So, why aren't we travelling at light speed yet ?

[insane_alien]

how about daedalus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

 

fair enough it'd be a one way trip with no stopping but it was deemed plausible and within technological reach of 40 years ago

[swansont]

That's not answering the question, it's just giving advice (albeit poor advice seeing as a/ I hardly read any science fiction and b/ i'm as close to the milky way as you are ! )

 

To get to a stage where we eventually do travel at light speed what stages are needed 'on the way' to discovering how to do it ? What stage do you all think we're currently at ? Surely, scientists 'somewhere' are working on this project as this is surely the next big step for mankind ?

 

Physical travel at lightspeed is not an engineering barrier. There are people working on it, I'm sure, but there are people working on perpetual motion/free energy devices, too. The next step will have to be discovering new physics which allows such travel.

[JillSwift]

Davis, T.M. and Lineweaver, C.H. (2001), "Superluminal recession velocities", AIP Conf. Proc. 555, 348, DOI:10.1063/1.1363540 http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0011070

I think I broke my brain.

 

Please pardon my ignorance, but up 'till just now I thought I had a pretty good handle on relativity.

 

How does the light get here for us to observe these galaxies "moving away" from us at superluminal speeds? Or are we just seeing the light left over frm when they were "close enough" for the light to get here (as I understand it from that cite, the galaxies "moving away" from us are the ones "furthest")?

 

Or am I missing it altogether?

[Sisyphus]

We're seeing the light from when they were much closer, yes. The light emitted "now" will never get here. They're not really "moving," though. Just getting farther away...

[JillSwift]

We're seeing the light from when they were much closer, yes. The light emitted "now" will never get here. They're not really "moving," though. Just getting farther away...

Kewlies, thanks. I notice that ther are a lot of "quoted" words used in discussing "relativity" with plain "language" rather than "maths". I get the feeling our "frame of reference" as great apes isn't "well suited" to "relativity".

[swansont]

I think I broke my brain.

 

Please pardon my ignorance, but up 'till just now I thought I had a pretty good handle on relativity.

 

That's the dark secret of physics. There's always another layer that's more confusing, where you find that what you knew was only valid under some conditions.

[bascule]

how about daedalus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

 

fair enough it'd be a one way trip with no stopping but it was deemed plausible and within technological reach of 40 years ago

 

Never heard of it... that's pretty cool.

 

I have great hopes for space exploration in the form of unmanned probes, and perhaps when we have self-replicating nanotechnology we can create useful probes the size of a head of a pin, or smaller.

 

Those would be a lot easier to get traveling near light speed than anything a human can occupy.

 

And once they reach their destination, they could build a TeleClone machine, and we could start sending whatever we wanted there at the speed of light

[swansont]

froarty's post on cavity QED moved here

[JillSwift]

That's the dark secret of physics. There's always another layer that's more confusing, where you find that what you knew was only valid under some conditions.

Yeah, I'm starting to get that.

 

Makes me wonder if the interest in a unified field theory is less about understanding the cosmos and more about trying to make the room stop spinning.

[mooeypoo]

... trying to make the room stop spinning.

.. in which frame of reference?

 

 

 

 

Kapow.

[JillSwift]

.. in which frame of reference?

¡ɯoɹɟ ǝsooɥɔ oʇ ʎuɐɯ os

 

 

 

 

Kapow.

*plotz*

[swansont]

.. in which frame of reference?

 

But spinning does not involve an inertial frame. i.e. you can tell if you are spinning, or if the room is (unless the spinning is because you're drunk)

[mooeypoo]

But spinning does not involve an inertial frame. i.e. you can tell if you are spinning, or if the room is (unless the spinning is because you're drunk)

Party pooper.