3 ms·

Are there any scientific paradigm shifts to make FTL possible?

javajosh 6y ago
Paradigm shifts don't make physical phenomena possible. At best, they take an observed natural phenomena, isolate and amplify it. AFAIK nothing has been observed moving faster than light and I don't believe there is anything even predicted to. Of course, the details of black hole physics, and early cosmological physics, are very strange and full of contradictions. To relate back to the original topic, to last for a very long time, I would imagine a civilization would require some sort of central urge even beyond simple survival, and argue that studying black holes would be one of the best, and perhaps universal motivators. (The goal of survival in-and-of-itself at the civilizational level is ironically quite nihilistic!)
MertsA 6y ago
Best chance of anything hypothetically being possible in the very very far future would be not going faster than light, but contracting and expanding space. There's plenty of problems with that theory, one of many would be that it would hypothetically have an event horizon at the front while "moving" faster than light, which would be a big problem because the Hawking radiation from it would kill stuff. It's called an Alcubierre drive and it's a fun thought experiment at the very least. Due to the energy constraints if it was ever hypothetically possible it would need to envelop the vessel in a bubble that's downright infinitesimally small. You could pass right through a planet and not hit anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive But the only scientific method to exceed the speed of light is to loosen the fiber optic cables on your neutrino detector. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...
7thaccount 6y ago
I think you'd know if there were. As far as I know (not a physicist), it takes infinite energy to reach FTL, so out of the question with modern science as you've said. As a non scientist, I'm also confused with some of the relativistic implications of FTL. I think motion through space and motion through time add up to the speed of light. If so, time would freeze when hitting the speed of light, but does that happen to the traveler moving at C, or to the outside observer? Also, if traveling faster than light (FTL), do I go back in time? Again, is that from the traveler or outsiders perspective? As far as getting FTL, you've probably heard of the Alcuberrie (spelling) drive which expands spacetime behind a ship and contracts in front of it to push a ship through spacetime via a bubble? Sounds great, but I think it requires exotic materials which don't exist. So we're stuck. I'm pointing this out in the chance you don't already know this. My hope is that within the next century or millennia, our understanding of math and physics will advance to a point to where things like wormholes become possible, but it'll be long after I'm dead. What worries me is if we're nearing the end of what the human brain is capable of realistically uncovering. Like if my brain's network was significantly denser and able to think better, maybe we could come up with something? I don't think the solutions to the next problems will be a single equation like some physicists like to claim (note they're far more qualified than I to speculate on this). I just see things like the proof for Fermat's Last Theorem that is like 80 pages and one man took like a decade to figure out and other mathematicians took like a year to check. Someone like me has zero chance of intellectually following that. If we have indeed "picked all the low hanging fruit" we can expect very small marginal gains in the upcoming years even with legions of scientists. My hope is that we're just in another phase waiting for another Newton or Einstein to come up with a single beautiful idea that revolutionizes the field and leads to an explosion of progress.

Paradigm shifts don't make physical phenomena possible. At best, they take an observed natural phenomena, isolate and amplify it. AFAIK nothing has been observed moving faster than light and I don't believe there is anything even predicted to. Of course, the details of black hole physics, and early cosmological physics, are very strange and full of contradictions. To relate back to the original topic, to last for a very long time, I would imagine a civilization would require some sort of central urge even beyond simple survival, and argue that studying black holes would be one of the best, and perhaps universal motivators. (The goal of survival in-and-of-itself at the civilizational level is ironically quite nihilistic!)

MertsA 6y ago

Best chance of anything hypothetically being possible in the very very far future would be not going faster than light, but contracting and expanding space. There's plenty of problems with that theory, one of many would be that it would hypothetically have an event horizon at the front while "moving" faster than light, which would be a big problem because the Hawking radiation from it would kill stuff. It's called an Alcubierre drive and it's a fun thought experiment at the very least. Due to the energy constraints if it was ever hypothetically possible it would need to envelop the vessel in a bubble that's downright infinitesimally small. You could pass right through a planet and not hit anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive But the only scientific method to exceed the speed of light is to loosen the fiber optic cables on your neutrino detector. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_ano...

7thaccount 6y ago

I think you'd know if there were. As far as I know (not a physicist), it takes infinite energy to reach FTL, so out of the question with modern science as you've said. As a non scientist, I'm also confused with some of the relativistic implications of FTL. I think motion through space and motion through time add up to the speed of light. If so, time would freeze when hitting the speed of light, but does that happen to the traveler moving at C, or to the outside observer? Also, if traveling faster than light (FTL), do I go back in time? Again, is that from the traveler or outsiders perspective? As far as getting FTL, you've probably heard of the Alcuberrie (spelling) drive which expands spacetime behind a ship and contracts in front of it to push a ship through spacetime via a bubble? Sounds great, but I think it requires exotic materials which don't exist. So we're stuck. I'm pointing this out in the chance you don't already know this. My hope is that within the next century or millennia, our understanding of math and physics will advance to a point to where things like wormholes become possible, but it'll be long after I'm dead. What worries me is if we're nearing the end of what the human brain is capable of realistically uncovering. Like if my brain's network was significantly denser and able to think better, maybe we could come up with something? I don't think the solutions to the next problems will be a single equation like some physicists like to claim (note they're far more qualified than I to speculate on this). I just see things like the proof for Fermat's Last Theorem that is like 80 pages and one man took like a decade to figure out and other mathematicians took like a year to check. Someone like me has zero chance of intellectually following that. If we have indeed "picked all the low hanging fruit" we can expect very small marginal gains in the upcoming years even with legions of scientists. My hope is that we're just in another phase waiting for another Newton or Einstein to come up with a single beautiful idea that revolutionizes the field and leads to an explosion of progress.