Faster than light travel

[LordKaT]

Heyahs,

what do you think of the theory that if somone could "bend" photons and anti-matter then one could create a negative burst of energy and get from point a to point b almost instantaniously?

--LordKaT

Good. You've succeeded in establishing contact with one of this planet's life forms, and it looks like you'll get to examine it up close and personal. The giant root-looking thing is giving you a guided tour of it's digestive system. What you experience next is too horrible to describe. Let's just say that you die as a result. You are dead. Trust me. It may please you to know that, during the night, you didn't digest well. For awhile, gastric distress made it extremely unpopular with the other root monsters.

[HordeKing1]

LORDKAT - LOL. I think you've been listening to far too much technobabble on Star Trek.

Photons are an interesting means by which light travels as both waves AND particles. Light travels at aproximately 186,000 miles per second. Einstein theory of Relativity states that nothing can travel faster than electromagnetic radiation (and light is a form of electromagnetic radiation.)

Bending photons would not affect their speed. As you know, upon encountering water for example, photons will eitehr reflect or refract but will not lose speed by doing either.

Within the last year or two I read of a fascinating experiment where light was passed through a particular chamber filled with gas and the light was slowed down to about 35 MPH! This was (and is) a very big deal as it shows that light speed is not always constant. In a sense during this experiment we had FTL capabilities, but traveling at 36 MPH while light travels at 35 MPH is not what most people imagine when thinking of FTL velocities.

Antimater - The stuff of science fiction books and movies for the last 50 years. Not surprising. One gram of antimatter has as much energy as 1000 space shuttle external fuel tanks.

But first, you have to make the antimatter. Every particle in the universe has an antiparticle, a mirror image that acts pretty much the same except its charge is reversed. When the two meet, they convert themselves into pure energy.

Scientists have beenn working with protons and antiprotons in high energy particle accelerators in the Alps. Just a billionths of a gram of antiprotons are created each year. There is of course a problem storing these antiprotons but the physics has been demonstrated in theory to work. NASA, the JPL and numerous European groups are working on the containment problem.

After all is said and done, any propulstion device is limited by Newton's third law, "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Antimatter, if it ever becomes feasable as a propellent, will just be used as a heat source to propel a high-energy gas jet through a rocket nozzle. Midway throught the trip the ship will have to be flipped over and the jets fired in the opposite direction.

Star Trek, Star Wars and Science Fiction in general seem to ignore the laws of inertia.


http://members.aol.com/slipknot4twenty/hking

[LordKaT]

Just goes to show you that beer and star trek do not mix on a late and lonley night :)

--LordKaT

Good. You've succeeded in establishing contact with one of this planet's life forms, and it looks like you'll get to examine it up close and personal. The giant root-looking thing is giving you a guided tour of it's digestive system. What you experience next is too horrible to describe. Let's just say that you die as a result. You are dead. Trust me. It may please you to know that, during the night, you didn't digest well. For awhile, gastric distress made it extremely unpopular with the other root monsters.

[CYYYFYYY]

Star trek rules..... Mr. King
can you list your favorite
captaains in Star Trek from
best to worst?????


David the Franchize
Let them eat Cake!

[Captain Rooster]

you guys are hurting my brain - cant we talk about beer or something?


SSSEEEYAAA!!
LT Rooster

[HordeKing1]

CYYYFYYY - From best to worst

Picard - The thinking man's captain
Janeway - Tough, intelligent and emotionally accessable
Kirk - All action, no thought
The guy on DS9 - Uggh!

http://members.aol.com/slipknot4twenty/hking

[CYYYFYYY]

I feel JAbeway is the most
over rated Captain. If kirk
was the Captain of Voyager
they would have been home in a
week..... Her is my order.

1.Kirk
2. Picard
3. DSL Guy
3. Jane


David the Franchize
Let them eat Cake!

[adolescentmasturbator]

What about wormholes. They seem like an interesting concept for travel faster than light.

I will get a sig pic...eventually

[HordeKing1]

ADOLESCENTMASTURBATOR - Wormholes have come into the common nomenclature via Star Trek. The theoretical basis for the existence of wormholes is accepted. The main problem seems to be whether they are possible to create and if so whether they can be travelled through.

In response to your question however, wormholes don't involve FTL travel. They are a theoretical means of traveling between 2 separate locations by means of a tunnel.

Imagine a flat sheet on the floor. You would like to travel from one corner of the sheet to another. In regular space you would have to traverse the entire length of the sheet.

If a wormhole was present, linking the two areas, space time would be bent so that it would be as if the sheet were folded so that both corners of the sheet touched. In order to traverse the entire distance one need only go through the wormhole. FTL speeds are not required and have nothing to do with the possibility of utilitzing wormholes to cross huge distances.

BTW, wormholes and the bends in space time they theoretically cause have been worked out so that they fit into the math of general relativity.




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