Hyperspace travelling, is it possible?
More than one time, the only thing that saved Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the Skywalker brothers from the Imperial ships, was the Millennium Falcon and its hyperdrive ability, escaping at light speed.
Of course, this picture is not mine (location issues, otherwise I'd take it). - Source: Use Google, pal.
Light Speed is the limit at the Universe (as far as we know today): nothing or no one, not even the Millennium Falcon, can travel faster than it. At the Star Wars Universe, Han Solo can easily activate the hyperdrive or warp drive, to bend space-time and enter hyperspace, where travelling at the speed of light is possible. Of course, don't forget that you can also do warp speeds at Stark Trek among many other science fiction works; but, hey! Donnie Yen is not at any Star Trek movie!
Donnie Yen will be at the "Rogue one" Star Wars movie... Which I'm already waiting to be bootlegged (since it WONT be premiered at my country/town given the low potential watcher ratio). - Source: Use Google, pal.
Why is lightspeed the speed limit? Could a ship ever reach light speed? Is it possible to deform space-time to reach that speed? Lets check it out.
What is the speed of light?
The speed of light is a universal physical constant, normally symbolized as "c", and that has a value of 299.792.458 meters/s (meh... 300.000.000 meters/s). This value is given by the different physical constants that rule our universe, and was determined by these during the creation of the universe, the "Big Bang". The only thing scientists did with it, was measure its speed.
Photons are particles that travel at the speed of light (duh!). Photons are on of the elemental particles that freely exist and possess no mass. The fact that they posses no mass is, precisely, the reason why they travel at the speed of light.
All the particles of the universe, including photons, move across something called "Higgs Field", a field of energy that, we believe, is present in the whole universe. When particles interact with it, they aquire mass. Particles interact with it in different grades: that is why some particles are lighter and others (forgive the redundancy) heavier. Photons move across the Higgs Field, yet they do not interact with it. That is why, they have no mass.
Why is light's speed the limit?
As photons move across the Higgs Field, not interacting, they get no mass; thus, no speed limit (not going over the speed of light, of course). Any particle with mass will have a speed limit, something that is expressed at perhaps the most famous formula in physics:
In the STR (Special Theory of Relativity), the energy of an object with mass (m) and speed (v) is given by (y), where (y) is the called Lorentz value, that represents the changes of the mass in an object as it moves:
As (v) gets closer to (c), y starts becoming infinite. Translated to human: To accelerate a particle into the speed of light, we need infinite force... which is, of course, impossible.
Therefore, the speed limit a particle may reach is defined by a the speed a no-mass particle moves at, a photon, light. (there's funny things that happen when you use this equation with light, as you slow it down... a photon GAINS mass!
Since a photon travels at the speed limit, for it, time is nonexistent. A photon comes out of a start 1000000000 light years away from us, and takes the same time to reach or telescopes, under our point of view. But, if we could see from the photon's point of view: In an nonexistent instant, we'd be at the star, and then at the telescope. Time, does not exist for photons, or light; from its point of view, everything is instant.
How does the Millennium Falcon travel at the speed of light?
As explained above, it is clear that it cannot simply accelerate to reach the speed of light: This is just impossible for a particle that possesses mass, even more for a huge, heavy, spaceship! This is why the mechanism it uses to travel at the speed of light relies on a device called "Warp Drive": A device that bends Space-Time around it, to reach that speed.
What the warp drive does is not accelerate the ship, but bend the space around it. In a way that the point that they want to reach is just ahead of the ship. In this way it generates phenomenon very similar as the point of view of a photon travelling, instant movement (or, almost); and yes, Chewbacca and Han's point of view, is the equivalent of lightspeed travelling. This deformed space the ship travels through is called "hyperspace".
Could a Warp Drive really exist?
There's been several studies, with scientific papers published, about the feasibility of a real life Warp Drive. In science fiction, Warp Drive's function base their energy source from "negative energy", something that is not a real physic's concept.
Anyways, the string theory can give us a little hope: In theory, it could be possible to modify space-time and generate hyperspace jumps. But, these are only theories, even if we wished to test them out, we still don't have the necessary tech.
For now, light speed travelling and space-time deformation will only be part of the Science fiction monopoly. But, in the future... who knows? 50 years ago, communication with people with audio and video with only a split second of difference while sitting at home... Was only a dream.
I am sorry but this article is not super precise... and I therefore must react.
c is a fundamental constant. It is not connected to any other fundamental constants.
That is wrong. What about gluons?
Then how can you explain that the Higgs boson was observed from its decay into two photons? The story is more complicated than that. The Higgs field interacts with the photon field via loop-diagram processes.
That's totally wrong. A photon is massless. The experimental limit on the mass of the photon is something like 0.000000...1 kg with 54 zeros. Special relativity tells us that E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4. In the case of the photon, the second term drops. In the case of a massive particle, both terms are there. If your massive particle is at rest, the first terms vanishes.
This is nonsense. Time is what it is. As space. Relativity puts these two together.
It's pop science pal. I'm not intending to give a "deep" explanation of any concept, but merely introduce people into the topic. With the hope that, in a future they may reach for more precise info.
Yes, Gluons, up, charm, top, higgs boson, down, strange, bottom, electrons, muon, tau, Z boson, electron neutrino, muon neutrino... im missing some... Want me to add them after I "round up" the speed of light for the ease of the reader?
Regarding the photon's mass... you should re-read. I dont say "photons HAVE mass" I say "If you (for some magical reason are able to) SLOW DOWN a photon, it'd gain mass... under Lorentz eq.)
"This is nonsense. Time is what it is. As space. Relativity puts these two together."
to the relative point of view of a photon... time is nonexistent, since it has no reference points.
Hi,
I didn't want to be rude (although after reading myself again, my message may sound rude). Sorry about that. I only wanted to give you tips to make your post precise enough. Popular science should not be wrong neither. You should make it easy to read, simplified and correct.
Editing your post and changing a few words here and there should make it correct. Why don't you want to do it?
When reading again your post, you are not stating "if you slow down a photon". There is no if. You should explicitely add that this is a gedanken experiment as photons cannot be slowed down.
I have neither discussed the number of digits for the speed of light, nor the fact that I wanted you to add the other particles. You are free to do what you want. Photons are not the only massless elementary particles. Why don;t you want to remove the 'only'?
You cannot deduce c from other fundamental constants, which is what you quote.
Spacetime exists for all particles, including photon. This makes no sense to say that time is non existent. The photon proper time is zero, and this is maybe what you wanted to discuss. Which is a different story than saying time does not exist.
"simplified and correct"
Pi = 3.1416 == Simplified.
It is not RIGHT, yet it serves the purpose many give to it.
"Editing your post and changing a few words here and there should make it correct. Why don't you want to do it?"
Because once I start doing that, It'll become a an unstoppable rock rolling down the hill... Probably causing the dis-interest in the public I'm aiming to.
"You should explicitely..."
It is explicitly implied.
"You are free to do what you want. Photons are not the only massless elementary particles. Why don;t you want to remove the 'only'?"
You're right about that... I'll change the word for is one of (also covering the possibility that another particle other than the Gluon is found).
"You cannot deduce c from other fundamental constants, which is what you quote."
Sadly. I am forced to: simplification.
"Spacetime exists for all particles, including photon."
Yes, yet the photon does not "experience" it... " if we could see from the photon's point of view: In an nonexistent instant, we'd be at the star"
http://phys.org/news/2011-08-photons-view.html
I've wanted to destroy that piece of garbage ever since my men ran away from it for no reason.
I sure hope some brilliant minds will figure this out soon! There's so much out there to see. We catch glimpses with the Hubble, but can you imagine being able to fly out and see these sights in person?
Well, we've this:
I've read about hypothesis that says that the particles radiated from a black hole may be a tunnel through space called a wormhole.
Maybe there is an opportunity, yet we don't know how to use it.
If you're gonna cover more sci-fi gadgets, I'm in for reading them all!