Is it possible to go faster than light?

[Philosophy Explorer]

My position is it is possible. Google wormhole and read what Einstein and Posen have theorized.

Einstein has been right so often (his latest triumph, gravitational waves, has been proven about a year ago). It remains for someone to discover wormholes.

PhilX

[Melchior]

No.

[surreptitious57]

No because infinite mass does not exist within the universe and so it is not possible

[Philosophy Explorer]

No because infinite mass does not exist within the universe and so it is not possible

Infinite mass has nothing to do with this.

PhilX

[surreptitious57]

Infinite mass has nothing to do with this

Why cannot objects travel faster than light speed

[Philosophy Explorer]

Infinite mass has nothing to do with this

Why cannot objects travel faster than light speed

A wormhole can shorten the distance between two points. Let's take a specific example. Take two points that are separated 18.6 million miles in space. This means it takes light 100 seconds to travel from point to the other.

Let's say a wormhole has shortened the distance to just 1 mile between the points. Then a spaceship can travel the distance in less than a second which is faster than light doing it in 100 seconds.

Clearly the spaceship is moving at less than the speed of light so infinite mass doesn't enter the picture, BUT in a manner of speaking, it has moved faster between the two points than light has due to the reduced distance involved.

Wormholes are theoretical and remain to be discovered. I have faith in Einstein.

PhilX

[surreptitious57]

Even in a wormhole nothing can travel faster than the speed of light as you have said so that is the answer to your question
The universe is expanding faster than the speed of light but that is not a violation of any thing and so it is for the wormhole

[Greta]

It's theoretically possible for wormholes to exist and for a person to go through them. The hard part is not emerging at the other end of the wormhole as scrambled and deep fried matter.

As we approach light speed, time slows. When we hit light speed, time stops. When we exceed light speed, we travel into the past.

This begs the question as to why we are not all hurtling back into the past as space moves galaxies apart at faster than light speed. Could it be that we are all heading back into the past at the same rate so we don't notice? The idea is insane Does anyone have any sane ideas on this question?

[Philosophy Explorer]

It's theoretically possible for wormholes to exist and for a person to go through them. The hard part is not emerging at the other end of the wormhole as scrambled and deep fried matter.

As we approach light speed, time slows. When we hit light speed, time stops. When we exceed light speed, we travel into the past.

This begs the question as to why we are not all hurtling back into the past as space moves galaxies apart at faster than light speed. Could it be that we are all heading back into the past at the same rate so we don't notice? The idea is insane Does anyone have any sane ideas on this question?

Well first more information. The relativistic equation doesn't say time stops nor does it say when we exceed light speed, we travel into the past. When you plug in C (the speed of light) into the equation, you get infinity and when you plug in C+, you get imaginary numbers which don't make sense either.

As far as we hurtling into the past, remember we're talking about relativity. We're not personally affected with respect to ourselves. Look up the twin paradox to understand this point further.

As far as the universe expanding faster than light, this is new to me so I have no comment (yet). This is an area I will study.

PhilX

[surreptitious57]

The space between galaxies is moving faster for there is no matter to bend it or slow it down as it is basically vacuum
The space within galaxies is also expanding but is doing so at a significantly lesser rate which is one below light speed

[Philosophy Explorer]

I copied this from Quora:

"The premise of the question is confused. The expansion of spacetime is not measured in the same units as the speed of light—the two are simply in different sets of units:
The speed of light is measured in units of velocity, which are m/s in conventional units.
The expansion of the universe is measured by the Hubble parameter, which has units of 1/time. Astronomers typically quote the Hubble parameter today (and many incorrectly call it the Hubble "constant", but it is not constant), and give it in units of ~70 km/s/Mpc. km and Mpc are both units of length, so this really has units of 1/time.

People keep perpetuating this quote of the universe "expanding faster than the speed of light", but it doesn't make sense to compare those two quantities. It would be an interesting historical exercise to track down the origin of this quote.

The most meaning I can attribute to this quote is as follows. Remember in Hubble's law that apparent recession velocity is proportional to distance between two objects (this gets modified for cosmological distances). At any given time in the universe, you can find a distance (c/H) where the apparent recession velocity is the speed of light. Beyond that distance, objects appear to recede faster than the speed of light. But remember, apparent recession velocity is not a real physical velocity!"

So one isn't comparing apples with apples.

PhilX

[Cerveny]

Nothing can run faster than time (of growing/condensation of the Universe):(

[Noax]

As far as the universe expanding faster than light, this is new to me so I have no comment (yet). This is an area I will study.

The expansion rate of the universe is not a speed, so it isn't something faster than light. But depending on the framework in which one views things, distant galaxies (say, 28 LY away) move away from us at twice light speed.

No violation of relativity here. Such galaxies are not in our reference frame at all, so no violation exists. Inertial frames are valid only locally, and if they were not, they have a hard edge where things move away from us so fast that time is stopped. In the inertial view, there is a hard edge to the universe and those distant galaxies do not yet exist, or they do exist, but they have not yet become a galaxy or distant.

To consider a view where that distant galaxy actually exists (in comoving coordinates for instance), sure, the thing is receding (increase of proper distance per second > 300km/sec), and accelerating as well. But proper distance (30 LY say) is not the same thing as distance, so the recession rate of that distant galaxy is not really a velocity. Light emitted from such a galaxy will never ever reach us since the expansion of the universe will outrun the light. The proper distance between that photon and us forever increases despite the thing heading straight for us.

[thedoc]

So far as science understands relativity, nothing can travel through space faster than light, but that leaves the question of shortening the distance through space between objects, or warping space so that a ship can travel at less than light speed through space, but cover the distance at greater than light speed.

[Greta]

Thanks gents. I didn't realise that the "faster than light" statement about the universe's expansion was misleading.

Still, there must be a way of roughly applying equivalencies. Let's say - using a "brute force" approach - it's determined that the speed of expansion is roughly equivalent to galaxies moving away from each other at faster than light speed. Then, I guess, proximity effect comes into play because of the cumulative effect of distance, in which case it would only be the furthest galaxies moving away from us at greater light speed, not local galaxies - and especially not Andromeda.

Then again, when we view those galaxies travelling away from us at that speed, we are probably viewing light from long dead galaxies, in which case we are actually looking into the past :)