving at 503 mph.

its not possible to spin the second tube over the speed of light as it would require probably the same amount of energy that exists in the entire universe. case closed. fundamental law of nature.

Here's the important question... spinning close to the speed of light... relative to what? When you do the calculation correctly, you're still less than light speed, even though intuition and Galilean relativity suggest additive speeds.

No matter how close you are to the speed of light if you have all the thrust in the universe you cannot get going past the speed of light.

"The famailar notions of absolute space and absolute time independent of your relative motion must give way." - Carl Sagan.

But if the first was moving at a constant speed, then inertia would dissipate, again like in a plane. The second tube would only need to move at the difference between the first tube's speed, and light. The first could move at, say, the same speed as a molecule in the Large Hadron Collider, and the second could move at several millionths of the speed of light.

I think you misunderstood Einstein's Theory of General Realtivity...its a fundamental law of nature that matter can not travel faster than the speed of light, no matter how much energy is put in as the energy has mass, and therefore more energy is needed to move the added mass and then a bit more, and then a bit more...its exponential and the speed of light is unattainable.

Originally Posted by doyh

But if the first was moving at a constant speed, then inertia would dissipate, again like in a plane. The second tube would only need to move at the difference between the first tube's speed, and light. The first could move at, say, the same speed as a molecule in the Large Hadron Collider, and the second could move at several millionths of the speed of light.

Velocities don't add linearly.(that's another one of those holdovers from Galilean relativity).

You have to use the formula:

Vt =


In this case, V1 would be the speed of the outer tube and V1 the speed of the inner tube as measured with respect to and from the outer tube.

No matter what V1 and V2 are, their sum will always be less than c.

If we could find us a Tachyon, and project its qualities around a vessel could we move faster than the speed of light without violating any rules?

Find a Tachyon, put it in a circular track with a large chamber some where along track. Have that chamber project a tachyonic field around a vessel to achieve faster than light speeds. To get closer to the speed of light give the Tachyon energy, to speed away from light speed remove more energy. Have the chamber be capable of acting as just a section off track when you don't want use Tachyon speeds, and have it be able to turn it on and synchronize the Tachyon's momentum with that of the ship.

Originally Posted by AaronHawk

If we could find us a Tachyon, and project its qualities around a vessel could we move faster than the speed of light without violating any rules?

Find a Tachyon, put it in a circular track with a large chamber some where along track. Have that chamber project a tachyonic field around a vessel to achieve faster than light speeds. To get closer to the speed of light give the Tachyon energy, to speed away from light speed remove more energy. Have the chamber be capable of acting as just a section off track when you don't want use Tachyon speeds, and have it be able to turn it on and synchronize the Tachyon's momentum with that of the ship.

Given that tachyons are hypothetical, this idea not more than science fiction.

Well if not Tachyons, could we use a regular photon?


Project the qualities of a photon around a vessel so that we might travel at it speed. Has there been any work in replicating or imitating EM fields? Or would we need to do more than project a photons EM field to move like a photon.

Originally Posted by AaronHawk

Well if not Tachyons, could we use a regular photon?

Project the qualities of a photon around a vessel so that we might travel at it speed. Has there been any work in replicating or imitating EM fields? Or would we need to do more than project a photons EM field to move like a photon.

That doesn't work either. Photons have a momentum

that can be transferred to particles, where the momentum is defined as , so , if all the momentum could be transferred to a particle with the mass (see also Compton scattering). But this does not help with the fact that no thing that possesses a mass can reach the speed of light.

What exactly do you mean with "Project the qualities of a photon around a vessel ..."?

Tricking the universe into thinking the vessel is a photon. Sorry for anthropomorphizing the universe, it difficult to describe what I am saying without doing so.

Ive never taken physics so i may be way out in left field here. however if u had a tube inside a tube both spinning at the speed of light relative say only to one another then wouldnt it simply be the speed of light squared which times the mass of each added is the energy of both tubes as a unit. and as such u cant attain higher than the speed of light bc of mass.....

Its not possible to travel at the speed of light. There is no way of achieving it.

Its not possible to travel at the speed of light. There is no way of achieving it.

What about photons? But even without considering photons, can you Mr Roberts explain why it is not possible for object's with mass to accelerate =>c?

because you would need infinite energy to do that...

I am not the smartest man in the world, but i do find this conversation very intersting
My input, from what i do understand is that the whole question is moot
You are asking how to travel faster then light
This would be the same as asking how i would walk faster then a snail..

What i mean is, since the speed of light fluctuates and is not constant, how are you ever supposed to travel faster then it, without at first tuning to what the speed is. Much like trying to listen to a radio station that keeps changing frequency..

I am probably making a flawed assumption here, bu that is why i joined these forums, to learn. Please feel to tear my response apart and i will rechew what is left of it :P

so, if you need infinite energy to travel at the speed of light
how does light travel at the speed of light?

If i need more power then my ps3 can handle
but my ps3 requires more power then i can give it

then how will i ever play ff13 without it crashing..

seems more like metaphysics to me..
there cna't possibly be anything travelling at a speed that requires an infinite amount of energy to run
if light requires infinite energy to travel at light speed, then that just doesn't make any sense at all..

Unless of course, that light relies on all the energy of the universe, and in some way when ever teh universe loses energy light travles slower

But then the universe would have to be infinite
and the lgith would have to be coming from any point
but it is not
it is coming from a star
which is at a finite point
in a finite place

so, like is this moer quantum physics
that all the atoms in the universe are linked together

pretty interesting, since no one has seen an atom let alone all of the atoms in the universe in order to prove this

also, atoms are finite objects
in finite space
so how can their be an infinie amount

i am most likely missing some very important piece of informtion

like alternate universes
but

even if they existed

if light has to have infinite energy just to travel in our universe
then they would all be sucked into our universe in order to bring balance

i am most likely wrong

so feel free to point that out..

but if light speed fluctuates
then it cannot posssibly take an infinite amount of energy to run it
because the energy would never fluctuate
so then
why does light fluctuate in speed
and does it really, or is it just magically affecting our perception like some drug

the assumption i am making is that infinite energy can not be located in a finite space
that even with all the universes known to complex math,
you would still not have infinite energy to even turn on your lightbulb so someone can view it from across the street...

:S

I of course , am probably misunderstanding somethign..

What i mean is, since the speed of light fluctuates and is not constant,

"c" is an absolute constant; 299,792,458 meters per second. It does not fluctuate. Two different observers moving at variant velocities would still measure the same value for the velocity of a single beam of light. This leads too contradictions that cannot be resolved without bending space and time. It is weird, I'm not comfortable with it, but a plethora of experiment and observation suggests it's true.

because you would need infinite energy to do that...

I was attempting to bait Mr Roberts into actually explaining the mechanism of this conclusion. I myself need to do more study to explain it myself.

Originally Posted by GiantEvil

Its not possible to travel at the speed of light. There is no way of achieving it.

What about photons? But even without considering photons, can you Mr Roberts explain why it is not possible for object's with mass to accelerate =>c?

Obviously photons can, hence "the speed of light". There are no loopholes.

Originally Posted by Goshinki

but if light speed fluctuates
then it cannot posssibly take an infinite amount of energy to run it
because the energy would never fluctuate
so then
why does light fluctuate in speed
and does it really, or is it just magically affecting our perception like some drug

Light does not fluctuate in speed. If you are thinking about the apparent change of speed in light through different materials, this is due to the fact that as the light passes through, it is absorbed and re-emitted by the atoms of the material. It is the delay between absorption and emission that causes the apparent slowing. While traveling from atom to atom the light still travels at c.

Light can travel at c because it is massless (it has no rest mass). In fact, it has to travel at c and only c due to this fact.

If we really want things to get confusing, there are situations where time itself slows down, and that would include light slowing down to the perspective of an outside observer. Suppose, for example, that we situated a number of laser-emitting relays near the event horizon of a black hole (outside the event horizon, but very near it.).

Then we hit one of them with a laser, triggering it to light up and then fire a laser beam at the next, which lights up and fires a beam at the next.... etc. To a distant observer, I think these relays would appear to be receiving their signals from each other at a speed much slower than C.

I don't know that it is really different to say "time slows down in a gravitational field" than it is to say that "all speed uniformly diminish (including C), in a gravitational field."

Originally Posted by GiantEvil

Its not possible to travel at the speed of light. There is no way of achieving it.

What about photons? But even without considering photons, can you Mr Roberts explain why it is not possible for object's with mass to accelerate =>c?

Your inertial mass increases as you gain energy. Velocity is energy as well. As you approach the speed of light, your inertial mass begins to approach infinity. Once your inertial mass reaches infinity (at the speed of light) you become in immovable object. (Well, unacceleratable object, anyway. You're still moving at C.)

Originally Posted by kojax

If we really want things to get confusing, there are situations where time itself slows down, and that would include light slowing down to the perspective of an outside observer. Suppose, for example, that we situated a number of laser-emitting relays near the event horizon of a black hole (outside the event horizon, but very near it.).

Then we hit one of them with a laser, triggering it to light up and then fire a laser beam at the next, which lights up and fires a beam at the next.... etc. To a distant observer, I think these relays would appear to be receiving their signals from each other at a speed much slower than C.

I don't know that it is really different to say "time slows down in a gravitational field" than it is to say that "all speed uniformly diminish (including C), in a gravitational field."

Originally Posted by GiantEvil

Its not possible to travel at the speed of light. There is no way of achieving it.

What about photons? But even without considering photons, can you Mr Roberts explain why it is not possible for object's with mass to accelerate =>c?

Your inertial mass increases as you gain energy. Velocity is energy as well. As you approach the speed of light, your inertial mass begins to approach infinity. Once your inertial mass reaches infinity (at the speed of light) you become in immovable object. (Well, unacceleratable object, anyway. You're still moving at C.)

Rubbish. Time slows down relative to what ?

What is true is that time, like velocity is relative to the observer, and different observers will measure time differently. This is the lesson of special relativity.

General relativity goes a bit further and teaches us that time is a local concept and observers in different locations and particularly at different gravitational potentials will also measure time differently. One cannot compare clocks that are at different spatial locations meaningfully.

While photons, and any other particle with zero rest mass, not only can but must travel at c, it is quite impossible for any object with non-zero rest mass to travel at c relative to any inertial reference frame. To do so would violate special relativity and take infinite energy, as measured in any inertial reference frame.

If you want a complete explanation take a look in any good book on special relativity. Wolfgang Rindler's Introduction to Special Relativity would be a good source.