Mathematicians Extend Einstein's Special Relativity Beyond Speed of Light 381
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that despite an apparent prohibition on faster-than-light travel by Einstein's theory of special relativity, applied mathematician James Hill and his colleague Barry Cox say the theory actually lends itself easily to a description of velocities that exceed the speed of light. 'The actual business of going through the speed of light is not defined,' says Hill whose research has been published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 'The theory we've come up with is simply for velocities greater than the speed of light.' In effect, the singularity at the speed of light divides the universe into two: a world where everything moves slower than the speed of light, and a world where everything moves faster. The laws of physics in these two realms could turn out to be quite different. In some ways, the hidden world beyond the speed of light looks to be a strange one. Hill and Cox's equations suggest, for example, that as a spaceship traveling at super-light speeds accelerated faster and faster, it would lose more and more mass, until at infinite velocity, its mass became zero. 'We are mathematicians, not physicists, so we've approached this problem from a theoretical mathematical perspective,' says Dr Cox. 'Should it, however, be proven that motion faster than light is possible, then that would be game changing. Our paper doesn't try and explain how this could be achieved, just how equations of motion might operate in such regimes.'"
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't waste your money. It employes nothing harder than algebra and simply restates what physicist's have said about tachyons for years. Can't see how they slipped it passed the reviewers.
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is seeing past c
Our senses and tools are very limited and primitive. Perception is everything. It is very difficult to work with something that exists outside of 'sensor range'. So we assume much when we create our theories of how things are.
"If you really don't believe that faster-than-light is possible, then humans will be limited forever," [theregister.co.uk]
Re:Did you take any science courses at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
But you know what I mean. All the equations of motion work if we negative mass, but that alone isn't any reason to think that negative mass exists. Was that a better example?
Re:Did you take any science courses at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
The math works, but that doesn't mean I have actual, physical negative frequencies.
Exactly. Two more simple examples: ;-)
1st: Pythagoras
a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Let a = 3 and b = 4.
Which leads to c^2 = 25, result is +5... Not quite: (and congrats to those who could follow without a calculator
There are two results, +5 and -5 mathematically, however, only one, +5, makes sense in a physical world, since there is no negative length.
2nd: Give me a few (hundred?) years and I'll come up with a mathematical model where the sun, planets and the rest of the universe is circling around the earth.
It wouldn't make sense whatsoever, but mathematically it still would be true.
Re:Tachyons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:5, Insightful)
I have not read the piece, but I am confused how this is 'new'. The behavior of the equations for values larger then C were things we went over in undergrad physics. You can not go the speed of light, but higher or lower works.
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Hugh Pickens, (Score:3, Insightful)
One link is necessary for Slashdot. Slashdot isn't Wikipedia.
After reading the first sentences of your submissions and seeing five different links, I give up and go to reddit for the actual story. You're doing Slashdot a disservice.
Go create your own blog with a feed.
Thank you.
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:2, Insightful)
At one time Einsteins theories weren't testable either and were just neat thought experiments.
Re:There is only one speed: c (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is only one speed: c (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget that whole "We just consumed all the energy in the universe and collapsed into a blackhole business back there!"
There are two different quotes by the authors in the summary that pointed out they weren't trying to suggest ways that could be accomplished, only what would happen if it were. What more do you want, THREE different quotes from the authors saying "WE'RE NOT SAYING SUCH A THING IS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE!!!"
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:4, Insightful)
What you said doesn't disagree with the post you replied to. Perhaps you are aware of that, but I thought I should point it out anyway.
In other words, at the point where Einstein's theories weren't testable, then they too were just neat thought experiments. In his case, they reached the point where they were testable and thus became real science, but in this case there is no guarantee.
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:4, Insightful)
As I understood it, things can travel FASTER than light, and things can travel SLOWER than light, but something that is currently travelling slower than light cannot accelerate so that it is travelling faster than light and likewise things travelling faster than light cannot slow down past the speed of light.
In other words, whichever side of the speed of light you are on now, is the side you must stay on forever.
The extension of that is that I don't know whether it makes sense to even discuss things that travel faster than light unless we can come up with some way of those things having an effect in our world. It may well be that those things are not "visible" to our reality in any way and have no effect on us at all. Therefore, whether they exist or not, we'll never know.
Re:There is only one speed: c (Score:4, Insightful)
Holy hell I wish I'd read your comment before his blog. Newton was wrong, Einstein was a tool, nobody knows how the universe works but me...
Here's a thought - if you have to tell people you're not a crank, well, you probably are.
Re:The challenge of getting past c (Score:5, Insightful)
At one time Einsteins theories weren't testable either and were just neat thought experiments.
There's a difference between "aren't testable using current technology" and "can never be testable with any possible future technology".
Damaged scientific method? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, your "scientific method" is fine. What you have then is a testable but -- until testing is both practical and executed -- untested hypothesis. Heck, even speculation as to mechanisms that doesn't yet have an identified testable prediction is important in science, its just the step before finding a testable prediction that would make the speculation into a testable hypothesis. Its obviously the goal to get to something that is not merely testable in principle, and not merely testable in practice, but actually tested. But there are several steps on the way to that, and each is important in science, and a being able to get to one of those steps without immediately taking the next doesn't mean "your scientific method is damaged". Its a routine part of science. And you publicize what you've been able to do, however far along the road you've gotten, and hopefully, even if you can't take the next step, someone else can, ideally soon, but sometimes it takes a while.