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Originally Posted by renormalised
It's not, at least not using the usual methods and trying to accelerate to c in normal space. What I am saying is what if there are aspects of the universe we're either not aware of yet, or that something which we have postulated (i.e. hyperspace, etc) might be the answer to traveling faster. As you're aware of, there are methods we do know of which don't violate SR which will allow us to travel faster, however there are objections to those methods which are based on conjecture which they haven't tested yet.
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Carl as you know we don't live in a Universe where we all travel faster than light,where the speed of light is the lower limit and mass takes on an imaginary value. So we can discount that option....
With regards to "hyperspace" let's put that in the right perspective as well. While there are people out there who suggest that faster than light travel is possible through String theory, energy conditions are violated in GR. So we can discount that one as well. On top of that you know my opinion of String Theory.
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All I'm saying is that they should test these things via experimentation before dismissing the proposals out of hand. They may not be testable now, but at some time in the future we may have the technology and energy generating requirements to test them. So instead of saying it's impossible, it would be better to withhold judgment until we're able to make a fully informed opinion.
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Our judgment is based on what is happening now. Not tomorrow, next week, 10 years from now, or 20000 years from now. That is how science operates. As it is stands now, the speed of light in a vacuum is the upper limit. Scientists are satisfied with SR, the observations and the experiments.
To argue to withhold judgment until we have a fully informed opinion, one needs to consider the logic.
(a) It assumes our current level of understanding on the speed of light is deficient.
(b) It assumes someone in the future is going to come up with a better idea, experiment or observation.
and most importantly
(c) When is a fully informed opinion decided? (eg is the new value a limit or can we go faster?)
If (a) is an ongoing event it implies we will never reach point (c).
That's the trouble when you don't have a crystal ball. Everything is based on assumptions.
Regards
Steven