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Tachyons are considered impossible in Special Relativity - they can send information into the past, and so reverse cause and effect. In a Universe where Tachyons existed, it would be possible for you to kill your grandmother before your mother was born, thereby making you disappear - poof! 
There was a young woman called Bright
Who could travel much faster than light
She went out one day
In a Relative way
And returned the previous night
-- Anon.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Yeah, fair enough, I guess unless a hypothetical particle has been observed we must assume it is impossible.
I wonder what they're doing with the LHC these days....
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mass increases with velocity? You must live in a different reality then the rest of us.
Relativistic mass =/= mass.
Sin tack ear lol
Pressing the any key may be continuate
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Two objects pass each other with 0,6*c (like trains that go in different direction) and from either of the object it would "look" like you pass each other with 1,2*c ? Now the question is would you see the other object passing?
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Nope. Adding relativistic velocities is not simple addition. See Special Relativity - composition of velocities
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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HobbyProggy wrote: from either of the object it would "look" like you pass each other with 1,2*c ?
No. That's actually from a gedanken experiment written up by Einstein with respect to light on a moving train, etc.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Oh he did that? Didn't know 
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W∴ Balboos wrote: as anything with any mass approaches c, they all approach the same mass
The problem here is that you are treating infinity as a quantity, which leads to all sorts of paradoxical things. Infinity is a concept not a number, it has no quantity that can be compared to some other quantity. This is why mathematicians talk about approaching infinity rather than infinity itself as a number.
Besides, before the object approached "infinite" mass, the universe would collapse around it and destroy everything anyway, because gravity. You would destroy the universe before you approached the speed of light, even leaving aside the fact that you used up most of the energy in the universe in the process.
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I did say approach, and besides that, these are both approaching the same order of infinities (Alephs).
The universe wouldn't collapse around it - if for no other reason than that the information about it's mass would still be constrained to traveling at c. Anything else moving at 'c', therefore, may never know of the event unless it's heading more-or-less towards it.
Or - if I were politically motivated I'd say: you've no experimental proof - but one doesn't present politics in the Lounge.
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I'm not clear on how bringing set theory into it changes things. The initial energy required for acceleration would be much greater for the planet than for the grain of sand, so that is still going to carry forward as you approach infinity, right? It would amount to the same energy in both cases if you actually reached infinity, but of course you never would.
Also, I'm not clear about how that mass is going to effect (or not) the rest of the universe. Are you saying that there would be no gravitational force exerted on the surrounding universe as a near-infinite bit of mass passed by? Is the gravity somehow localized? Let me guess, relative to the object travelling at c? So would the spaceship crush itself then? I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't help but see near-infinite mass as near-infinite gravity, and gravity on that scale seems like it would have an effect on something.
And, experimental proof of what? We're talking about thought experiments.
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The set theory view is to narrow – they infinities are of the same order of magnitude (infinity-wise). Now, be they a grain of sand or a planet, they rapidly converge, asymptotically in mass as the sand would accelerate much faster (at first) until it’s mass was the same as the planet. Catch-up. The energy required for acceleration of either is "within experimental error", the same. (You know - infinit vs. infinity+1)
And I didn’t say “space ship” or any other specific object traveling at ‘c’. Take, for example, any light in the universe – which is part of the universe – and would always be out of reach of the gravitational waves (if they travel at ‘c’). Unless you consider a universe containing just light is not a universe.
The ‘experimental proof’ was a jab at those saying there’s no ‘experimental proof’ for climate change – but what experiment would the propose? So that’s why I said it had a political scent to it. Now, I’ve had to spell it out – which is what I tried to avoid, before – I brought a ray of darkness into the Lounge.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: You know - infinit vs. infinity+1
This kind of arithmetic with infinity is exactly what bugs me, that's treating it as a quantity, the problem being that you have to actually reach infinity before you can add 1 to it. But never mind, that's a small point and it's purely academic. I get what you mean that at some point it would take almost exactly the same amount of energy to get both objects up to the same velocity.
W∴ Balboos wrote: Take, for example, any light in the universe – which is part of the universe – and would always be out of reach of the gravitational waves
Well, photons don't have mass right? Gravity can affect light but light can't produce gravity AFAIK. I thought we were taking about accelerating matter. Obviously light doesn't take on infinite mass at the speed of light, we don't need an experiment to know that, we'd be able to tell
Anyway, it's interesting to think about, but we are obviously never going to do interstellar travel by accelerating mass through space. It seems we would have to manipulate space somehow.
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Yes, but Clarke admitted that those statements were completely erroneous, a few weeks after his 30th birthday.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Quote: es, but Clarke admitted that those statements were
completely erroneous, a few weeks after before his 30th birthday.
FFY.
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Actually it might be possibly.
NASA discovers possibly faster than light travel.
Clickigy[^]
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No, just very, very improbable.Douglas Adams
Cheers,
Mick
------------------------------------------------
It doesn't matter how often or hard you fall on your arse, eventually you'll roll over and land on your feet.
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Anybody ever wonder why the speed of light is represented by the constant c?
It's because it's not the speed of light. Nobody other than optics researchers much care about the speed of light. What they do care about is the speed of causality (which, you'll note, starts with the letter 'c'). It just so happens that - in our universe - light (in a vacuum) travels at the speed of causality.
If you can exceed the speed of causality, then guess what you've just invented? Not something as mundane as FTL travel. You've invented a Time Machine.
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The speed of light is represented by the letter c because the Latin for speed is celeritate (which gives us words such as acceleration).
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Ygnaiih wrote: articles from Futurist who say that this or that is impossible.
That's their opinion, and as the old adage goes 'opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one'. A positive that may come of it though, it might kickstart a thought process by the right person, that may prove or disprove that opinion.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Possible and achievable are two different things. Something may be possible, yet we may not achieve it.
I don't think we'll achieve time travel.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: I don't think we'll achieve time travel.
According to Hawking the fact that we haven't already been visited by some future time traveler pretty much "proves" it's impossible. 
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. ~ Ronald Reagan
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Ygnaiih wrote: I'm old
Me too!
But there's always Google; the workaround to getting a life!
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If I remember correctly, it was Einstein who said that impossible things remain such only until someone comes up with a trick to make them possible. 
That's often the case with new discoveries and advances in science. While things may technically remain impossible, there can be "tricks" to bypass the impossibility. As in your example, FTL travel could be made possible not by travelling faster than light (which *may* remain impossible), but by warping the space around you etc. etc.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but not in practice. - Anonymous
A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. - B. Bryson
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