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Will the speed of light always be a barrier?
Air and Space Magaine. Vol # 1 March 1978
| March 1978
| Editorial Staff w/ Melvin B. Zistein
Posted on 06/12/2005 6:00:55 PM PDT by vannrox
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This was written in the days when I was a young Aerospace Engineering student. Quite a bit has happened since this article was written. Namely Jimmy Carter and his change of direction for NASA. Anyone remember the crash of the SKY-LAB? Then Ronald Regan who wanted to develop NASP, the space station, and the SDI....only to Bill Clinton and Al Gore divert all the funds for the Children...
There are questions whether "c" is a constant at all...There are questions in the fundamental action and behavoir and assumtptions of matter, and all of this has resulted the having subatomic particles travel faster than the speed of light.
Perhaps some day we might be able to travel faster than light. It certainly would be cool. But I doublt that it will be in my lifetime.
1
posted on
06/12/2005 6:00:56 PM PDT
by
vannrox
To: vannrox
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle in which travel occurs at the speed of thought. That'd be fast.
2
posted on
06/12/2005 6:11:25 PM PDT
by
bwteim
To: vannrox
I have arrived from 150 years in the future to tell you that the light barrier will eventually be broken. However, we still haven't invented a reliable battery. That's why I'm still stuck in 2005. My time machine has a dead nyglohyphelium cell and they won't be invented until 2057.
Until then, we have seventeen more bad Coldplay albums to suffer through.
3
posted on
06/12/2005 6:12:29 PM PDT
by
SamAdams76
(Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand?)
To: SamAdams76
You told us about that next year already.
4
posted on
06/12/2005 6:13:36 PM PDT
by
cripplecreek
(I zot trolls for fun and profit.)
To: SamAdams76
5
posted on
06/12/2005 6:14:33 PM PDT
by
billdcon
To: vannrox
There was a young lady named Bright,
who traveled much faster that light....
she started one day,
in a Relative way,
and returned on the previous night.
6
posted on
06/12/2005 6:15:54 PM PDT
by
Michael Goldsberry
(an enemy of islam -- Joe Boucher; Leapfrog; Dr.Zoidberg; Lazamataz; ...)
To: SamAdams76
Care to post some stock market tables?
7
posted on
06/12/2005 6:16:28 PM PDT
by
GSlob
To: vannrox
The speed of light has been broken many times. Look how fast Democrats went from complaining "GW did nothing to prevent 911" at the 911 hearings, to complaining "GW is trying to prevent 911" at Gitmo.
8
posted on
06/12/2005 6:17:21 PM PDT
by
EdHallick
("KAAAAAAAAAAHN!" - Capt. James T. Kirk)
To: SamAdams76
I heard you can make a flux capacitor out of a cell phone, a DVD player, and a few miscellaneous parts from Radio Shack.
Good Luck.
9
posted on
06/12/2005 6:17:49 PM PDT
by
spinestein
("Just hold your nose and vote for Kerry" --- WORST CAMPAIGN SLOGAN EVER!)
To: GSlob
I would but I flunked out of history...and economics.
10
posted on
06/12/2005 6:17:50 PM PDT
by
SamAdams76
(Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand?)
To: bwteim
"the speed of thought. That'd be fast."
Not for me it wouldn't!
11
posted on
06/12/2005 6:18:00 PM PDT
by
Abcdefg
To: SamAdams76
Thank you. I`m glad I`m not the only person who can`t stand that idiot band.
12
posted on
06/12/2005 6:18:26 PM PDT
by
EdHallick
("KAAAAAAAAAAHN!" - Capt. James T. Kirk)
To: SamAdams76
I am from 151 years in the future and I am here to tell you, don't bother coming back. I came back in time to escape the Armageddon that has come since you messed with he time stream. Flower power is back, and all thats played on the radio are New Kids on the Block cover bands.
On a lighter note, the galactic congress has raised the light speed limit of light in Metroplanetarian areas to C+5 MPH and has eliminated it altogether in galactic backwaters (like Space Montana) during daylight hours.
13
posted on
06/12/2005 6:19:19 PM PDT
by
edeal
To: Abcdefg
LOL. I "thought" you might say that ;)
14
posted on
06/12/2005 6:19:24 PM PDT
by
bwteim
To: vannrox
Mel Zisfein, deputy director of the national Air and Space Museum, and an aerosynamicist amoung other things, has noted a similarity between the way most people today regard "C," the speed of light, and the way many people a generation or so ago regarded "a", the speed of sound. Proof positive that travel at the speed of light is not only possible, but inevitable.
15
posted on
06/12/2005 6:19:37 PM PDT
by
Mr Ramsbotham
(Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
To: SamAdams76
If you take into account the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and quantum mechanics, wouldn't it almost guarantee that C is not a constant?
If you consider every possible path for a photon to travel from point A to B, some paths will naturally be longer than others. If it takes the same amount of time to get from A to B along every path then the photon must be traveling at different speeds.
The probability of the photon taking a very long round-about path would be miniscule, but it would still be > 0. So at least theoretically the speed of light in a vacuum is not constant.
16
posted on
06/12/2005 6:19:54 PM PDT
by
boofus
To: vannrox
"What is the speed of dark?"
"I put instant coffee into my microwave oven and almost went back in time."
- Stephen Wright
To: vannrox
Actually something does travel at the speed of light. Photons. We need to build a ship entirely of photons, then we could have photon torpedoes and destroy the Kingons.
18
posted on
06/12/2005 6:22:03 PM PDT
by
EdHallick
("KAAAAAAAAAAHN!" - Capt. James T. Kirk)
To: vannrox
has noted a similarity between the way most people today regard "C," the speed of light, and the way many people a generation or so ago regarded "a", the speed of sound. I pretty much stopped taking this article serious when I reached the about statement.
To: vannrox
c is actually a ratio between two other constants, one for electricity and one for magnetism.
20
posted on
06/12/2005 6:24:05 PM PDT
by
Moonman62
(Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
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