Faster-Than-Light Travel?

[AlexanderJC]

I was wondering: how could you go faster than the speed of light if light is the theoretical "limit"? My hypothesis is that if you were to rapidly convert a massive piece of matter into energy, then back to matter, and back to energy again (keep repeating the process), then the sudden appearance and disappearance of matter would send ripples in space itself around say, a ship this was mounted on. This effect would effectively shorten (or lengthen) the length between point A and B . Then, if you were to go the speed of light, you would reach point B faster than if you went the speed of light the conventional way. Unless this effect lengthened space... Please give me feedback as I am simply a broke highschool student with no particle accelerator.

[Mr Skeptic]

Do you have any evidence to support your hypothesis? In particular, why would turning matter into energy or back cause any sort of gravitational disturbance, or how would it even be possible? Please note that if you could turn matter into energy, a much better use would be a power source that kicks fusion's sorry ass!

[ajb]

What is true is that you can use space-time geometry/distortion to achieve apparent faster than light travel (maybe with the presence of exotic matter). Such situations usually lead to time machines.

[throng]

The thing with travelling the speed of light is from the travellers perspective he would be at the departure point and destination simultaneously and if he is in two locations at the same time so too would he be everywhere at once.

[insane_alien]

throng, have a reference frame at c is unphysical. physics can't provide the answer because such an answer doesn't exist.

[mooeypoo]

A "that is physically impossible" is also an answer.

 

 

 

 

According to what we know about physics, this is impossible. If you disagree, you will need to show a completely different set of theories that explain reality *AND* allow this to happen; those theories need to be substantiated and shown to be better than the current theories.

 

That might be possible, and we might, some day, discover a whole new theory to replace our current one, but it won't be a quickie forum-explanation and it will require quite a LOT of evidence.