hmmm..... another problem is that if you travel at this speed, it would be impossible for you to decelerate in space. This is because there is no gravity and nothing to stop you. ???

You'd turn the ship around and accelerate in the exact opposite direction of your momentum. And thus, decelerate.

Kinda like moving around while playing Asteroids.

but we're moving at faster then the speed of light, doing that would be almost impossible, since you're moving so fast that just a slight touch on the pedal ( is that what it's called? ) and you'll go round and round!

What would happen if a wall that moved in a straight line and never could be stopped collided with a wall that never could be moved? I think they'd either explode or trade places, I.e. Non-movable wall becomes un-stoppalbe wall, and vice-wersa. Opinions?

DrXnY - Seeings as we're making a hell of a lot of assumptions here, I'm going to jump in with my own. So, you're travelling at the speed of light. One argument would be yours; that you wouldn't be able to slow down and simply keep accelerating until you flew right out of space-time.
However, the more scientifically feasible one is the theory that doesn't abandon the physics we've created so far.

There is gravity in space, far greater than the meager field exerted by a planet. Black Holes, for example, exert such a distorting gravitational pull, they can negate the speed of light itself, and draw it in as a near-physical object (leading to speculation that a controlled quantum singularity could help breach Einstein's Speed of Light law). Light is also slightly affected by large stellar masses such as stars - the impact seen as gravitational 'dents' in the fabric of space-time, as proven by the experimentation with atomic clocks.

So, we've demonstrated that by our own rather basic laws of physics, light and anything travelling as fast can be affected by the physics of the universe around you. So, you could either slow your ship down by snagging it on a planet, star or black hole - or you could simply shut down your drive system, drop out of lightspeed, and coast to a halt just as Vivisector mentioned. Even if you didn't have a handy source of gravity to slow your ship - such as a stellar body - you could rely on good old inertia to reduce your speed somewhat, although you would have to contribute to slowing with simple propellant engines.

There you have it; a rather hazy, conjectured stab at faster-than-light travel. Just my two pence.

Going back to your original post, DrXnY, yes, I'm definately interested in these questions myself... actually I think physics overall is fascinating... I'm such a nerd :p

On the question of the existence of anti-matter, I *thought* that I had read somewhere that when the universe first burst into existence, the matter and anti-matter particles cancelled each other out, and because there was left over matter particles, well, here we are. But another poster has already stated that this is a continuing process ... interesting... what really blows my mind is the fact that there just happens to be slightly more matter than anti-matter in the universe (by a factor of about one in a million or something) and it is only due to this slight inequality of particles that we actually exist! Thus, there are no anti-particles floating around, since they cease to exist as soon as they are created, but there is matter because there isn't enough anti-matter to cancel it all out.

Stephen Hawking, by the way, is a physicist who many people consider to be the smartest man alive. He's written some books for laypersons, if this stuff interests you, you may want to check out A Brief History of Time, which is pretty accessible to people who have no physics background.

Some other interesting points to ponder: matter appears to be made purely of energy. It also apparently doesn't "exist" in the sense that we normally think of existence, but rather it "tends to exist". Matter is formed out of connections and interactions of energy. (by the way I'm not a physicist and if I'm distorting the facts please feel free to clear things up)

Cheers

I wholeheartedly agree with you Ghostie, about the beginning of the universe. It seems very feasible. (I have read a history of time, and it was quite an eye-opener). We could of course, go on forever about where this matter and anti-matter came from!

However, if this theory is true, then surely there would be no anti-matter left? However, my theory is that there may be some huge forces in the universe that can create anti-matter (remember that we knew nothing about black holes until a few years ago), and if these forces can create anti-matter (and therefore energy, through annihilation), then they could in fact be creating the universe or universes as we speak.

This would mean that these structures/forces, actually exist outside the universe, and are surrounded by the universes they have created.

Therefore, if you were to reach the edge of the universe, you would either:

1) encounter another universe, which, as it looks like a continuation of our universe, you would assume it is just that.

2) You would encounter the force that creates universes and it would either cause you to explode or suck you into oblivion like a black hole.

Now this theory is all well and good, but where did the force come from? This force could simply be a huge ball of energy so large that it has to create matter, but who put it there. What would be good is some kind of cyclical theory, just like the water cycle, whereupon the universe creates the force and the force then creates the universe.



Edited By Corpus_Chain on 1103767181

Argh, my Mum and Dad just came in drunk, and asked me "what is outside of space?"

*lol* Chain.

Sometimes I wonder if physicists come home every day feeling like they have been stoned all day. Physics is just *that* trippy. :p

(by the way, I like you're signature - the one about the chicken and the egg. I was just discussing the same thing with my Dad today. )

I am assuming to go faster than light - the ship transforms in to a higher energy state. Example: Gamma radiation travels at some energy level. It comes in contact with other matter. Depending on the size, density, energy level, and construction of the matter, portions energy could be transferred to that matter and in essence lowering the energy level of the gamma or becoming abosrbed fully into the new matter. Your body is made of different elements as is the ship so if portions of these elements 'slow down' they could become removed from your body.



Really depends on what was abosorbed and what state it would tranfer back into.



There is a lot of gravity in space. I believe the technology to brake would require a drag affect or some type of focused interaction with the gravity of the stars, planets, etc.



Another excellent resource is Carl Sagan. He is dead now but he has many published works.

The greatest thing about all the research, theories, equations and such is what I call the platapus affect. You can have everything make sense, catagorized, assigned, t-crossed, and i's dotted and then the platapus shows up to show you another way.

1) The universe ( not just the milkey-way ) is HUGE. So there are no anti-particles in the solar system, but does that mean that there are no anti-particles outside of the solar system? how about an anti-solar system?

2) No, matter exsists. It's the name for everything. Books, animels, TV screens, everything. ( i'm 99% sure i'm right )

btw, the problem with stoping while traviling:
Yes, there is gravity in space, but since we don't know where it is, it would not only be dangerous to go out to space and try our new shiney spacecraft, but it will be very hard to "spot" it when traveling at the speed of light...

Hey again,

To answer to your comments:

1) I think the matter/anti-matter theory is, well, theoretically based, not empirically based. That is, it's based on math and the laws of physics rather than experiments done in space. So, I'm pretty sure it applies to all of the universe. On the other hand, how *do* we know that there are no anti-solar systems?

2) I'm not saying matter doesn't exist. I'm not saying we don't exist. I could kick you (if we were in the same room) and neither of us would doubt the existence or solidity of my foot or your shin. But, this is at our scale (human scale, ordinary life scale, whatever you want to call it). At the scale of atoms and subatomic particles, things get really wierd, and particles are not in fact little solid things. They are more elusive, maybe even ephemeral ... they don't even have a definate location sometimes!
The problem with a lot of quantum physics is that our language and imaginations aren't really equipped to deal with the wierd reality its showing us. So I don't mean that matter doesn't exist, just that it doesn't *exist* in the normal sense of the word. :p


I really recommend that you check out a book on physics for the layperson ... I think you'd like it. Hawking is good, another good book is The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. He compares physics to Eastern mysticism and finds a lot of similarities - the beginning of the book has a good overview of modern physics theory.

Cheers,

-Ghostie

Firstly, Does anyone ever think that we could be the "anti-matter" universe? if I were to go with that theory It would be pretty safe to assume that there would be too opposites not one that is the opposite of the other...its all about prespective.

Anyhoo onto what I actually wanted to say, latly ive been trying to wrap my head around "superheated plasma" wich seems to be related to this subject. As far as I can tell plasma is like the fourth state of matter in the basic understanding of it, It goes solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma. Like an ice cube that you melt into water then continue to heat into steam and so forth into plasma.

Technicaly even your standard flame is a plasma (although its hardly a "super" heated gas it still meets most of the requirments.

I've theorized that if you could envelop a craft in a bubble of super heated gasses aswell as great a flow of electrons over the body of the craft you could probably "trick" the laws of physics into thinking the ship was actually completly made of energy and thus able to travel really really fast.

Now heres the sad part, chances are someone has already theorized this 50 years ago figured out it wasnt true and through it out the window.

Oh also a side note super heated plasmas have been created to my knowledge (and im not talking about your standard plasma cutters) by heating up nitrogen gas in a donought shaped tube and using magnetic fields to movie it and to keep if from touching the walls of the tube (because doing so would transfer the energy from the plasma into the tube decreasing the stability of it and making it go caputs) although I think it only lasts a few seconds.

And finally thanks for reading the retarted ramblings of a person with sub standard comprehention of physics. lol

The laws developed by man's understanding of what is around him at the time of such observation. All scientific laws are subject to change. Theories are thoughts and explanations to make what is seen fit with using what is available at the time to make the observation make sense. I do not believe we need to 'trick' our laws. Considering we only use 10% of our brain on average, I am certain we use much less of what the universe has to offer.

Example: assume a=b

a=b :mulitply both side by a
2
a x a = a x b or a = ab :subtract both sides by b squared

2 2 2
a - b = ab - b :derive the equivelent equation

(a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b) : divide both sides by (a-b) and cancel like terms

a+b = b : substitute using a=b

2b = b : divide by b

2=1

a-b is technically division by 0 which is currently undefined, now we have tricked the laws of alegebra but have made a 'rule' to get out of it