3 ms·
> Since you can’t travel faster than light The Relativity prohibition is that anything with mass can not travel as fast as light because approaching c, mass in
by Maursault 5y ago
> Since you can’t travel faster than light
The Relativity prohibition is that anything with mass can not travel as fast as light because approaching c, mass increases requiring more and more energy while time slows, such traveling at c increases apparent mass to infinity, requires infinite energy, and time slows to a stop. The same thing could be said for anything moving FTL, as it approaches c, mass increases and time slows to zero. Relativity does not prohibit FTL travel, only travel at c.
- contravariant 5y agoThe problem is a bit deeper than that, it doesn't just require infinite energy there simply is no isometry of space that can transform something faster than the speed of light into something slower than the speed of light and vice-versa. So really there's no way to map the laws of physics for something faster than light onto those for something moving slower than light. For similar reasons there are no known elementary particles that can maintain their existence in a superluminal trajectory.
- simonh 5y agoRight, so the maths works for superluminal trajectories, but that doesn’t mean it corresponds to anything physical and to get ‘there’ from ‘here’ you need to get past that singularity.
- contravariant 5y agoWell saying the math 'works' is not quite right. If anything the math doesn't work out because there is no way to transform a normal trajectory into a superluminal one. Sure you can just define a line through space-time that is superluminal. That's basically equivalent to just defining a singular moment in time, the same way that an (inertial) trajectory defines a constant position.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]