About Me

My PhotoI'm Carlos Killpack I like music, I guess you could even say its my addiction. That being said it shouldn't be much surprise to hear that I host a radio show called Indie Invasion. (Which is, by the way, the greatest radio show on earth) I play the drums and the guitar. I play football and I am Mormon, meaning that I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The purpose of writing this blog is to ponder the mysteries of the Universe and share my views of them, (cool right) therefore the topics discussed here can vary widely. Each post is filed under one or more of the categories at the top right. Please enjoy.
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Pondering Life, the Universe, and Everything

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Superluminal Flight


Superluminal flight is a concept that fascinates me. Imagine being able to travel around the universe and see all of the amazing things that are out there. Sadly physics seem to say that this is impossible, but these ideas are based on Albert Einstein's calculation which could be wrong, or perhaps partially wrong. Einstein was human after all. It is distinctly possible that he made some error in his conclusions that led him to believe that it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. Conversely he may be right but that doesn't mean that Superluminal flight is impossible it just means that accelerating an object to the speed of light is impossible. A very distinct difference. Perhaps if we could travel through another dimension such as hyperspace or foldspace that doesn't answer to relativity. (special or otherwise) Or it may be possible to become a tachyon (a particle that exists at speeds greater than the speed of light) and therefore travel beyond the speed of light without accelerating.

If I understand this correctly the issue with Superluminal flight is the acceleration to the speed of light and beyond. According to Einstein's famous equation (E=Mc2) that states, essentially, that as an object approaches the speed of light the energy it takes to increase it's speed approaches infinity, and we are not able to produce infinite amounts of energy otherwise this wouldn't be a problem, would it? Perhaps the answer is to find a way to effectively travel at superluminal speeds. We may not really travel beyond the speed of light but as long as we travel as if we where moving beyond the speed of light it wouldn't really matter.

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