Who thinks Faster Than Light travel is possible?

[msstice]

Getting back on topic seeing as the original discussion about relatively has burned itself out...

Is it my imagination, or didn't I read a while back that synchrotron radiation effectively requires electrons to travel FTL, just not in a linear way?

I never heard that one, but I did hear the one about there only being one electron in the universe and what we see is the same electron repeatedly intersecting our paltry four dimensional space as it wends its way through its higher dimensional existence.

 

[Foxbat]

Getting back on topic seeing as the original discussion about relatively has burned itself out...

Is it my imagination, or didn't I read a while back that synchrotron radiation effectively requires electrons to travel FTL, just not in a linear way?

As I understand it, it will be the resultant gamma photon that will be travelling at the speed of light but the electron producing the effect will be slightly slower.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Getting back on topic seeing as the original discussion about relatively has burned itself out...

Is it my imagination, or didn't I read a while back that synchrotron radiation effectively requires electrons to travel FTL, just not in a linear way?

It is your imagination.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It is your imagination.

Winky face - you mean there's something behind this?

I remember coming across the concept around 1996/1997, so it must have been something mentioned in New Scientist. All I can find on the topic with a quick search, though, is this: Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

 

[Venusian Broon]

Winky face - you mean there's something behind this?

I remember coming across the concept around 1996/1997, so it must have been something mentioned in New Scientist. All I can find on the topic with a quick search, though, is this: Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

There were some physicists who thought they had detected neutrinos travelling faster than light a few years ago, but in the end it turned out to be a flaw in their experiment.

After reading the article, I have to say, along with others who have read it, I am a bit sceptical. It is possibly because the description given by the journalist seems a bit confused - I think the physicist is talking about phase velocity. Phase velocities apparently can exceed c, but "a phase velocity above c does not imply the propagation of signals with a velocity above c." It is a fuzzy bit of physics that can (clearly!) confuse.

Actually if you want to find real FTL the closest you find is in Quantum mechanics. So taking the entangled pair of particles, take them far apart then observe one of them, the wavefunction collapse that fixes the property of the other particle is said to be instantaneous and therefore not bound by the speed of light. So far, to my understanding, all experiments to test this have shown this to be the case. Einstein doesn't like this, of course.

 

[BAYLOR]

Winky face - you mean there's something behind this?

I remember coming across the concept around 1996/1997, so it must have been something mentioned in New Scientist. All I can find on the topic with a quick search, though, is this: Device Makes Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

What about Tachyon particles ? Supposedly , they move faster than light ?

 

[Venusian Broon]

What about Tachyon particles ? Supposedly , they move faster than light ?

When you observe one, then you can go and pick up a Nobel prize

i.e. no experimental evidence has been found for them. Would be a pretty big thing for physics if they were real, but going back to my original post at the top, just because you come up with a theoretical idea, does not mean that reality has to produce it!

 

[BAYLOR]

When you observe one, then you can go and pick up a Nobel prize

i.e. no experimental evidence has been found for them. Would be a pretty big thing for physics if they were real, but going back to my original post at the top, just because you come up with a theoretical idea, does not mean that reality has to produce it!

VB be very careful what you say. Tachyon particles have ears and they don't like people who doubt their existence.

 

[Venusian Broon]

VB be very careful what you say. Tachyon particles have ears and they don't like people who doubt their existence.

That's okay, I'll add it to list of other imaginary things that people have told me exist that for some reason generally threaten me.

 

[Guttersnipe]

I don't have much to add in the way of science, but I do think it's a "maybe" that could be realized in the very distant future by posthumans with godlike technology. Not any time soon, though. I say this because, well, do you think early humans ever dreamed of the stuff we have now?

 

[Ursa major]

Tachyon particles have ears and they don't like people who doubt their existence.

What I want to know is what they are tacky on. (And doesn't whatever it is slow them down?)

 

[BAYLOR]

That's okay, I'll add it to list of other imaginary things that people have told me exist that for some reason generally threaten me.

Hey , laughter is a good thing.


The more we learn about the universe we live in, the less we actually know and understand its actual workings Einstein not withstanding, one day we may discover that exceeding the speed of light is actually possible .

 

[BAYLOR]

What I want to know is what they are tacky on. (And doesn't whatever it is slow them down?)

They don't go for things fancy dress . Tachyon sare come as you are working class particles .

 

[psikeyhackr]

When you observe one, then you can go and pick up a Nobel prize

i.e. no experimental evidence has been found for them. Would be a pretty big thing for physics if they were real, but going back to my original post at the top, just because you come up with a theoretical idea, does not mean that reality has to produce it!

Aren't they hypothetical rather than theoretical.

 

[hitmouse]

The more we learn about the universe we live in, the less we actually know and understand its actual workings

I fundamentally disagree with that statement.

 

[Astro Pen]

If you get into Einstein's tram and exceed the speed of light you will watch the town clock appear to go backwards. That seems nice and logical until you have gone back ten minutes and realize that you can see Albert, who is sat next to you, - is also still in the queue, waiting for the tram.

 

[Serendipity]

If you get into Einstein's tram and exceed the speed of light you will watch the town clock appear to go backwards. That seems nice and logical until you have gone back ten minutes and realize that you can see Albert, who is sat next to you, - is also still in the queue, waiting for the tram.

Let's do a thought experiment... you are you in your own frame of reference in time and space. You then go faster and faster as you say until you exceed the speed of light and realise you are seeing your friend ten minutes ago. You then continuing at a speed greater than light turn around and go an tap Albert and yourself on the shoulders. But your earlier you never felt those taps. The question is why not?

Or putting it another way, if things are travelling faster than the speed of light, why aren;t we experiencing them?

 

[Foxbat]

Or putting it another way, if things are travelling faster than the speed of light, why aren;t we experiencing them

Maybe we are experiencing them but just aren’t aware that we are.

After all, our bodies are subjected all the time to things we aren’t aware of (at least without measuring equipment). Example… Radon gas daughter product particles that often fill our homes without us realising that they are there. They can produce alpha particles that enter our lungs and potentially irradiate soft tissues but we just don’t experience any of that on a conscious level.

Edit, I don’t actually believe that we are experiencing FTL without awareness but, as it’s a thought experiment then I thought I’d add a thought alternative.

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

Can we though? If I step outside my space station and throw one ball left at the speed of light and one ball right at the speed of light, how far apart are they when I observe them a year later? The answer is one light year not two

So........if you throw two balls in opposite directions at the speed of light and look at the one that you threw to the right, a year later, it will have travelled half a light year by travelling at the speed of light for a full year?

Remember I am looking back in time six months

You're looking back in time only six months when you observe them twelve months later and they've both travelled half a light year away from the space station even though they've travelled at the speed of light for a full year?

but I cannot reason that the objects are two light years apart in 'their present'. In fact the objects see each other one light year apart (the first ball sees the second still at the space station....that image having traveled along side it). Thr second ball effectively does indeed exist at the space station in terms of it's effects on the first ball. And vice versa of course.

The first ball's "seeing" of the second ball still at the space station does not compel you to see the second ball hovering at the space station though, does it?

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

So........if you throw two balls in opposite directions at the speed of light and look at the one that you threw to the right, a year later, it will have travelled half a light year by travelling at the speed of light for a full year?




You're looking back in time only six months when you observe them twelve months later and they've both travelled half a light year away from the space station even though they've travelled at the speed of light for a full year?




The first ball's "seeing" of the second ball still at the space station does not compel you to see the second ball hovering at the space station though, does it?

Each ball takes half a year to travel to a point that is half a light year away. The light from each ball then takes half a year to travel back to the origin. If I observe the objects after one year, I see them half a light year away from me.