Faster than light travel?

[Neil]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15017484 Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.

[Danny]

inb4 nasa tests a ship to jump from earth to mars instantaneously and for the pilots it is for everyone else they are gone for like 60 years or something.

[Mr.G]

I'm not a scientist but if true, warp drive here we come!

[Mike70]

there are a number of experiments either planned or underway to test whether the speed of light really is a "speed limit." the fermi space telescope is presently engaged in an experiment to determine if the speed of light has actually changed as the universe has gotten older. it is doing this by monitoring gamma ray bursts coming from the oldest part of the universe we know about (things about 11 to 13 billion light years from here) and measuring the speed/rate at which each photon is hitting its detectors. i would not be surprised if in the next 20 to 25 years, we find out that there are ways around the speed of light "limit" or that the speed of light has not been constant over the lifetime of the universe.

[Neil]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15791236 Neutrino experiment repeat at Cern finds same result. The team behind the finding in September that neutrinos may travel faster than light has carried out an improved version of their experiment - and found the same result.

[Kaos]

FTL Communication will come first, and now possibly within our lifetime.

[Neil]

FTL Communication will come first, and now possibly within our lifetime. Why bother!? Our communication is surely fast enough as it is (for our current requirements)? And don't forget these FTL neutrinos are suggested to be only a tiny tiny tiny bit FTL. So no real world improvement.

[Kaos]

Why bother!? Our communication is surely fast enough as it is (for our current requirements)? And don't forget these FTL neutrinos are suggested to be only a tiny tiny tiny bit FTL. So no real world improvement. Surely you are incorrect. It can take 15 minutes to 20 minutes to send a message to Mars. If we send people there, real time communication will be preferred. If FTL is possible, it will happen in communication first, and long long long before travel. Edit - and communication includes computing. Again, long before travel.

[Neil]

Surely you are incorrect. It can take 15 minutes to 20 minutes to send a message to Mars. If we send people there, real time communication will be preferred. If FTL is possible, it will happen in communication first, and long long long before travel. Edit - and communication includes computing. Again, long before travel. OK, communication over interplanitary distances could be useful. But with current results, would a communication using no doubt very exotic and expensive technology that gets a signal to Mars in 14minute and 58 seconds, be much better than a traditional radio signal that takes 15minutes? Unless the time is drastically reduced by a huge fraction, the gain is meaningless. Now, with computers, if FTL communication can be utilised, great! But again, it would have to be something far far greater than this current experiment shows.

[AcesandEights]

But again, it would have to be something far far greater than this current experiment shows. True, but it would have to start as theoretical and work its way through various levels of practicable tech to get to the point of FTL travel. Transitional over instantaneous progress to the final goal.

[Kaos]

OK, communication over interplanitary distances could be useful. But with current results, would a communication using no doubt very exotic and expensive technology that gets a signal to Mars in 14minute and 58 seconds, be much better than a traditional radio signal that takes 15minutes? Unless the time is drastically reduced by a huge fraction, the gain is meaningless. Now, with computers, if FTL communication can be utilised, great! But again, it would have to be something far far greater than this current experiment shows. Duh, both exotic and expensive (initially) and it will happen (if FTL is possible) long before travel - the goal will be 20 seconds or something like it (if it were theoretically possible) - they wouldn't reach that goal immediately. Communication within a computer will be the first step, then a fat communication pipe between computers, then on to other goals. Quantum Computers are exotic and expensive and people are scrambling to create them. Communication first. Travel is exponentially more difficult, exotic, and expensive than communication. Keeping people alive in space is already a challenge irrespective of propulsion. Communication and computing is where we would get our legs in FTL.

[Mike70]

OK, communication over interplanitary distances could be useful. But with current results, would a communication using no doubt very exotic and expensive technology that gets a signal to Mars in 14minute and 58 seconds, be much better than a traditional radio signal that takes 15minutes? Unless the time is drastically reduced by a huge fraction, the gain is meaningless. Now, with computers, if FTL communication can be utilised, great! But again, it would have to be something far far greater than this current experiment shows. a radio built on the principle of entanglement would allow instantaneous transmission across any distance, even light years, without any sort of delay. it would also, under relativistic speeds (remember one of the fundamental laws of the universe is that the faster you are moving, the more time slows from your point of view), allow for messages to go into both the past and the future. entanglement is a proven, rock solid phenomenon of nature. there is absolutely no doubt that it exists. it has already been artifically induced using calcium atoms. the applications that could arise from using computers and radios that are built around entangled particles/atoms literally boggle the mind. the slowing of time due to speed means that we have real life time travelers among us now. they are called astronauts. the clocks in orbit run slower than those on earth. so anyone who has spent a bit of time at orbital speeds actually comes back to earth slightly in their own future. the cosmonaut with the most time in space (have a brain block on his name) is actually several milliseconds into his own future. there is also no such thing as the "present." everything we see is in our own past already, by a few billionths of a second. the main problem with most FTL ideas/designs is that they all require the harnessing of dark energy to work. you need dark energy to warp space if that is your goal. you need dark energy to hold open and stabilize a wormhole. most of them also require a power source equal to what the sun generates over many years. that won't happen any time soon. better just to keep working on the possible applications of entanglement.

[Danny]

OK, communication over interplanitary distances could be useful. But with current results, would a communication using no doubt very exotic and expensive technology that gets a signal to Mars in 14minute and 58 seconds, be much better than a traditional radio signal that takes 15minutes? Unless the time is drastically reduced by a huge fraction, the gain is meaningless. Now, with computers, if FTL communication can be utilised, great! But again, it would have to be something far far greater than this current experiment shows. its not just distance but size, the sheer speed of information transfer could allow for far more information sent at far higher rates. Think about how it would effect internet- and by doing so effect entertainment as a whole. Youcan say it looks too expensive now, but in the mid 90's those tablet computers from star trek were some crazy space age technology that was 50 years away. Now look at your touchscreen smartphones, know what i mean? if theres margine for a very high profit that makes it all the more likely. folks will rush to be the first to provide a FTL phone, internet and cable service instead of making the free energy car you only have to pay for one yknow?

[Mike70]

and on another note: we should stop fucking around with chemical means of propulsion and built a spacecraft using a nuclear reactor as an engine. that would open the solar system up completely. the ion engine also show great promise. the Dawn spacecraft (presently in orbit around Vesta) is using 3 ion engines. it expended about 150 pounds of fuel getting from Earth to Vesta. now that's fuel efficiency. the ion engines on Dawn would allow it to make the largest velocity change in space travel history - 10 km/sec. all that from just 606 lbs of xenon fuel.

[Rancid Carcass]

the ion engine also show great promise. the Dawn spacecraft (presently in orbit around Vesta) is using 3 ion engines. it expended about 150 pounds of fuel getting from Earth to Vesta. now that's fuel efficiency. the ion engines on Dawn would allow it to make the largest velocity change in space travel history - 10 km/sec. all that from just 606 lbs of xenon fuel. Yeah, but I bet it couldn't make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs!