: How could a starship travel thru space without breaking the lightspeed barrier?
I remember heard about a way for a ship if I remember to use the area around it to travel to distance planets without traveling faster then the speed of light? When do you think we could travel to the star in the way I am trying to remember that does not travel faster then the speed of light?
Answers and Views:
Answer by rowlfe
Einstein theorized that a large gravity field would “warp” space-time. This was proved by astronomers observing stars during an eclipse near the blacked out area of the sun. They verified that light bends in the large gravity field making stars beyond the sun appear to not be behind the sun, in effect a gravity “lens”. Thus, light from a sun behind our sun COULD be seen as the light bent to fall on earth. So, in theory, if you bend light far enough around with a large enough gravity field, you could bend space-time accordingly. So, if you make the field big enough, light would literally make a U turn. Then all you need to do is travel across the gap between the space-time you are in, to get to the space time that went around a U turn. So, in essence, you take a short cut from this space-time to the bent space-time. The problem is we do not have the technology to bend space time to make it work for real.
Someone erroneously suggested that a wormhole could be used.
A wormhole is a black hole located on a bend in space-time, such that half of it exists in one place and half in another place.
The idea was that you enter on this side of the wormhole and exit on the other side (which maybe many light years distance away).
The problem is twofold:
1) no material object can enter a black hole
2) there is no known worm hole in this universe. They are only a theoretical object.
Well, how could it not? With today’s technology that is the only way a starship could travel through space. Far slower than light speed.Answer by MechPebbles
The distance between our solar system and the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years. Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is now travelling at 61,600 km/h and is the fastest human-made object moving away from the sun and it will take 40,000 years to reach our nearest star! By the way, just to appreciate Voyager 1’s speed, it’s travelling faster than a speeding bullet!Answer by Michel Verheughe
James, because we live in that tiny place we call earth, we cannot imagine what space, time and speed are at the scale of the universe. It’s really hard but … let’s try: Do you understand that anywhere in the universe is its center? Do you understand that in spacetime, the past – hence the big bang – is a sphere around us that that is why the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) comes from all directions in the sky?
If you understand that then we can go to step 2: Yes you can travel faster than the speed of light but you can’t register it! Two spaceships crossing each other at nearly the speed of light do have a relative speed greater than that of light but they can’t register it! Because space is only one side of spacetime and as you move relatively faster, time compresses. Sorry, it’s the way it is!
Pseudo-scientific wishful thinking says : “Ah, but there must be a way we can explore the vast universe in a life time! There must be a way to move faster that light!” But the true nature of the universe in spacetime is much more fantastic than “wormholes” and other “bending effects” only that … it takes a bit more to understand it.
Answer by paul hThat proposal is called the Alcubierre drive where a spaceship could theoretically travel in a bubble of space time at speeds greater than lightspeed or c. One main problem is the energy required to alter the fabric of space which amounts to many trillions of times the entire output of energy on earth today…no such energy source is within our capabilities today or in the forseeable future. And some have suggested that Hawking radiation in such a ship traveling in such a manner would roast anyone inside.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
“While the theory rests on relatively firm ground, the next question is how do you expand space behind the ship and contract it in front of the ship?
Cleaver and Richard Obousy, the other coauthor, propose manipulating the 11th dimension, a special theoretical construct of m-theory (the offspring of string theory), to create the bubble the ship would surf down.
If the 11th dimension could be shrunk behind the ship it would create a bubble of dark energy, the same dark energy that is causing the universe to speed up as time goes on. Expanding the 11th dimension in front of the ship would eventually cause it to decrease, although two separate steps are required.
Exactly how the 11th dimension would be expanded and shrunk is still unknown.
“These calculations are based on some arbitrary advance in technology or some alien technology that would let us manipulate the extra dimension,” said Cleaver.
What the scientists were able to estimate was the amount of energy necessary, if the technology was available, to change these dimensions: about 10^45 joules.
“That’s about the amount of energy you’d get if you converted the entire mass of Jupiter into pure energy via E = mc^2,” said Cleaver, an energy far beyond anything humanity can currently envision creating.”
https://news.discovery.com/space/warp-drive-spaceship-engine.html
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=305091
https://gizmodo.com/5292471/this-is-how-a-warp-drive-spaceship-looks
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