Science Chats Forum

I believe it is called Special Relativity. I hope someone will correct me (politely) if its not. I am interested in Einstein's theory that traveling at the speed of light requires infinite mass and infinite fuel. Short of Gene Roddenberry's warp engine, I have not heard any theories on how traveling at, or past, the speed of light is possible. I'm not putting much faith in Roddenberry's science, though I do like Star Trek. Any other theories out there?

There has always been theories of a perpetual motion machine wiki. The idea that since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, there must be a mechanism of harnessing "lost" energy to create 100% efficiency. The second big hurdle is any object in motion will lose energy due to friction. It would appear to be solvent you need a greater than 100% efficiency, or the ability to "create" energy, which would clearly go against the laws of physics has we now know it.

Atlast Shrugged (even worse reference than Star Trek) had a theoretical machine that could pull static electricity from the space around it. It's possible that such a space craft could pull energy from the space around it for such a purpose, although the means of doing so and harnessing it for the use of fuel is clearly in the realm of "out there" possibilities. Either that or we could work on "creating energy". Einstein is right though, it would literally need "infinite" energy.

He also concludes based of E=MC^2 that the mass of an object increased as it approaches the speed of light. This is necessary as the speed of light is constant, since it has no mass. Thus an object with mass requires more energy to propel it. But to this only to the observor. To those on or in the object, the mass would appear to be the same. This can be seen in the orbit of Mercury. As the the planet moves closer to the sun, it's gravitational pull increase and so does it's velocity, and the mass as it appears on Earth increases. As it moves farther from the sun in orbit, the velocity decreases as well as it's mass. However, if you were on Mercury, you're mass would appear to you to be the same!

The question is if the E=MC^2 has written into law as most scientists believe it to be. I actually come from a background in Law, so I can see how much of contemporary science is grounded in stare decisis.

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I am going to make reference to Star Trek again. What about the possibility of by-passing the speed of light? In my own science fiction, I use a cop out. I use a type of space travel that is not understood and not created by humans. I'm hoping for more realism in standard travel in my science fiction.

How far along are you in what you're writing? I'm in chapter 23 of 28, but I've been writing the blasted thing for 7 years. As with Ovid, the word posthumous comes to mind.

But to your question, you should really read some books on Einstein.

Having said that, I am currently reading STAR CARRIER by Ian Douglas. He uses a blackhole generator and something not described called an Alcubiere drive. I don't know the relation between the two or anything specific about the latter. You don't need scientific specifics to write in the L. Ron Hubbard mode.

But the blackhole idea is weak. The blackhole is generated in front of the ship, and it is constantly falling into it. I think he means to take advantage of the physics exception associated with the singularity to overcome the lightspeed limitation; but getting in the singularity would destroy the ship, and time slows down for things in deep gravity wells as observed from outside, so I don't see how the ship goes faster.

Maybe you could put a whitehole (negative matter?) behind the ship. Perhaps, it would repell?