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[MXRider]

Im surprised no one posted anything from star trek yet.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

So why is it different that we don't have something of sufficient power to break beyond the speed of light?

Because it's not a matter of power. If you have infinite energy, you wouldn't be able to break the "light barrier", because it's fundamentally different to the sound barrier, or building a rocket with enough oomph to get out of the atmosphere.

It's a considerably larger problem but to believe that it can never and will never be done is short sighted. There are times when things are believed to have gone FTL i.e. during the Big Bang as theorized by scientists as well so that being the case, believing that it has been done, we can assert that it is beyond our tech not that it is beyond our reach.

That's not even what I said, but I'll play along for now. I could name several things you've never heard of that are examples of "things moving faster than light", but that's not what we mean by "FTL". We mean the transfer of information between two points at a speed in excess of C, or to phrase it another way, the ability to exert a causal influence at effective velocities greater than C. The universe is constantly expanding at a speed greater than C, and this speed is accelerating. But that in itself is meaningless - it's increasing distances between things and regions of the universe and the things inside it can't take advantage of this effect to talk to each other "faster" than C. Quantum entanglement can interact instantaneously between two points, yet no information transfer using it is possible. This is because if it were, you could combine it with (experimentally verified) relativistic effects to send messages to the past and receive signals from the future. I shouldn't have to explain why the creation of logical paradoxes as a result of something is a strong argument against it.

I responded to your post originally because the argument you presented irritates me on a very deep level. The core of it is "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore Y concept under discussion here is possible". Or you state it in a slightly weaker form, "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore you can't say Y is impossible because you might be wrong too". Anybody could be wrong, we know. But stating this is not actually any kind of defense of concept Y, because the statement could apply to literally anything. Maybe our scientific theories that say perpetual motion machines are impossible are wrong. Maybe gravity isn't real. Maybe we dismissed the four bodily humors too soon. Do you see the problem?

 

[Simon Belmont]

I responded to your post originally because the argument you presented irritates me on a very deep level. The core of it is "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore Y concept under discussion here is possible". Or you state it in a slightly weaker form, "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore you can't say Y is impossible because you might be wrong too". Anybody could be wrong, we know. But stating this is not actually any kind of defense of concept Y, because the statement could apply to literally anything. Maybe our scientific theories that say perpetual motion machines are impossible are wrong. Maybe gravity isn't real. Maybe we dismissed the four bodily humors too soon. Do you see the problem?

I love this essay from Asimov dealing with the idea that because people were wrong about one thing once, we're wrong about everything from now on.

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

 

[twobear]

But photons don't have mass and therefore require no energy to accelerate them. Why is there speed exactly constant? What determines it?

The structure of spacetime determines it.

So is that an interfere-o-meter or an inter-ferometer?

I like the first one better.

It's the first. The idea is that you send some coherent light out, split it down two paths, and then recombine them and send them into a detector. If the light took a different amount of time to travel down the two paths, then they'll no longer be coherent—they'll interfere with one another. Because light always travels at the same speed, the fact that it took them different times to travel the different paths means (assuming no experimental error) that one of the paths is longer.

 

[Aselith]

Because it's not a matter of power. If you have infinite energy, you wouldn't be able to break the "light barrier", because it's fundamentally different to the sound barrier, or building a rocket with enough oomph to get out of the atmosphere.



That's not even what I said, but I'll play along for now. I could name several things you've never heard of that are examples of "things moving faster than light", but that's not what we mean by "FTL". We mean the transfer of information between two points at a speed in excess of C, or to phrase it another way, the ability to exert a causal influence at effective velocities greater than C. The universe is constantly expanding at a speed greater than C, and this speed is accelerating. But that in itself is meaningless - it's increasing distances between things and regions of the universe and the things inside it can't take advantage of this effect to talk to each other "faster" than C. Quantum entanglement can interact instantaneously between two points, yet no information transfer using it is possible. This is because if it were, you could combine it with (experimentally verified) relativistic effects to send messages to the past and receive signals from the future. I shouldn't have to explain why the creation of logical paradoxes as a result of something is a strong argument against it.

I responded to your post originally because the argument you presented irritates me on a very deep level. The core of it is "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore Y concept under discussion here is possible". Or you state it in a slightly weaker form, "people were wrong in the past when they said X concept was impossible, therefore you can't say Y is impossible because you might be wrong too". Anybody could be wrong, we know. But stating this is not actually any kind of defense of concept Y, because the statement could apply to literally anything. Maybe our scientific theories that say perpetual motion machines are impossible are wrong. Maybe gravity isn't real. Maybe we dismissed the four bodily humors too soon. Do you see the problem?

My original statement was simply meant to highlight a point at which we could see a thing but could not get to it and that with technology's advance we were able to overcome what were our relative limitations at the time. I never said anyone was wrong about anything. Where did you get that idea?

You seem to think that I think that getting out of the atmosphere and breaking the speed of light are exactly the same thing which I don't. I understand that it is orders of magnitudes more difficult to achieve. I was simply saying that I don't believe the theory of relativity means it'll never be done.

 

[Timedog]

The ring would only help them get nearer to the Johnson-Johnston Standard Limit as far as efficiency, but FTL would require either a limit break or Herzog-Svei transformation.

 

[Parch]

The most important statement in that article is... "The agency is far more focused on more achievable projects."

But unfortunately this piece of media fluff is created because throwing around terms like "Star Trek warp drive" attracts the attention that NASA desperately needs.

 

[Oozer3993]

I just want to see Pluto clearly NASA.

We'll have clear, close up pictures in two years.

 

[twobear]

The ring would only help them get nearer to the Johnson-Johnston Standard Limit as far as efficiency, but FTL would require either a limit break or Herzog-Svei transformation.

Jokes aside, this is actually by far the easiest bit of the Alcubierre drive. In fact this isn't really new science, in the sense that we know that energy and matter distorts spacetime. In order to build a helpful Alcubierre drive you need energy and matter with a negative stress-energy, and a lot of it—like more than the mass of the observable universe—which we have pretty good reason to believe is not just impossible, but very impossible.

 

[Timedog]

Listen NASA, I don't want to tell you guys how to do your jobs or anything, but...

 

[LCfiner]

You seem to think that I think that getting out of the atmosphere and breaking the speed of light are exactly the same thing which I don't. I understand that it is orders of magnitudes more difficult to achieve. I was simply saying that I don't believe the theory of relativity means it'll never be done.

I don't know if it's intentional but the language used here, "orders of magnitude," implies that it's still an engineering problem or a lack of power problem. But it's not. It's a different kind of problem - it's a "breaking a fundamental law of nature" problem.

 

[Aselith]

I don't know if it's intentional but the language used here, "orders of magnitude," implies that it's still an engineering problem or a lack of power problem. But it's not. It's a different kind of problem - it's a "breaking a fundamental law of nature" problem.

It will eventually become an engineering problem. As it stands, it's a theoretical problem in that we have to come up with some inkling of a way to overcome the speed of light limit but eventually we have to engineer the thing to make it happen. Theoretical solutions don't come out complete with an engine, you think up a way to possibly do it then someone figures out a way to make that happen.

We don't actually know which is more difficult, it may be actually even more difficult to engineer the means than it is to actually come up with the theory.

I'm not sure why my saying it's orders of magnitude more difficult means that I think we already know the way to achieve this and we just have to make a thingy?

 

[Karak]

This is just theoretical stuff, a lot more time (and money) will be needed to actually make a FTL ship.

Correct. Exactly as all things start.

 

[Axion22]

they should call it FTL Mobile, not Travel, unless it's a mini board game for car trips.

 

[Simon Belmont]

It will eventually become an engineering problem. As it stands, it's a theoretical problem in that we have to come up with some inkling of a way to overcome the speed of light limit but eventually we have to engineer the thing to make it happen. Theoretical solutions don't come out complete with an engine, you think up a way to possibly do it then someone figures out a way to make that happen.

We don't actually know which is more difficult, it may be actually even more difficult to engineer the means than it is to actually come up with the theory.

I'm not sure why my saying it's orders of magnitude more difficult means that I think we already know the way to achieve this and we just have to make a thingy?

Well it's certainly nice to want things.

 

[NH Apache]

I read this...

Harold G. White, a physicist and advanced propulsion engineer at NASA, beckoned toward a table full of equipment there on a recent afternoon: a laser, a camera, some small mirrors, a ring made of ceramic capacitors and a few other objects.

and I picture this...

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

It will eventually become an engineering problem. As it stands, it's a theoretical problem in that we have to come up with some inkling of a way to overcome the speed of light limit but eventually we have to engineer the thing to make it happen.

But you assume that there is a theoretical solution that will work in practice. I think the point is that this is not guaranteed. It's not simply a question of when, it's a question of if.

 

[Jarmel]

Yea White has been in the news for the past year or so. It's a fucking shame that NASA's budget is so goddamn small now. If they had 60's or 70's funding, our asses would have probably been out of this solar system by now.

 

[Aselith]

But you assume that there is a theoretical solution that will work in practice. I think the point is that this is not guaranteed. It's not simply a question of when, it's a question of if.

And as I stated in my original statement way back in the eons past, this is in my opinion. It being my opinion that if we have reason to believe a thing has happened before than there is a way to make it happen and control it. I may be wildly wrong, feel free to get back to me in a few thousand years with the I told you so's.

 

[Simon Belmont]

And as I stated in my original statement way back in the eons past, this is in my opinion. It being my opinion that if we have reason to believe a thing has happened before than there is a way to make it happen and control it. I may be wildly wrong, feel free to get back to me in a few thousand years with the I told you so's.

When? When has any object ever moved through space faster than the speed of light?

 

[NH Apache]

When? When has any object ever moved through space faster than the speed of light?

In the OP, they explain the concept is "proven" via the big bang.

 

[The Technomancer]

When? When has any object ever moved through space faster than the speed of light?

Specifically when has information ever transmitted faster then the speed of light

 

[Parch]

It's not simply a question of when, it's a question of if.

From what I've seen, it seems like scientists and mathematricians are more convinced than ever that FTL is not possible. Much more evidence against compared to zero for. There's nothing wrong in continuing to think about it, but anything beyond theoretical sure looks like a waste of resources.

 

[Aselith]

When? When has any object ever moved through space faster than the speed of light?

Tachyons

Main article: Tachyon
In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object to the speed of light, or for a massive object to move at the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which always moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.[79][80]
Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature,[81][82][83][84][85] while others have disputed the possibility.

How does that help us? I dunno.

 

[Simon Belmont]

In the OP, they explain the concept is "proven" via the big bang.

If your frame of reference is two points moving away from each other, then each point only has to be moving at a fraction of the speed of light for the total speed of one away from the other to be faster than light. Particles between those points were not whizzing back and forth and back again faster than light speed.

 

[Simon Belmont]

Tachyons

Main article: Tachyon
In special relativity, it is impossible to accelerate an object to the speed of light, or for a massive object to move at the speed of light. However, it might be possible for an object to exist which always moves faster than light. The hypothetical elementary particles with this property are called tachyonic particles. Attempts to quantize them failed to produce faster-than-light particles, and instead illustrated that their presence leads to an instability.[79][80]
Various theorists have suggested that the neutrino might have a tachyonic nature,[81][82][83][84][85] while others have disputed the possibility.

How does that help us? I dunno.

A tachyon /ˈtæki.ɒn/ or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always moves faster than light. The word comes from the Greek: ταχύς or tachys, meaning "swift, quick, fast, rapid", and was coined by Gerald Feinberg.[1] Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.[2][3] If such particles did exist, they could be used to build a tachyonic antitelephone and send signals faster than light, which (according to special relativity) would lead to violations of causality.[3] Potentially consistent theories that allow faster-than-light particles include those that break Lorentz invariance, the symmetry underlying special relativity, so that the speed of light is not a barrier.

In the 1967 paper that coined the term,[1] Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be quanta of a quantum field with negative squared mass. However, it was soon realized that excitations of such imaginary mass fields do not in fact propagate faster than light,[4] and instead represent an instability known as tachyon condensation.[2] Nevertheless, negative squared mass fields are commonly referred to as "tachyons",[5] and in fact have come to play an important role in modern physics.

Despite theoretical arguments against the existence of faster-than-light particles, experiments have been conducted to search for them. No compelling evidence for their existence has been found.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

 

[el retorno]

Specifically when has information ever transmitted faster then the speed of light

Doesn't quantum entanglement happen faster?

 

[Woorloog]

Doesn't quantum entanglement happen faster?

Quantum entanglement happens with speed that it as at least the speed of light, possibly instantaneous. But they cannot transmit information.

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Man, physics is weird. I love reading about quantum mechanics and whatnot though. It feels like there's some major physics discoveries to be made there that could be really important to humanity.

Out of interest, what fundamentally defines where an object is in space?

 

[Choke on the Magic]

Man I had to use the goddamn Wayback machine to get access to this page since it's apparently not hosted anymore, but this provides a pretty good read on the subject. Whether you're using a warp drive, hyperdrive, or just accelerating, this paradox or some other variation on it becomes possible. To phrase it another way, the fact that things cannot exert causal influences at speeds greater than C (regardless of the precise mechanism) is a mechanism which enforces causality.

You could also try this link.

So to put it in laymen's terms; Flight of the Navigator?

Also what's the difference between FTL and warp theories. They're sort of the same aren't they.

 

[Aselith]

A tachyon /ˈtæki.ɒn/ or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always moves faster than light. The word comes from the Greek: ταχύς or tachys, meaning "swift, quick, fast, rapid", and was coined by Gerald Feinberg.[1] Most physicists think that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.[2][3] If such particles did exist, they could be used to build a tachyonic antitelephone and send signals faster than light, which (according to special relativity) would lead to violations of causality.[3] Potentially consistent theories that allow faster-than-light particles include those that break Lorentz invariance, the symmetry underlying special relativity, so that the speed of light is not a barrier.

In the 1967 paper that coined the term,[1] Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be quanta of a quantum field with negative squared mass. However, it was soon realized that excitations of such imaginary mass fields do not in fact propagate faster than light,[4] and instead represent an instability known as tachyon condensation.[2] Nevertheless, negative squared mass fields are commonly referred to as "tachyons",[5] and in fact have come to play an important role in modern physics.

Despite theoretical arguments against the existence of faster-than-light particles, experiments have been conducted to search for them. No compelling evidence for their existence has been found.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

I never said proven facts, I said reason to believe. The theories are out there so we have reason to believe it could be possible in some form. All of this stuff is way into theoretical territory.

 

[Simon Belmont]

Quantum entanglement happens with speed that it as at least the speed of light, possibly instantaneous. But they cannot transmit information.

Even in the best case scenario where we could figure out how to ensure we detect particle a in one state so that particle b is in the opposite, which could let us theoretically transfer digital information instantaneously, you'd still have to build a machine at the other end, and that means getting out there physically or sending information to an alien species at light speed or lower.

Edit: And that's not to mention that the particle pairs at either end would have to travel at the speed of light to reach their destinations in the first place

 

[3phemeral]

Doesn't quantum entanglement happen faster?

There's no traveling in quantum entanglement. Think of them as being attached at the hip virtually, even though they are technically billions of miles apart. There's no transfer of data across a distance. It's instantaneous.

 

[NH Apache]

If your frame of reference is two points moving away from each other, then each point only has to be moving at a fraction of the speed of light for the total speed of one away from the other to be faster than light. Particles between those points were not whizzing back and forth and back again faster than light speed.

Well, yes, everything is dependent upon frame of reference. If point a and point b are traveling the same velocity (Speed + direction) then there is no assumed difference in speed.

In this case, the point of reference is the origin of the big bang, the center of the universe. Due to acceleration and lack of assumed counter forces, the particles from the big bang are increasing in speed. Still. And seeing that these scientists at NASA have much more experience and knowledge than I, I'm going to go with their assumption that the big bang produced speed in some particles above C.

Man, physics is weird. I love reading about quantum mechanics and whatnot though. It feels like there's some major physics discoveries to be made there that could be really important to humanity.

Out of interest, what fundamentally defines where an object is in space?

You choose what your reference point is. There is no universal reference point.

 

[Simon Belmont]

Well, yes, everything is dependent upon frame of reference. If point a and point b are traveling the same velocity (Speed + direction) then there is no assumed difference in speed.

In this case, the point of reference is the origin of the big bang, the center of the universe. Due to acceleration and lack of assumed counter forces, the particles from the big bang are increasing in speed. Still. And seeing that these scientists at NASA have much more experience and knowledge than I, I'm going to go with their assumption that the big bang produced speed in some particles above C.

The scientists at NASA are talking about space expanding at a rate faster than C and dragging whatever particles happened to be occupying that space with it. That's not forbidden in relativity. Particles moving through space faster than C is, and didn't happen.

 

[3phemeral]

This reminds me of a another great talk that Lawrence Krauss had:

FREEOK 2013 - Lawrence Krauss: "The Greatest Story Ever Told"

It's not just a nicely compressed lecture about the discovery, prediction, and eventual unification of theories, but he goes into more detail about other quantum properties like a particle can move faster than the speed of light provided it's operating at such a small scale that it cannot be measured. Really highly recommended viewing.

 

[LCfiner]

When I first read about inflationary theory with the Big Bang, it was explained that it was possible for the universe to expand faster than the speed of light because it was the fabric of the universe itself that was expanding, and not particles moving along that fabric.

So this quote from the articles just falls in line with that:

“Space has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago,” said Dr. White, 43, who runs the research project. “And we know that when you look at some of the cosmology models, there were early periods of the universe where there was explosive inflation, where two points would’ve went receding away from each other at very rapid speeds.”

“Nature can do it,” he said. “So the question is, can we do it?”

Whenever I read about research into FTL travel, it's always revolving around the notion of twisting and manipulating that fabric of space. And not about moving an object with mass through space at faster than light speeds.

In that sense, maybe it will be possible. But there's a difference between the theory of warping space and making something (with mass) move within space at faster than light (or at light speed). The first is theoretically possible, the second is not.

 

[Mudkips]

Apparently the universe expansion is increasing in speed, so it's faster than the speed of light.

And if you have like a schrodinger's cat situation where one cat has to be alive and one has to be dead, but you don't know until you check one, once you check it, the other collapses into reality faster than the speed of light (because it could be any distance away from you when it collapses into reality).

Shit isn't flying around faster than the speed of light due to expansion.

Information does not travel faster than the speed of light when you do such an experiment, or when you entangle two particles, separate them, and look at one. You don't gain any information because you already knew the particles were entangled beforehand.

You know:

A = ?
B = ~A

Learning that A = 1 doesn't tell you anything new about B.

Imaging flipping a giant coin that's 1 light year thick. You look and see the side facing you is heads. Information isn't traveling faster than the speed of light just because you know that the other side is tails.

When I first read about inflationary theory with the Big Bang, it was explained that it was possible for the universe to expand faster than the speed of light because it was the fabric of the universe itself that was expanding, and not particles moving along that fabric.

The problem with this idea is that there's no evidence it ever happened and no actual proposed mechanism for how it could happen. Just "big bang lol".
And even if rapid expansion did happen, there's no reason to say things were traveling faster than the speed of light. In the early moments of a big bang / singularity expansion scenario, the speed of light is very different.

The bottom line is "the speed of light" refers to the maximum velocity in the Universe, which is the largest amount of distance anything can traverse in a single chronon. To violate the speed of light is to violate causality.

 

[Perkel]

I never said proven facts, I said reason to believe. The theories are out there so we have reason to believe it could be possible in some form. All of this stuff is way into theoretical territory.

I think you don't read what was written in this thread.
You need sense of scale to think realistically.

We as humans won't be able to do even 1/1000000 of our sun energy creates in one second over our specie lifetime even if we will be able even to go outside of our Solar system and maybe colonize few other planets. And energy needed to do such things you speak of need a lot more energy than that.

It is very very very unlikely we will reach our nearest star Proxima Centauri which is "only" 4.2421 light years away from us.

Voyager 1 which is currently furthest man made object is traveling with 17.039 km/second from it's launch in 77' and it is currently at the end of our solar system.
Currently its distance is 124.90 AU

124 AU ? That is lot yes ? No.

Proxima Centauri is 4+ lights years away from us.
1 AU is 149 597 870.691 km
c (speed of light) is 299 792.458 km/s = 1 079 252 848.800 km/h
then
c = 7.214 359 AU/h

124/7=17

In summary Voyager 1 through his life didn't even reach 1 light day distance and we are talking here about 4 light years. At current pace voyager would reach PC in ~ 60013 year.

Naturally V1 is piece of old technology and we could easily send things faster than that but that does not change fact that by time it will reach that star we might not live anymore.

Next we are yet to find technology to reach safely Mars (radiation protection) but there is very big chance intergalactic radiation won't allow us to leave our solar system ever. We live in our planet magnetosphere which does not allow much radiation to reach us.
Frankly we should be happy that we live where we live and "when" we live. Because things like distant supernovas or pulsars could sent us presents that could simply destroy us anytime.

So basically all talk about wormholes and faster than light travel is just pure theory and more sci fi than real theories. Human progress is amazing and we live in very very very amazing times but those problems which you speak of have next to 0 chance happening not in our lifetimes but specie lifetime.

 

[orientalNoodle]

It is much more likely that future space travel will be on massive multi-generational starships using fusion or maybe antimatter propulsion rather than some impossible FTL wrap drives.

 

[Aselith]

I think you don't read what was written in this thread.
You need sense of scale to think realistically.

We as humans won't be able to do even 1/1000000 of our sun energy creates in one second over our specie lifetime even if we will be able even to go outside of our Solar system and maybe colonize few other planets. And energy needed to do such things you speak of need a lot more energy than that.

It is very very very unlikely we will reach our nearest star Proxima Centauri which is "only" 4.2421 light years away from us.

Voyager 1 which is currently furthest man made object is traveling with 17.039 km/second from it's launch in 77' and it is currently at the end of our solar system.
Currently its distance is 124.90 AU

124 AU ? That is lot yes ? No.

Proxima Centauri is 4+ lights years away from us.
1 AU is 149 597 870.691 km
c (speed of light) is 299 792.458 km/s = 1 079 252 848.800 km/h
then
c = 7.214 359 AU/h

124/7=17

In summary Voyager 1 through his life didn't even reach 1 light day distance and we are talking here about 4 light years. At current pace voyager would reach PC in ~ 60013 year.

Naturally V1 is piece of old technology and we could easily send things faster than that but that does not change fact that by time it will reach that star we might not live anymore.

Next we are yet to find technology to reach safely Mars (radiation protection) but there is very big chance intergalactic radiation won't allow us to leave our solar system ever. We live in our planet magnetosphere which does not allow much radiation to reach us.
Frankly we should be happy that we live where we live and "when" we live. Because things like distant supernovas or pulsars could sent us presents that could simply destroy us anytime.

So basically all talk about wormholes and faster than light travel is just pure theory and more sci fi than real theories. Human progress is amazing and we live in very very very amazing times but those problems which you speak of have next to 0 chance happening not in our lifetimes but specie lifetime.

What does any of this have to do with anything regarding FTL?

 

[frankthurk]

The bottom line is "the speed of light" refers to the maximum velocity in the Universe, which is the largest amount of distance anything can traverse in a single chronon. To violate the speed of light is to violate causality.

Yeah, and God doesn't play dice with the universe. Assuming our current understanding of the way things are is the correct understanding that can't be violated is foolish if you take into account the history of science at all. In every time there have been those saying it must be this way or it can't be that way only to later be proven wrong, even the brightest can get stuck in a pattern of 'belief'.

 

[lastflowers]

I've played the game. NASA, take my advice, it won't end well for you.

 

[RSTEIN]

This is just theoretical stuff, a lot more time (and money) will be needed to actually make a FTL ship.

lol it's so easy!

 

[3phemeral]

Yeah, and God doesn't play dice with the universe. Assuming our current understanding of the way things are is the correct understanding that can't be violated is foolish if you take into account the history of science at all. In every time there have been those saying it must be this way or it can't be that way only to later be proven wrong, even the brightest can get stuck in a pattern of 'belief'.

What do you mean by proven wrong? Constants and properties these days aren't proven wrong but refined upon. It would take something pretty extraordinary to prove a model that works on rather large scales to be flat-out incorrect.

 

[el retorno]

Quantum entanglement happens with speed that it as at least the speed of light, possibly instantaneous. But they cannot transmit information.

There's no traveling in quantum entanglement. Think of them as being attached at the hip virtually, even though they are technically billions of miles apart. There's no transfer of data across a distance. It's instantaneous.

I loved physics till we go to quantum stuff. My brain is incapable of grasping it.

 

[3phemeral]

I loved physics till we go to quantum stuff. My brain is incapable of grasping it.

Well, entanglement is something that once the two particles have "reacted" to one another's state change, they are no longer entangled. So don't imagine it as something that's akin to a permanently affixed highway between two sources (and therefore, a way to instantly travel large distances). In actuality, these particles had to have been entangled together somehow and then placed at whatever seemingly impossible distance. It's as if the distance between them is really a projected illusion and that somewhere in fabric of space/time, they are still right next to each other. Now, them having been placed far apart isn't a requirement, just a demonstration of the property being unaffected by our perception of physical distance.

 

[el retorno]

Well, entanglement is something that once the two particles have "reacted" to one another's state change, they are no longer entangled. So don't imagine it as something that's akin to a permanently affixed highway between two sources (and therefore, a way to instantly travel large distances). In actuality, these particles had to have been entangled together somehow and then placed at whatever seemingly impossible distance. It's as if the distance between them is really a projected illusion and that somewhere in fabric of space/time, they are still right next to each other.

yeah. this is making it worse... hahaha

 

[frankthurk]

What do you mean by proven wrong? Constants and properties these days aren't proven wrong but refined upon. It would take something pretty extraordinary to prove a model that works on rather large scales to be flat-out incorrect.

You're right. It would be more accurate to say we found the boundaries at which the theories no longer predict correct results. I was referring more to those who at various times in history stated that the current theories must be correct for all conditions and scales... the 'we know how this works and it must always hold true' statements are often proven wrong.

 

[Ben Pierce]

Wow! If scientists can "go faster" than the speed of light, would that interfere with any of Einstein's theories? As I recall, many of his equations were based upon the speed of light being absolute and unable to change. Would his current theory remain relevant since these guys are somewhat "nudging" light along to go a little faster? I'm assuming what these scientists are doing can't be found in nature and it wouldn't jumble Albert's equations too much.