Halothane Aldebarran
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Posted - 2005.11.11 18:46:00 -
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Edited by: Halothane Aldebarran on 11/11/2005 18:55:51
 Originally by: Nishijima Manbeater
It's this kind of follow the leader belief that keeps us from actually developing an FTL drive. Think about how many "Laws of Nature" were wrong a few centuries ago. There is a flaw in there somewhere we just need a new genius to find it. Hopefully it is soon and not SoonÖ.
Actually, in my humble opinion, it's those that are trying to approach the speed of light as a means of interstellar travel that hold back "ingenious" thinking.
Trying to travel close to the speed of light is a really inefficient way to move massive (molecular) things. It just takes ALOT of energy.
In addition, no one yet has mentioned the other side effect of that type of travel: Those that do take up this travel will leave all that they know on earth forever behind them. The nearest starts aside, inter-galactic travel close to light speed would take MANY generations of humans (at our current lifespan) and would leave those that did the traveling forever seperated from us in time, so to speak. Returning to earth, they would find that thousands of millenia had passed since they left (I'll leave the exact numbers to those more inclined to figure them out).
I think the speed limit of "c" can be a useful one. There must be other ways of traversing the distances posed by galactic (and even inter-galactic) travel.
A few have been hinted at in this thread, in my humble opinion.
One person posted the "carrot before the donkey" example. Perhaps ships of the future will be able to create a micro-black hole (or singularity), unstable if not supplied with energy, but when stabilized, would create a "gravity well" that the ship would constantly fall into...sort of like pulling yourself up from your bootstraps if you will...
There might be ways to "poke" through the space dimensions by opening wormholes, or creating "tesseracts" by taking advantage of the "higher than 3-dimensions" that we live in.
The symmetries of space-time, matter-energy, etc., are just being revealed - it's only been 100 years since Einstein's ToR, and we only have a shadow of a hint of how the subatomic universe works (Quantum Mechanics).
I personally believe that the speed of light, as it is, is indicative of a limit. If there is something beyond that limit, I do not know. However, as others have hinted on this thread, the theory of Inflation states that our multi-dimensional space expanded at an incredible rate during the first moments after the big bang - much faster than the speed of light. Hence, this "negative energy" or expansive energy, might be another method of moving "through" our space.
I would give 5 years off the end of my life just to transport to some far off time into the future to see where science has gone - assuming that humanity has a place in some far off time in the future 
(As a basic, and flawed, analogy regarding the speed of light as a speed limit, think of basic chemistry and phase changes: When you boil water, the temperature keeps climbing until it reaches 100C. It then stops climbing! No matter how much heat you keep pouring into the water, it doesn't go above 100C. What does happen is that the water changes phase from liquid to gas.)
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