TIME TRAVEL: We think Albert Einstein might have finally figured it out!!!
Although Einstein's theories suggest nothing
can move faster than the speed of light, two
scientists have extended his equations to
show what would happen if faster-than-light
travel were possible.
Despite an apparent prohibition on such travel
by Einstein’s theory of special relativity , the
scientists said the theory actually lends itself
easily to a description of velocities that exceed
the speed of light.
"We started thinking about it, and we think this
is a very natural extension of Einstein's
equations," said applied mathematician James
Hill, who co-authored the new paper with his
University of Adelaide, Australia, colleague
Barry Cox. The paper was published Oct. 3 in
the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A:
Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
Special relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein
in 1905, showed how concepts like speed are
all relative: A moving observer will measure the
speed of an object to be different than a
stationary observer will. Furthermore, relativity
revealed the concept of time dilation, which
says that the faster you go, the more time
seems to slow down. Thus, the crew of a
speeding spaceship might perceive their trip to
another planet to take two weeks, while people
left behind on Earth would observe their
passage taking 20 years.
Yet special relativity breaks down if two
people's relative velocity, the difference
between their respective speeds, approaches
the speed of light. Now, Hill and Cox have
extended the theory to accommodate an
infinite relative velocity. [ Top 10 Implications
of Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos ]
Interestingly, neither the original Einstein
equations, nor the new, extended theory can
describe massive objects moving at the speed
of light itself. Here, both sets of equations
break down into mathematical singularities,
where physical properties can't be defined.
"The actual business of going through the
speed of light is not defined," Hill told
LiveScience. "The theory we've come up with
is simply for velocities greater than the speed
of light."
In effect, the singularity divides the universe
into two: a world where everything moves
slower than the speed of light, and a world
where everything moves faster. The laws of
physics in these two realms could turn out to
be quite different.
In some ways, the hidden world beyond the
speed of light looks to be a strange one
indeed. Hill and Cox's equations suggest, for
example, that as a spaceship traveling at
super-light speeds accelerated faster and
faster, it would lose more and more mass, until
at infinite velocity, its mass became zero.
"It's very suggestive that the whole game is
different once you go faster than light," Hill
said.
Despite the singularity, Hill is not ready to
accept that the speed of light is an
insurmountable wall. He compared it to
crossing the sound barrier. Before Chuck
Yeager became the first person to travel faster
than the speed of sound in 1947, many
experts questioned whether it could be done.
Scientists worried that the plane would
disintegrate, or the human body wouldn't
survive. Neither turned out to be true.
Fears of crossing the light barrier may be
similarly unfounded, Hill said.
"I think it's only a matter of time," he said.
"Human ingenuity being what it is, it's going
to happen, but maybe it will involve a
transportation mechanism entirely different
from anything presently envisaged."
No comments