Is warp speed even possible in my lifetime?
86810
When you talk of the possibilities of Matter and Anti-Matter...we already have them.\n\nProblem in lies that if you seperate matter and anti-matter and combine them to forn energy, you have to find a way to contain the energy (there is alot from a small cumbustion)  There is the problem.  So my thoughts are not yet ready for warp technology.
1063094
Being accelerated past the speed of light is impossible because of the nature of momentum.  It is not simply mass times velocity, but mass times velocity times gamma.  Gamma is a factor which adjusts for the fact that as an object's velocity increases, it has more kinetic energy, which, because E=mc^2, is mass.  Gamma is equal to 1/(1-v^2/c^2), where v = velocity and c is speed of light. As the velocity approaches C, v^2/c^2 becomes 1, and Gamma becomes 1/(1-1), or 1/0.  This means a massive particle traveling at the speed of light has infinite momentum.  It takes infinite force to accelerate to infinite momentum, so breaking the speed of light (for a macroscopic object with mass) is, according to current theory and law, impossible.\n\nHowever, other avenues for an artificial increase of speed are possible.  You mention a lot of them, and not much is really known about them, but it could be possible to warp space-time to let us effectively travel faster than light (like the warp drive in Star Trek).
723158
The speed of light is Warp 1\n\n2xspeed of ;ight is warp 2\n\nand so on and so forth.
37917
this is somewhat similar to a question I answered realative to time travel. The short answer is no, there was never a time, nor will there ever be a time when matter (massive fermions) travel faster than light (massless bosons). This is because massive objects need energy to accelerate and regaurdless of how much energy was released in the big bang, it could not have been infinite, and that is what is required to move a massive particle faster than light. Light speed is not a derived measurement, it is a fundemental constant that is the same in all reference frames. Here's the cool exception though.....and this is how a theoretical warp drive would work..... the actual expansion of space itself might have been faster than light. There has never been a limit imposed on the speed at which space expands although because gravity is a result of the deformation of space and gravitons are the theoretical force carrier, it has been assumed that the expansion of space would occur only as fast as gravitons can travel....which is most likely light speed. One of the many postulates asserted by string theory is that gravitons may not be bound to our spatial demensions, that they might radiate through extra demensions (which would account for gravity's lack of strenght compared to the other forces). If this is the case that the gravitons travel through other demensions it is quite possible that within a given reference time, a graviton could pop into a superior demension and back into our at some other point and essentially beat light to some defined location.\n\nI know thats a little confusing.....but its fun to think about.
1093002
the theories of time travel are extremely complex. it is often mistaken that one can use radiation or electro-magnetics to warp space into  an alternate reality. one of the popular theories of time travel is only from a certain point. what I'm saying is that we will not be able to visit this time from the future. \n\na few theories are;\n\n1: warping the very fabric of space, then accelerating to near the speed of light through the folds. the speed would then turn you body into pure energy, eventually reformulating somewhere in the future. Problems: 1; to warp space fabric would require more energy than it takes to make a black hole. 2; this is my personal theory.\n\n2: do you know how a worm-hole works? if not, ignore this section. but take an opening of a worm-hole and some how place by a point of high gravity (a neutron star). while at the same time directing negative energy at both openings in order to keep them from collapsing into a black hole. time slows down in super-high gravity, therefore if you throw yourself into the opening with no gravity, you'll wind up in the past. and vise-versa. Problems; 1; worm-hole technology is beyond our reach at this time. 2; worm-holes are flickering in and out of existence every infinitely small spec of time, therefore it is difficult to isolate one.\n\nas for what time travel exactly is, i could go one for about three pages.\n\nI'm a nerd. \n\nStargazer.
148250
We *are* traveling through time as we speak. We travel through time at a little less than the speed of light.\n\nFor every meter per second we move, we move a meter per second slower through time. Thus if we were to get in a spaceship and travel at half the speed of light through space for an extended period, then we would be moving through time at approximately half the speed at which everyone on Earth would be.\n\nWhen we returned to Earth and left our spaceship, we would discover that everyone else had aged twice as much as we did. So it is possible for us to travel into the future at a rate faster than one second per second, but it requires an extraordinary amount of resources. Consider that given Einstein's calculations to be true, the largest time displacement humanity has yet reached would be somewhere at about a second (set by whoever's been in space the longest, because in orbit you're traveling at 17,500 mph).\n\nTraveling to the past is impossible now, although we maybe be able to temporally distort a wormhole, allowing travel back to the time that the wormhole was first distorted; however this is yet to be proven or tested. We currently have no way of "grabbing" a black hole and moving it through space.\n\nI hope this helps.
72735
No it is not possible to travel faster than light because the equipment you try to use will not work. The fastest thing to probably work may be a fast car. But there is still no way to travel fater than the speed of light. Speed of light travels at about 7 miles per second. I hope this helps.
50535
OK, first fo all Mr cliffx has it backwards.  As you continue to acellerate tworads the speed of light time will slow down for you and stay normal for everyone else.  Thus at that speeds you could travel 10000 lightyear in only 1 year, your lifetime, but thousands of years could pass on earth.\n\nIt has been theorized that time travel is posible but you could not simply accelerate to that speed.  Even if we could travel that fast the economical need would be currently beyond what any country has, even if they put all there funding into that one project.  but I am getting off the subject.\nOne theory is to travel into a black hole.  The gravetational field in a black hole is so strong that it has been theoryzed that even time cannot escape.  Thus if we were able to travel into a black hole we could use the captuered time there, so to speak, and transverse the timeline.\n\nThen there are ideas of actually traveling on light waves, lasers, to allow us to travel to the speeds necisary.  Of course then we could only travel to the time of how long that peice of machinery is on.  Also we would have to convert ourselvesinto an electrical signale, data (essicially transport), which would then bring up the promblum of measuring matter without moving it and blah blah blah.\n\nSummery, Yes it is possible to travel through time.  We just do not havet he knowledge and/or technology to do it yet.
657426
Well the sad truth is YOU CAN'T...in fact you can't even travel at one times the speed of light. Einstein covered this about 100 years ago. Anything that has mass cannot achieve the speed of light for a couple of different reasons. Trust me on this.
90556
Always exactly the same speed, c = 299 792 458 meters/second, no acceleration or deceleration or anything.\n\nThe *apparent* speed of light through glass is less than c, but that is because the photons (the light) bounce off all the atoms and that slows down the speed through the glass. The speed of light from one atom to the next is exactly c.\n\nAlso, sometimes you will read about experiments where the popular press version says some bunch of light has been made to faster than c, but this is just the phase speed and so isn't quite the same thing. You can't send any information faster than c with this method.\n\nThere is an apparent something that goes faster than light in what is called the EPR-effect, a wierd property of quantum mechanics often misleadingly called "quantum teleportation," but again, no information travels faster than c.\n\nThere are hypothetical particles called tachyons which *always* go faster than light - they can't go slower. But no evidence for these have been found and most physicists think they can't exist.\n\nAs for warp drives and other faster-than-light science fiction type things, that, in my opinion isn't possible. Certainly everything we know about physics and the universe now says it is impossible, and it is unlikely that any future theory will show we are so wrong now that we missed this one. Also if FTL is possible then you can have a sort of time travel, and then cause and effect get ruines and, well, its a mess.\n\nBe glad that c is absolutely the same to all observers in every situation - the universe wouldn't work without it.
117448
From our current undestanding of physics, we cannot. That does not mean in 500 more years or 5000 more years we will not have a better understanding of physics that includes methods for travelling faster than the speed of light in a vaccuum. However, at the moment it looks very doubtful. \n\nWe have substantial evidence that special relativity is true from years of operating particle accelerators. From special relativity, it appears that it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to the speed of light. The glib manner people here are discussing an infinite amount of energy tells me that people do not understand what infinite means. \n\nAn infinite amount of energy is more energy than the sun produces. It is more than the energy produced by a billion suns. It is more than the energy produced by a billion galaxies full of hundreds of billions of stars. It is more energy than would be produced if every particle in the universe (about 10^70, the Eddington Number) was converted into a star like our sun. In fact, it is an INFINITELY greater amount of energy than 10^70 suns would produce. \n\nIf something is going at a speed greater than the speed of light in a vacuum (tachyonic speeds), then presumably the formulae we have for special relativity would not apply. There has been some occasional attempts to look for tachyons (particles going faster than the speed of light), but they have never been reliably discovered. \n\nThere are postulated entities called wormholes that might enable this kind of travel. Of course, we have no evidence for them at all.\n\nHowever, our understanding of physics is still very crude. We do not understand dark matter. Unifited field theory is still unproven. Even if it is proven, we do not understand the consequences of it (a lot of technology came from unifying electricity and magnetism). We do not understand what happens in black holes. We do not understand how the quantum world and gravity fit together. Even in quantum electrodynamics, which is viewed as settled and accepted, we end up performing illegal mathematical operations to get answers that agree with experiments. The role of the observer in quantum mechanics is not understood. We do not understand quantum teleportation very well. We do not understand BCS theory and its instantaneous coupling very well. We do not understand the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe (a sort of anti-gravity). There are immense holes in our understanding. Therefore, I would not be too confident that our current physics means very much here. \n\nThe only way to address this, is to continue to enhance our basic understanding of the way the physical universe operates. This might not be as romantic as it appears in the movies, but the hard work has to be done.
34913
It is not possible for any particle that has mass to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason has a lot to do with relativity. Because the faster you go, the slower time passes for you. So if you are at 80% of the speed of light, and launch a projectile in front of you at light speed, because of your slow passage through time, it will still appear to you to travel at light. Everything is relative, and because of that, certain constants like the speed of light never change.\n\nAlso, a particle with mass would achieve infinite weight at light speed. Since you can't obviously exceed infinite weight, you can't exceed light.\n\nThe ideas behind things like "warp speed" don't propose actually traveling faster than light. What they propose is taking shortcuts through space, kind of like skipping a stone across the surface of the water. Even "warp speed" is subject to the laws of relativity.
739346
yes it exists...\nbut cant be achieved by man....\nmay be in near future he may achieve tht too...i dont know coz now i cant travel into future..\nk...according to this guy called einstein..\nwhen some body travels at a speed relative to tht of light,lets say some 0.9c where c is speed of light then in tht frame the time contracts..he told a twin paradox to make it clear..\nlets say there r 2 twins of age 25...if one of them travels at a speed of some 0.9c for some 20 yrs (this 20 yrs is in our frame)\nthen after tht when he comes again to rest then he finds himself to be some 27 yrs old when his brother is 45 yrs old..\nso its equivalent to going into future...\nbut till now there is no theory to prove that travelling into past is possible..\ni think thts not possible...coz past is already happened n if its possible we can change the past....which is not possible as it is already happened....\nits all just theory...i wonder how can anyone achieve a speed relative to that of light....can any material sustain that much of speed???no way...so i think we cant make such time machine which can travel at a speed relative to that of light...
160542
Remember back 60 years ago? The times when traveling at the speed of sound is considered impossible? Or 50 years ago, when people would laughed at you if you were talking about landing man on the moon?\n\nMany impossibles yesterday becomes our daily routine today. \n\nTravelling at the speed of light or faster than that will be our reality in the future. Mankind will develop energy source huge enough to propel us at warp speed, and anti-inertia technology to keep us in one piece. \nFor instance, the fussion of matter and anti-matter. This is not science fiction guys, anti-matter does exist. \n\nWhen matter and anti-matter collides, transforming all its mass into pure energy, it releases far bigger energy than that of a nuclear energy. Antimatter is the perfect fuel. And as we speak, there are hundreds of man and women at NASA working day and night trying to convert them into controlled energy.\n\nNever say Impossible...
204509
Yes, through wormhole and warp drive. A wormhole should be able to connect distant locations in the universe by bending spacetime, allowing travel between them that is faster than it would take light to make the journey through normal space. \n\nA warp drive would be a mechanism for warping space-time in such a way that an object could move faster than light.\n\nIf you would like to learn more about wormhole, follow this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole
845289
The question deals with the expansion of the Universe, with the simplifying assumption that the object asserted to have an expansion speed away from us (by measuring its red-shift) has ALWAYS been traveling at 3,000 km/sec, and that its (known) distance is 50 Mpc.\n\nHowever, your requested operation is inverted!  That is obvious since any number of Mpc's (a length) divided by a speed (km/sec) will give one a time, but yours, quite the opposite, will give you 1 over a time.  Personally, I prefer my wristwatch to measure time t rather than t^(-1), but hey, if you could develop that, there might still be someone out there who'd want to buy it!\n\nLive long and prosper.
157600
I think warp drive was used in Star Trek, while Hyper drive was used in Star Wars. Otherwise, they are equally fast and equally imaginary.