Question for all you geeks out there!

Anyone know of some good reading on this cosmology/physics stuff? I am reading Sagans Cosmos now, pretty good! 😀

Oh, i did hear that they managed to accellerate a particle to a speed a fraction higher then the speed of light.

THe formula i gave before gives rise to a different question; What is imaginary (eg a complex) time?

I believe that in a lab either in France or the US. Scientists have successfully managed to teleport an electron about 10 metres. Now the electron didn't move from one place to another. However, it did move faster than the speed of light, relative to its position in space.

Not sure if that helps any but its an interesting fact.

Jim

Originally posted by colleman
This bubble theory might have some mileage in it. It is axiomatic that light travels at the speed of light therefore if we consider light as the aircraft upon which the mass must travel then the problem is how to protect the mass during its journey just as we protect passengers in conventional aircraft now. That shouldn't be too difficult, should it?

Well, I am reminded here of a book called a wrinkle in time, it is like a 7th or 8th grade book, the analogy is holding a ribbon taught in front of you, you have an ant on one side, and it needs to travel to the other, so, you put your hands together, thus wrinkling time, and traveling a much shorter distance.

Also I think about conversations years ago before we broke the speed of sound. many smart people didnt think it could be done. now of course we know a lot more, and heck, in 100 years people will be laughing that we didnt' think V > C could be done...

I imagaine what happens when you do break the sound barier, people arguing, you just cant move all the air particles apart faster then they can move!.. but we do it, and it makes a loud noise, especialy in transition.

so here is a consideration, faster then sound, you get there, and the sound catches up to you, and then all the sound you have been outrunning catches up, and the sound you made a mile back catches up. so it makes a big roar sounding like it goes off into the distance,(where you came from).

Bring this concept into light travel theory, so you travel faster than the speed of light (assuming you don't turn into pure energy and go on forever) when you arrive at your destination, those where you landed would see a flash of light traveling(upon your arival) backwards right to where you broke the speed of light. yeah, sort of teleporting. I imagain there would be arbitrarily large amounts of energy, but in aplication, not in math equations, I belive we will do it someday. I figure God can travel faster than the speed of light. we just don't know the laws that govern his science. for indeed he is the greatist scientist. perhaps, you should pray about it. and then tell your dad what God said, and then he won't be abile to refute it. ;-) Merry Christmas.

Light travels at the speed of light, But is the speed of light a universal constant? I seem to remeber hearing somewhere at some point (therefore an uncorroburated source) that, regarding the beginning of the universe or some such seminal point, projections using the constant speed of light didn;t work and that the speed of light must have varied (or some such thing) does a variable speed of light impact upon the question at hand?

if all you need is to get someplace really fast, you just need to increase the speed of light, thus you could go faster than c, but at the same time be traveling slower than light, thus your mass (and therefor the force needed to accelerate up to that speed) would not be so great. there is a guy who claims this can be done, but the articule was unclear how.

This snippet from the letters page in this weeks New Scientist has some bearing on all this:
Martin Chown wrote:
It is perfectly true that Einstein's special theory of relativity forbids material bodies travelling faster than light. But in 1925 special relativity was superseded by the general theory of relativity. Applied to the whole universe this puts no limit on the rate at which the fabric of space - the backdrop against which the cosmic drama is played out - can expand. As general relativity pictures it the galaxies are not moving; they are nailed to the fabric of space. And space can expand at any rate it likes - even faster than light, which it most certainly did in the earliest moments of the universe.

Scientists can already speed up and slow down light by increasing or decreasing the refractive index in alexandrite crystals using lasers.


http://www.techreview.com/articles/rnb_100803.asp