View Single Post
  #47  
Old 31-10-2009, 10:10 AM
sjastro's Avatar
sjastro
Registered User

sjastro is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 2,926
Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised View Post
In order to put the matter to rest, what needs to happen is a concerted effort into experimentation and rigorous testing of all hypotheses into the physical possibility of FTL travel must be carried out. It may take many years to figure out, but what doesn't need to happen is the present disinterest shown by the majority of the scientific community to do those experiments and continue with looking at the idea as nothing more than fantasy. That's nothing more than hubris based on academic and intellectual conceit.
The work has already been done with particle accelerators. If you plot the energy required to accelerate a particle to a given velocity u, you find the line u=c is an asymptote to the curve. In other words it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate the particle to c (and surpass it).

It's no coincidence that the LHC is able to accelerate protons up to "only" 0.999c.

Steven

Last edited by sjastro; 31-10-2009 at 01:07 PM. Reason: grammar
Reply With Quote