The Future of Earth and Beyond!

[Kyero Fox]

It was funny, i was watching a clip from harvy birdman AAL when I read this thread, where the jetsons come back in time to sue the world for flooding it, they claim their from the year 2000, and harvy looks at the calander and it says 2006.

[Ithekro]

The theory is that it would take infinate energy to move a mass to the speed of light on a curve, right? Has the theory attempted to calculate speeds beyond light? Does it break or it the calcualtion impossible because the speed of light is being used as a constant instead of a velocity?

[Asuras]

Light has extremely negligible mass, doesn't it? It's small, but there?

But warping space itself. Who's to say that doesn't require infinite energy as well?

[synaesthetic]

Light has no mass, and no, distorting spacetime doesn't require infinite energy. Gravity is a distortion of spacetime.

[Vexx]

The last time I saw any serious analysis using foreseeable technologies - we could achieve about 0.3C (30% of lightspeed). Don't forget you spend half the trip accelerating and half the trip decelerating (if you want to stop in the target star system).
The energy required becomes infinite at v=c. The math says that for particles (tachyons) the energy requirement goes back down at hyperlight seed. However, "time" acquires an imaginary (negative square root of 1) component.

The brick wall of lightspeed pretty much dooms us to the solar system as a play ground unless we find some form of physics that lets us "skip" spatial points.

[Ithekro]

If I read that correctly...one cannot travel at the speed of light (c), but if one could find a way to jump from 0.99c to 1.01c it might be possible because it would not need to be infinite energy anymore.

Theoretical question. If something existed that traveled faster than light naturally...could we detect it and confirm it was going a speeds beyond light?

[lordshadowisle]

How about quantum tunneling? Electrons can "tunnel" through barriers, though it's not so much movement as teleportation.

A particle's position may also be considered as probabilities instead of discrete locations (until measurement). It's possible (through vastly vastly improbable) that somehow, each particle happens to be somewhere else... which is the Infinite Improbability Drive (Hitchhiker's Guide).

[Ithekro]

Gravity Drives use to be a popular idea.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by lordshadowisle

How about quantum tunneling? Electrons can "tunnel" through barriers, though it's not so much movement as teleportation.

A particle's position may also be considered as probabilities instead of discrete locations (until measurement). It's possible (through vastly vastly improbable) that somehow, each particle happens to be somewhere else... which is the Infinite Improbability Drive (Hitchhiker's Guide).

The behavior of subatomic particles is markedly different than the behavior of macroscopic objects like a person or a space-faring vessel...

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The brick wall of lightspeed pretty much dooms us to the solar system as a play ground unless we find some form of physics that lets us "skip" spatial points.

I don't think the problem is entirely physics related, but that our technology for tackling something like that is rudimentary at best. Let's face it, we're still launching stuff into space using really big explosions.....it's state of the art from our perspective, but hardly Star Trek.

The construction of any transportation vessel sufficient to handle the needs of humans for travel of that distance in itself would be an incredible feat of engineering. As far as space travel goes, we're barely at the level of wooden boats and oars compared to our modern nuclear vessels.

[Ithekro]

I would like to see actual spaceships as oppose to what are basically space boats we use most of the time. The Space Shuttles are the closest thing to a spaceship we've come up with and its not all that large compared to an actual ship (sea). And those are retiring very, very soon (one more mission left).

One wonders how advanced something like the Discovery One from 2001: A Space Odyssey or the Leonov from 2010: Odyssey Two is to our current technology (aside from the HAL9000 A.I.)?

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Wow, this convo took off.

I believe there was some theory recently at Cern that gave credence to the possibility of particles that travel backwards through time or some such. Which could in theory allow for communication through time, or more likely imo FTL communication.

For the ugly side of using wormholes or fold space for FTL travel, see Event Horizon. Seriously though, Light/Time travels at different speeds throughout the universe it's not a constant. It's like that analogy that is always used involving a rubber sheet and marbles.

There is also the Heliosphere to get through, which could very well screw things up. Super basic version being that our solar system spins one way and everything outside it spins the opposite direction creating a fairly warped area of space.

I'd be all for transferring my consciousness to something when I'm older/about to cark it, if it meant being able to continue on in some form that let me still recognise myself. TBH, I don't think such a process would be fast. It'd be something you have to do almost at every waking moment of your life so your avatar or whatever it is can learn your behaviour properly.

Cloning and 'jumping' from one body to another or cellular regeneration to keep your brain from hardening like it does in later life and keep your body is some working order would be awesome too for 'immortality'. Would be all over that like a fat kid on cake, being able to live long enough to see current events become ancient history and seeing how things change over time would be pretty cool. Cloning would be best, if your current self got killed for whatever reason. Though cloning has that whole moral stigma attached to it, and yeah memories and so on aren't really transferred - rats! (the instant someone can make a fully functional adult body and can retain the originals memories or personality though all bets are off)

Wonder if how long memory retention lasts after you die.

You know those head-in-jar characters on futurama? It's probably not all that crazy an idea if you think about it. Not so much the head but the brain. If it was possible to keep nutrients and what not flowing to keep it alive, even with current science its shown to be possible to tap into your brain for communication (Steven Hawking does that right?) and heading (cochlear implants). Then you just need to worry about that pesky brain hardening. Also, the human brain is believed to only be able to hold about ~250 years worth before it fills up

[Ascaloth]

All the talk about the speed of light has hit me with a brainwave.

How did scientists back then measure the speed of light, again? Unless I've forgotten or perhaps didn't even know about it, wasn't the measurement of light taken within a gravity well?

:3

[ddwkc]

I guess it will be easier if we create/become a borg-like lifeform and assimilate all matter and information in other to do it without much conflict with ethics, greed, and other human-related hurdles.

[synaesthetic]

Earth's gravity well is much too small to really affect the measurements.

[Vexx]

The early methods of measuring lightspeed were crude enough that the gravity well of the Earth was irrelevant to the margin of error. But wiki-google on The Michelson-Morley experiment performed in 1887. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michels...ley_experiment

[lordshadowisle]

Originally Posted by ddwkc

I guess it will be easier if we create/become a borg-like lifeform and assimilate all matter and information in other to do it without much conflict with ethics, greed, and other human-related hurdles.

And after conquering everything they/we realize, "we increase entropy". Then we DESTROY OURSELVES (or hibernate) to drag out the long, dark eternity.

[Ithekro]

I recall a story on entropy I read in high school. It was about a new supercomputer we invented. When it was turned on one of the first questioned asked by some worker was how to reverse entropy. It said something like "I will think about that". Over generations and thousands of years, this computer gets upgraded many many times...and every several genetations that question is asked again, and the answer is the same. Eventually the human race becomes one with the computer as the species spreads to all points in the Universe. Entropy continues to as all the stars in the universe burn out...the disembodied human race/computer eventually figure an answer to the original question...it takes time to prepares in the darkness of the heat death of the universe, but when it is finally ready, it says one phrase "Let there be light"

And there was light.

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The early methods of measuring lightspeed were crude enough that the gravity well of the Earth was irrelevant to the margin of error. But wiki-google on The Michelson-Morley experiment performed in 1887. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michels...ley_experiment

Oh oh, I know this one! But... wasn't the Michelson-Morley experiment mainly aimed at discovering evidence of the luminiferous aether, which ended up proving that the latter did not exist instead? What does it have to do with any effect the Earth's gravity well might have on the speed of light (and if you stretch it a bit, you can even include the Sun's gravity well too)? Which section should I be looking at?

@Itherko,

Funny you should mention that short story. I just read it recently.

[synaesthetic]

Classic story of transhumanism--man fusing with machine and becoming God.