14th July 2003, 11:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 14th July 2003, 12:08 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
It must be possible because you want it to be? Oh yeah, the universe sure cares about our opinions alright... Look, according to the immutable laws of physics, it is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE to travel at light speed. Space travel was physically possible even before we made space craft, we knew we just didn't have the technology. Technology was the issue with space travel, NOT PHYSICS! After all, physics is what they used to be able to make a space craft.
It's not about seeming impossible, it's about it BEING impossible. 2+2 can NEVER equal fish, no matter how much you try (well, unless you have magic).
However, you can "cheat". If you can't travel that distance, then shorten the distance :D. That's where hyper space comes in (I know star trek has both sub space and hyper space, but in reality both are names for the exact same thing here, and hyper space is a better term for it, assuming it exists that is, technically we can't proove it because our instruments would bend as much as everything else... well you get what I mean). We simply compress space somehow, and boom, the distance is shortened. We still aren't traveling at light speed, but we are doing so "in effect". Unfortunatly, we have no real way of actually doing that. Mass is the only thing that can bend space, as of yet, and the amount of mass needed would make the craft immovable long before any decent amount of warpage occured, and thus unusable. The only real way for us to get this travel, assuming there ever will be a way to leave this rock outside of sending a self sustaining biodome out for centuries (currently our only hope for super long term survival) is a worm hole. However, in order for a wormhole to stay open for more than a trillionth of a nanosecond (it takes two black holes connected via the theoretical hyperspace by their bending, imagine our world 2d and hyper space 3d for a second to get this, to create a wormhole, and it instantly vanishes into hyperspace and is seperated from us like an elastic wasteband tearing with the tag being left behind), we need something called "exotic material". This material, which nothing on Earth has the property of yet, but is technically possible, would have a NEGATIVE density when viewed by someone going by it at the speed of light. I've heard Dark Matter actually has this property, but the amount we would need to hold open even a small wormhole would be the size of Jupiter! We simply CANNOT ever get all that darkmatter and possibly ever forge it into a tunnel shape AND catch a wormhole and shove it in there in time!
So sorry Darunia, the colony option really is our only option, unless we find our current understanding of physics (and I'm talking quantum stuff here) is prooven wrong and we find something new that allows for it. Now then, of course I do believe that'll happen. Humanity has a LONG track record of being wrong over and over again scientifically, and thinking they were totally right, and it would sure be a weird chance that we were the first ones to be right :D. However, since we have no real proof that it's wrong, or even that these theoretical new laws would even allow for such super speedy AND actually buildable travelling methods, we've gotta go with what we actually know as fact. And, as a fact, we better not ever hope to see other worlds besides what's in our solar system in our life time.
Edit: I forgot the obvious! Our bodies, ourselves :D. The standard sci-fi solution is to put ourselves into cold sleep. Nothing in physics says this is impossible. However, biology has a problem here (which has been overcome before mind you). You see, everyone freezing themselves RIGHT NOW is dead, and will never be revived. Sorry, but current cryogenics is a scam. You see, even if a future cure for their ills is discovered, the very act of freezing a human destroys any and all cells with water in them, that's all of them mind you. It's called "freezer burn". You see, when ice forms, it's in a pointy sharp shape that tears up cells. Imagine your whole body being torn up. Not a single cell survives freezing. The freezing kills you. Of course, kept just ABOVE freezing, it can prolong life and in fact this has been a way to do heart surgery, but since you aren't frozen, ageing still occurs here, just very slowly, so it's hardly the way to preserve yourself.
However, there is hope. Antifreeze. No, not what we use, natural stuff. You see, many species, like some frogs, produce a chemical in their body that changes the way ice forms. It instead will form into soft cell-like shapes, these will compress the cells in the body, but it won't destroy them, and the being survives. That's why frogs can actually be completely frozen for years on end until a thaw arrives and boom, they are perfectly fine.
The question is this. Can some sort of medicine be devised that can be injected into humans and saturated into all our cells (all our cells much be saturated, for all of them have water) that will both do the same as this frog chemical AND do so without poisoning us in the process (remember, frogs are designed with this in mind, but we aren't). If this sort of biological solution can happen, and soon, then we actually can dream of seeing other worlds, though everyone left on Earth we have known will be LONG dead when we arrive there, and sending signals back will take a very long time, shorter than it took for us to get there (since it'll be going back at light speed) but still VERY long.
It's not about seeming impossible, it's about it BEING impossible. 2+2 can NEVER equal fish, no matter how much you try (well, unless you have magic).
However, you can "cheat". If you can't travel that distance, then shorten the distance :D. That's where hyper space comes in (I know star trek has both sub space and hyper space, but in reality both are names for the exact same thing here, and hyper space is a better term for it, assuming it exists that is, technically we can't proove it because our instruments would bend as much as everything else... well you get what I mean). We simply compress space somehow, and boom, the distance is shortened. We still aren't traveling at light speed, but we are doing so "in effect". Unfortunatly, we have no real way of actually doing that. Mass is the only thing that can bend space, as of yet, and the amount of mass needed would make the craft immovable long before any decent amount of warpage occured, and thus unusable. The only real way for us to get this travel, assuming there ever will be a way to leave this rock outside of sending a self sustaining biodome out for centuries (currently our only hope for super long term survival) is a worm hole. However, in order for a wormhole to stay open for more than a trillionth of a nanosecond (it takes two black holes connected via the theoretical hyperspace by their bending, imagine our world 2d and hyper space 3d for a second to get this, to create a wormhole, and it instantly vanishes into hyperspace and is seperated from us like an elastic wasteband tearing with the tag being left behind), we need something called "exotic material". This material, which nothing on Earth has the property of yet, but is technically possible, would have a NEGATIVE density when viewed by someone going by it at the speed of light. I've heard Dark Matter actually has this property, but the amount we would need to hold open even a small wormhole would be the size of Jupiter! We simply CANNOT ever get all that darkmatter and possibly ever forge it into a tunnel shape AND catch a wormhole and shove it in there in time!
So sorry Darunia, the colony option really is our only option, unless we find our current understanding of physics (and I'm talking quantum stuff here) is prooven wrong and we find something new that allows for it. Now then, of course I do believe that'll happen. Humanity has a LONG track record of being wrong over and over again scientifically, and thinking they were totally right, and it would sure be a weird chance that we were the first ones to be right :D. However, since we have no real proof that it's wrong, or even that these theoretical new laws would even allow for such super speedy AND actually buildable travelling methods, we've gotta go with what we actually know as fact. And, as a fact, we better not ever hope to see other worlds besides what's in our solar system in our life time.
Edit: I forgot the obvious! Our bodies, ourselves :D. The standard sci-fi solution is to put ourselves into cold sleep. Nothing in physics says this is impossible. However, biology has a problem here (which has been overcome before mind you). You see, everyone freezing themselves RIGHT NOW is dead, and will never be revived. Sorry, but current cryogenics is a scam. You see, even if a future cure for their ills is discovered, the very act of freezing a human destroys any and all cells with water in them, that's all of them mind you. It's called "freezer burn". You see, when ice forms, it's in a pointy sharp shape that tears up cells. Imagine your whole body being torn up. Not a single cell survives freezing. The freezing kills you. Of course, kept just ABOVE freezing, it can prolong life and in fact this has been a way to do heart surgery, but since you aren't frozen, ageing still occurs here, just very slowly, so it's hardly the way to preserve yourself.
However, there is hope. Antifreeze. No, not what we use, natural stuff. You see, many species, like some frogs, produce a chemical in their body that changes the way ice forms. It instead will form into soft cell-like shapes, these will compress the cells in the body, but it won't destroy them, and the being survives. That's why frogs can actually be completely frozen for years on end until a thaw arrives and boom, they are perfectly fine.
The question is this. Can some sort of medicine be devised that can be injected into humans and saturated into all our cells (all our cells much be saturated, for all of them have water) that will both do the same as this frog chemical AND do so without poisoning us in the process (remember, frogs are designed with this in mind, but we aren't). If this sort of biological solution can happen, and soon, then we actually can dream of seeing other worlds, though everyone left on Earth we have known will be LONG dead when we arrive there, and sending signals back will take a very long time, shorter than it took for us to get there (since it'll be going back at light speed) but still VERY long.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)