Tachyons are hypothetical (IMO, fantasy) particles, that exceed the speed of light, because they have negative mass. This whole idea seems easily refuted by the fact that something that has no mass (and thus travels at c) stands still in time. However, something with negative mass would arrive where it's going before it started heading there, and that makes no sense. On top of which, it would go backward in time, which means that it would exist for less time than something that does not exist at all, which also makes no sense.

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Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev:
Exists officially recognized limit of velocitie for em energy and object having mass. Such limit is a velocity of the light "c". This fact has multiple experimental acknowledgements. But where reason?

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The speed of light is dictated by the medium, just as the speed of sound is dictated by the medium. There's nothing mystical about it.

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Originally posted by Michael P. Sakowski:

The speed of light is dictated by the medium, just as the speed of sound is dictated by the medium. There's nothing mystical about it.

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How do you present this medium? What its characteristic bring about speed limit?

The speed of light that is referred to as the universal speed limit, is the speed of light in vacuo.

Majin, it seems that the idea of tachyons is not only wrong, but ridiculous (for the reasons that you have just pointed out, and more).

-Wolf

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There is no proof that you cant travel ftl. You just have to think of it differently. Ill put it into on of my famous analogies. Think of the Laws of physics as a simple rule. Dont break the only window in the country. Everyone thinks that this is a law that all must obey, but no one know where the window is so how are they going to break it, eventually it will be found and someone daring enough will break it and a billion more questions on relativity and whatever the next layer in physics they have after ftl, which will all be answered in due time. Two thousand years ago there wasnt even a speed of light or speed of sound for that matter as far as everyone knew. But now we have traveled many times faster than sound and I believe with travel faster than light as soon as someone descovers the answer. Laws of physics, bs, more like suggestions

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The reason we "can't" break the light barrier is because of theoretical reasons, not practical reasons; the laws of physics say so.

Hurkyl

(A) our mass increases to infinity.
(B) time dilation occurs so time almost stops for the object. FTL would lead to causality implications.
(C) the amount of energy required to accelerate increases to infinity.

all these have been confirmed by experiments, and are direct mathematical components of GR and SR.

-Wolf

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Originally posted by The Wolf:
I agree with all what you are saying, all of you. But you dont understand what im getting at. It IS possible to travel faster than light, we just dont know how to do it yet. It could be a simple mistake, Or a very large one. WE might not have the right materials, Or we might not have found them yet. But everything is impossible until you figure it out, at which point nothing is impossible. All problems have answers. You need to be more open minded.

-Wolf

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You need to recognize the difference between impossible, and beyond current understanding, wolf. You see, something that is impossible cannot be done. You are mistaking that for being beyond our current level of understanding.

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Originally posted by Mentat:

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Originally posted by The Wolf:
I agree with all what you are saying, all of you. But you dont understand what im getting at. It IS possible to travel faster than light, we just dont know how to do it yet. It could be a simple mistake, Or a very large one. WE might not have the right materials, Or we might not have found them yet. But everything is impossible until you figure it out, at which point nothing is impossible. All problems have answers. You need to be more open minded.

-Wolf

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You need to recognize the difference between impossible, and beyond current understanding, wolf. You see, something that is impossible cannot be done. You are mistaking that for being beyond our current level of understanding.

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To add what Mentat has already said. There are things that are impossible. For instance, it is impossible to "square a circle" with just a compass and straight edge. Not all problems have solutions.

Janus

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Its just like saying that its possible to get a sum of 3 after adding 1+1; its just that we don't know it yet. See how riduculous that sounds?

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Like i said every problem has a solution. 1+1=2 There is a problem and a solution put together. thats all you need, very simple, you have everything you need. but what i am saying is that your all trying to say that 500+1500 doesnt equal 2000 when you dont even know what 500 is. To us the 500 as im explaining it(a missing link in ftl travel) to us could be 250, for which yes 250+1500 doesnt equal 2000, but what you arent remembering is that it used to be impossible to travel around the world, because you would fall off the edge.

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For instance, it is impossible to "square a circle" with just a compass and straight edge. Not all problems have solutions.

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sure you cant change things that are already completely and fully understood from experience. that isnt even a problem, a circle is a circle a square is a square. but when you dont know what ---+87=5128736 you know some of the answer and some of the problem but not all of it. Every problem has an answer. bu what i really should have said is that every answer has a problem. ftl travel is the answer, but we dont know how to get there yet, as my algebra teacher always said, it doesnt matter if you have the answer, it matters if you can get there again. to me you all sound like highschhool students who refuse to accept the answer givin by the teacher. wa wa wa it doesnt work i dont think your right.

And one last thing. If tomarrow aliens appeared out if thin air and told you they came from another star ftl and proved it youd look pretty dumb looking back on these things and realizing that just like magellen, i am right.

-Wolf

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sure you cant change things that are already completely and fully understood from experience.

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Pray tell, why is the problem of squaring the circle "completely and fully understood from experience", but not the constancy of the speed of light?

Incidentally, the problem of "squaring the circle" is (in Euclidean space) to create a square with the same area as a given circle, not to turn a circle into a square.

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bu what i really should have said is that every answer has a problem.

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Ok, I'll buy that. For the answer "ftl travel" consider the problem "Name something impossible".

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to me you all sound like highschhool students who refuse to accept the answer givin by the teacher. wa wa wa it doesnt work i dont think your right.

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You sound the same. Modern physics (the teacher) tells you that ftl travel is imopssible, but you refuse to accept the answer.

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And one last thing. If tomarrow aliens appeared out if thin air and told you they came from another star ftl and proved it youd look pretty dumb looking back on these things and realizing that just like magellen, i am right.

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And what if the aliens came to us tomorrow and told us that ftl travel really is impossible?

Hurkyl

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And what if the aliens came to us tomorrow and told us that ftl travel really is impossible?

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THen i guess that they havent figured it out either.

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You sound the same. Modern physics (the teacher) tells you that ftl travel is imopssible, but you refuse to accept the answer.

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you are exactly right, MODERN physics says its impossible. well i think that modern physics is a jackass that says things are imposible just because he cant do them.

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Pray tell, why is the problem of squaring the circle "completely and fully understood from experience", but not the constancy of the speed of light?

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Have you ever tried to travel the speed of light? And scientists, just because they havent found the answer, think that it doesnt exist. I know and all of you know that we wont go faster than light for a long time (for you guys never) jsut because we cant do you think it is impossible, and in a way it is, but lots of things used to be imposible that are now easy. And I think that ftl travel will follow suit.

-Wolf