Holy Crap!!

Hard to belive all this stuff came from me posting a pic. :lol:

Here are my thoughts on it. It's hard to think about reaching or exceeding the speed of light because we think about it in "Earthly" terms. Wind resistance and friction are our biggest enemies here on Earth when it comes to speed. But in space there is no resistance and no friction. This is why Plasma engines work in space. Very little initial thrust, but it keeps accelerating as long as it's turned on due to no friction in space to slow it down. Ever heard of "solar sails". These are big sails that are propelled by light photons hitting them it in space. They will reach the speed of light over a period of time. Now if you could design something that would act like 2 magnets with the same poles pushing each other apart, but acting on light photons instead of magnetic energy, then you could exceed the speed of light in space. Remember light photons have weight and mass. That's why light cannot escape a "black hole". The gravity is so strong that light cannot break away from it's grip.

I don't belive in the theories that support "bending" or "folding" space into a shorter distance. Imaging trying to move through a big room. Those theories suggest that you could fold the room in half and shorten the distance required to get from one side to the other. But you are talking about moving whole galaxies and solar systems closer to where we are to decrease the distance. I don't believe this is possible. To do it you would have to bring the other objects, solar systems and galaxies closer to us. Can't be done, especially when the universe is constantly expanding. You can't think "two dimensional" as would be required to be able to fold space. Space is "three dimensional".

Yeah, I watch allot of Discovery Channel. ;)

That theory is useless. The car "going through the mountain" is taking a straight line approach. Of course it would get there faster. But in space travel, why would you go the long way around? You would fly a straight line to where you are going which would be the shortest distance.

Ya bunch of nerds.

Stuck on Science and physical limitations in your minds and at the same time some of you argue that you need to open your minds up to other possibilities and worm holes and whatever. I still stand by my believe that there is a single reason behind every one of the stars you are in amazement over. You can start in Genesis and don't quit till you hit Revelations and maybe you will understand more than you expected. I agree completely, don't let your mind limit you, You really ever expect to travel faster than light in this body?

First of all, photons do not have mass, they do have momentum though.None of the theories of solar sails state they can be propelled to the speed of light.You see light and magnetism(and anything else the is radiated equally) adhere to the inverse square laws, which state strength is inversly proportional the the square of the distance.Which means at twice the distance, the force is 4 times as weak.So things powered by solar sails will lose acceleration at an exponential rate as they get farther from the source radiating the photons.BTW even without friction, it can potentially take ion/plasma drive hundreds of years to even reach 50% the speed of light.They also suffer from the mass increase as well, which means they will eventually come to a constant speed(and not accelerate further)because they do not have enough energy to overcome the mass increase.

Thats like saying you don't believe in a curved earth or our solar system orbiting the sun.Bending of space is readily observed and has probably been proven the most out of all physics theories.They have brought atomic clocks on flights which showed time dilation.Time dilation is a consequence of bent space-time.Pictures in the link you posted show gravitational lenses, which are a consequence of bent space-time.Gravity in the black holes you talked about is a consequence of bent space-time.

In that analogy, Our 4 dimensional existance is the long way around.A straight line would be the long way around.Its called Non-Euclidian geometry, check it out.

I'd rather be a nerd than a bible freak.

I'm gonna have to go with Mike on this one. I took astrophysics in college. I've come to understand that there is no hard evidence of unifying theory that links nucleus of the atom to the physical (moreover observed) parameters of the universe. For instance, the gravitational attraction between an electron and the nucleus is a trillionth of a trillionth of a newton, while its electromagnetic attraction is relatively infinitely larger (think of the energy of particle accelerator). The latest popular idea is that the remaining/equalizing force of gravity is located in another universe, commonly called "branes" A perturbation in this brane caused it to lose some of it's gravity (unprovoked, big-bang like, no intellectual cause), mass, energy, which created this universe. Supposedly, this process has happened and will continue to happen without beginning or end- rather just cyclical. The speed of light, the rapid expansion of the universe, the ratios of dark energy, matter, and anitmatter are all accidental.

What I've read is that it's been a repeated theory that 70% of the universe's "ingredients" is dark energy. The matter that we consist of is like 4% and there's anitmatter, energy, which adds up to 100%. It has in turn been hypothesized that a different in these ratios of 0.5%, and none of the stars and the earth would have ever formed. This is the newest and maybe best answer for asking why astrophysics is what it is (someone help me with string theory).

When I studied astronomy, everything seemed so orderly and simply.
So like Mike, I believe God intended for these ratios. And likewise, He created a cosmic speed-limit. 2.99 x 10^8 m/s. :3gears:

No offense, but it seems your college course must of been quite some time ago.The nuclear weak force, that binds electrons to the nucleus, and the electromagnetic force have been unified into one force called the electro-weak force.In fact Steven Weinberg (his books are great, read them) won a nobel prize for it.

The dark matter or shadow mass has also been pretty much tossed out.It seems blackholes can account for most/all of the unobserved matter.10 dimensional string theory has been pretty much tossed out as well, though it seems to be coming back in the 11(or the even newer 12) dimensional M-theory, M-branes, membranes or whatever they call it these days.These theories IMO are getting off track.I agree that it will take a high dimension count theory to unify quantum mechanics and relativity, but string and M theories won't be it.While I can't make up my mind on the whole "God" thing, I think the "theory of everything" will be a spiritual one, but not spiritual as it is defined today and definately not theological or "divine"

I swear, that's what they taught me last spring. I received a minor in astrophysics taking that as my last class.