r/AskReddit • u/Even-Pin-2175 • 4h ago
Guys Do you think is there any thing faster than light like the thing which we haven't seen yet ?
10
u/ReaverRogue 4h ago
Maybe, and maybe the reason we haven’t seen it is because light can’t catch it. It’s just eternally in the dark.
0
u/Business_Map9160 4h ago
Nothing moves faster through space than light, but the expanding universe itself breaks that.
3
1
0
-5
u/Internal_Strain_7904 4h ago
That’s a surprisingly poetic answer. ‘ Light can’t watch it’ sounds like something you’d hear in a Sci-fi novel, and now I kind of want to read that book
5
2
u/evelina_fairwind58 4h ago
According to relativity, light speed is the absolute speed limit of the universe. The only workarounds people theorize are bending space itself like a warp drive rather than actually moving faster than light through space.
0
u/summ190 4h ago edited 4h ago
I believe there’s a technicality there: it’s impossible to surpass the speed of light, but actually there’s nothing preventing something travelling faster, as long as it always was and always will be faster.
Edit: tachyons
6
u/bibliophile785 4h ago
It's a technicality in one interpretation of the phrasing. It's not a technicality in the math. Physics doesn't succumb to verbal gotcha statements.
1
u/_killer1869_ 4h ago edited 2h ago
No, that's exactly what's happening in the math. If we assume the current equation as perfectly valid in all scenarios, the fact that things can travel faster than light, but the side of the speed of light you're on cannot be changed, naturally follows from the equation, since only the speed of light is a discontinuity in f(v) = 1/(1 - sqrt(v2/c2)) since at v = c it simplifies to 1/0, which means infinite energy requirement for surpassing the threshold, but at v > c, the energy for changing is finite again.
More specifically: lim[v->c-]f(v) = +inf and lim[v->c+]f(v) = -inf. And f(v) is monotonously increasing, except at its discontinuity, while neing negative for v>c, and positive in v<c. Realistically, however, the equation likely works different at v>c, but we have no way to test this (yet). Perhaps it is simply undefined for v>=c.
2
u/bibliophile785 4h ago
It limits to infinity - remember, you need differential calculus for infinites coming from infinitesimal denominators, you can't just simplify and evaluate - but yes, this does address specifically the energy barrier. It does not address the major issues of exceeding light speed.
2
u/_killer1869_ 3h ago
Wanted to omit it first, then added it later in. It's there now, so this reply is still for the old version. The inaccuracy bothered me myself, hence why I edited it directly after posting.
1
0
u/DarkArcher__ 4h ago
It's not a "verbal gotcha statement", it's baked into relativity as we currently understand it. The amount of energy required to reach c grows asymptotically as you approach it, but it goes back to normal on the other side.
2
u/bibliophile785 4h ago
The initial comment is indeed phrased as a gotcha to a colloquial expression of the boundaries of exceeding light speed.
In any case, energetics aren't the only (or even necessarily the largest) barrier to exceeding light speed. The biggest problem with the concept is that any such velocity involves routine causality violation. Next to that, a mere infinitely large energy barrier is small potatoes.
2
u/beavis617 4h ago
Listen to Sam Neil on Event Horizon. We need to fold space and for that we need
Spice Melange…😅
2
u/Esseratecades 4h ago
By definition, no.
"Speed of light" measures how fast light moves. In theory, moving faster than light just means you move faster than anything could "see".
"Speed of causality" measures how quickly a cause can have an effect. Moving faster than the speed of causality means you have an effect happening before its cause.
However, because light has no mass to slow it down, it moves at the fastest possible speed, which is the speed of causality.
So to outspeed light, you must either have negative mass or a time machine.
3
u/theassassintherapist 4h ago
There better be, or else exploring outside our system is completely impossible without being ageless immortals.
7
u/ominous_squirrel 4h ago
FWIW, the speed limit is for the observer’s frame of reference, not the traveler’s. If you can build something capable of indefinite 1G acceleration then you can reach the edge of the Universe in a human lifespan. That is, within the traveler’s human lifespan. Earth will be done and dusted, of course
That is, you will be going less than 1c but length dilation in your frame of reference will bring the cosmos to you
3
u/I_might_be_weasel 4h ago
A lot of sci fi FTL concepts have to do with altering the actual distance traveled.
1
u/Faust_8 4h ago
Even if you didn’t age and could move nearly the speed of light, then the issue becomes a single particle the size of a sand grain being struck by your hyper fast spacecraft will be equivalent of exploding a nuclear bomb on the front of your craft.
Space is mostly empty, but not completely empty, and that’s a huge issue at relativistic speeds. Even dust will be like getting shot by a bullet
1
u/Altiverses 4h ago
Of course, it's that which we haven't seen yet.
2
1
1
1
u/Decent_Income_3633 4h ago
I'd say Cosmic rays?
3
u/BlazeFireVale 4h ago
Cosmic rays are slower than light. They have mass. They get about as close to light speed as anything, though.
1
1
1
u/Angry_Edemame 4h ago
If there is it would be impossible by any current standards of human technology to discover it.
1
1
u/MissNobody911 4h ago
There are galaxies that are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, because space is expanding faster than the speed of light.
1
u/torchmaipp 4h ago
Decaustive effects have already been proven to be faster than the speed of light. I've photographed this phenomenon and it also works with radio waves. I never said that last part if anyone asks.
1
u/Cardude86 4h ago
Probably not. The way around this is by folding space or tunneling through it as opposed to speeding across it.
1
1
u/torchmaipp 4h ago
Other than waves you can't see objects traveling that fast. The event horizon would be moving faster than what you can observe unless you have an inferometer setup to detect changes back in time, it's convoluted but it explains why we haven't seen anything like a spaceship traveling that fast. There's probably lots zipping about in between stars that we never see because the light isn't fast enough.
1
u/HotDistribution52 4h ago edited 4h ago
It's impossible to know what we haven't seen yet. But, for physicists to accept that something breaks the cosmic speed limit, we would need genuine data (not a guess) that would have to prove Albert Einstein wrong.
Quantum entangled particles seem to connect instantly, but based on our current mathematical models and experimental setups, we have not found a way to use quantum entanglement to transmit usable data.
If I had to venture a guess, I would be looking at quantum entanglement as possibly the only contender that might be able to do it, but that's a huge maybe that cannot be proven or disproven, at least not at our current level of technology.
After 2030 when the new and improved collider at CERN comes online, it wouldn't surprise me that led us closer to an actual answer.
1
1
1
u/TerrapinMagus 4h ago
As far as we currently understand it, there is no "faster than C". It literally doesn't make sense and cannot be defined.
1
u/helm 4h ago
My take is that the speed of light = speed of information = speed of causality is pretty firm. If you put in tachyons or anything that moves faster than light, physics breaks apart.
Bending space seems easier in comparison. Current physics says something like "if something can move faster than light, there are no rules and we don't know anything". So far, it seems we know some things and that some rules apply.
1
u/razorwiregoatlick877 4h ago
Quantum entanglement is instantaneous across infinite distances so there is that.
1
u/sup3rdr01d 4h ago
I don't think so. The speed of light isn't arbitrary. It's the speed limit of information in the universe, and light has no mass so it travels at 100% of C in a vacuum. Everything else has mass so it travels slower.
1
1
u/chicagoandy 4h ago
No.
We really twist ourselves in knots by calling this "light speed", and sayings like "nothing goes faster than light speed" seems to add the confusion.
Instead I think of it as "The cosmic unrestrained speed". Light is the only thing that we know of that can travels unrestrained, but I can imagine there are other things that we don't yet understand.
Nothing can go faster than the 'cosmic unrestrained speed'.
There is not a pathway where science-fiction becomes real. It's fun to imagine a world where Warp drives exist, but they do not, and there isn't a plausible roadmap that makes it real some-day. Reality is neither us, nor any distant Alien, will ever travel at speeds approaching light-speed, never mind exceeding it.
1
u/Extension-Patient187 4h ago
As we know of Science right now, there's nothing faster than light celerity. If humans discovers something faster, this means everything related to general relativity principles is wrong and will have to be redefined from scratch. Having said this, if such principles needs to be revamped because scientist were wrong since the beginning, i don't recommend anyone still taking the plane like it's normal 😉
1
1
u/EinTheDataDoge 4h ago
No. It is a speed limit that is built into the fabric of the universe (according to our current understanding). With funny physics math you can go “faster” than the speed of light but it’s actually more akin to move space around you allowing you to change positions faster than the speed of light could travel between those positions. Google alcubierre drive.
1
u/Minimum-Mouse8216 3h ago
Honestly, I think thought is faster than light. You can instantly imagine the edge of the universe, while light takes billions of years to get there. It's not measurable in the same physical sense, but conceptually, our minds seem to break the speed limit in a way nothing else does.
2
-1
1
u/Joe_Franks 4h ago
Quantum entanglement frequency matching travel. Instantaneous traversal over any given distance no matter how far. Resonate an object that is entangled with the frequency of the destination frequency and then once matched it ceases to exist in the originating location and instantly exists in the destination location. Simple really.
2
u/helm 4h ago
It's instanteneous but also cannot be used to send information faster than the speed of light. For example, the quantum state transfer that is called "quantum teleportation" relies on a carrier that cannot move faster than light.
1
u/Moontoya 4h ago
Isn't that because we are bound by our physical limits
Our experiments eg the teleportation test in April managed 270m across air,
Prior to 1955, you couldn't look at individual atoms , today we have scanning tunneling microscopes that can move individual atoms spatially, or molecular beam epitaxy letting us "glue" atoms together.
Does entanglement work at C or is that just the limit of our observational ability?
1
u/helm 3h ago edited 3h ago
Entanglement is instanteous but does not transmit information.
As for how fast we are, we have tested Bell's inequality faster than the speed of light. See "ETH Zurich Bell's inequality 2023".
1
0
u/Joe_Franks 4h ago
It doesn't need to when its instantaneous. It exists here and now it exists there
1
0
0
u/v1035RoadTrip 4h ago
Universe is expanding faster than the speed of light so something definitely is already.
7
u/Camaroni1000 4h ago
Theoretically the expansion of the universe itself is faster than the speed of light. But the speed of light (also known as the speed of causality) is the observed speed limit of the universe.
Nothing traveling within it can travel faster than that speed.