Physicists: Faster-Than-Light Travel Might Be Possible

FoxNews ^ | August 13, 2008 | Jeremy Hsu

[BloodOrFreedom]

Travel by bubble might seem more appropriate for witches in Oz, but two physicists suggest that a future spaceship could fold a space-time bubble around itself to travel faster than the speed of light.

We're talking about the very distant future, of course.

The idea involves manipulating dark energy — the mysterious force behind the universe's ongoing expansion — to propel a spaceship forward without breaking the laws of physics.

"Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would be traveling faster than the speed of light."

In theory, the universe grew faster than the speed of light for a very short time after the Big Bang, driven by the dark energy that represents about 74 percent of the total mass-energy budget in the universe.

Dark matter constitutes 22 percent of the budget, and normal matter (stars, planets and everything you see) makes up the remaining 4 percent or so.

Strange as it sounds, current evidence supports the notion that the fabric of space-time can expand faster than the speed of light, because the reality in which light travels is itself expanding.

Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a Baylor graduate student, tapped the latest idea in string theory to devise how to manipulate dark energy and accelerate a spaceship.

Their notion is based on the Alcubierre drive, which proposes expanding space-time behind the spaceship while also shrinking space-time in front.

String theorists had believed that a total of 10 dimensions exist, including height, width, length and time.

The other six dimensions exist largely as unknowns, but everything is based on hypothetical one-dimensional strings.

[LomanBill]

[Certainly mass effects the fabric of space, but these effects wouldn't come into play here with such low mass objects. There isn't anywhere near the amount of mass here to bend the light beam's path.]

 

But as the velocity of a body increases, its mass increases and approaches infinity as V approaches C.  

 

Wouldn't mass become sufficient to bend light as V approached C?

 

 

[ETL]

Wouldn't mass become sufficient to bend light as V approached C?

That's a very interesting question, because if V does get to a substantial portion of light speed, any object with mass aboard the moving frame (as seen by an outside stationary observer), would increase dramatically. I believe that is the reason why objects cannot achieve light speed. Because AT light speed (mathematically/theoretically), mass is infinite. And it would require an infinite amount of energy to get an object up to light speed, so therefore C is impossible.

But getting back to your question: [pp] would the dramatic increase in mass (at high enough V), create a similarly dramatic increase in the gravitational field of the objects in the moving frame, as seen from the perspective of the outside stationary frame/observer, and actually become great enough to bend the light beam?

"Answer": Beats me! Seriously, my guess would be that it would take a near impossibly large amount of energy to get the light clock up to such speeds where mass increase will impart a gravitational field strong enough to bend light. In any event, a great question!