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

[vannrox]

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.

[bwteim]

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle in which travel occurs at the speed of thought. That'd be fast.

[SamAdams76]

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.

[cripplecreek]

You told us about that next year already.

[billdcon]

Perfect post. LMAO.

[Michael Goldsberry]

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.

[GSlob]

Care to post some stock market tables?

[EdHallick]

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.

[spinestein]

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.

[SamAdams76]

I would but I flunked out of history...and economics.

[Abcdefg]

"the speed of thought. That'd be fast."
Not for me it wouldn't!

[EdHallick]

Thank you. I`m glad I`m not the only person who can`t stand that idiot band.

[edeal]

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.

[bwteim]

LOL. I "thought" you might say that ;)

[Mr Ramsbotham]

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.

[boofus]

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.

[Larry Lucido]

"What is the speed of dark?"

"I put instant coffee into my microwave oven and almost went back in time."

- Stephen Wright

[EdHallick]

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.

[rkhampton]

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.

[Moonman62]

c is actually a ratio between two other constants, one for electricity and one for magnetism.