Quantum Ideas

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This thread is about the expressions of ideas in the fields of physics, nuclear chemistry, etc...

In short another place to share you scientific ideas...

I would like to share an idea I have on a time traveling machine. As we know, the faster we travel, especially when approaching the speed of light, our internal clock slows down. Therefore, if we were to travel at this kind of speed for a long enough time, when we exited the machine we would find ourselves in the future. People observing our machine traveling at this speed might watch it for several generations, but for us in the machine, only a short amount of time would have passed.

Now comes the problem. How do we build such a machine to transport a person at this kind of speed?
And another part of the problem is this. It would be ideal to build such a machine to travel faster than the speed of light so that our time traveling results would be extreme---we might be able to transport thousands of years into the future. And, when the machine surpassed the speed of light, it would vanish to the people watching it. But, the scientists claim it is impossible to surpass the speed of light. They say it is impossible. I say it is not. Here is my plan:

The machine would be built in the desert. It would contain an axle mounted into an immensely powerful motor. On the axle would be a giant arm miles and miles long. Below specific points along the turning arm would be a magnetic track keeping the arm up off the ground therefore allowing it to turn with a minimum of friction. Imagine this device as a clock laying flat. On the end of one of the clock hands would be the cage/car/capsule that we would ride in. The motor would turn at a fast speed, but nowhere near the speed of light. But, the further you move out along the arm, the faster that point along the arm moves. It's just like on a clock hand. Near the center of the clock, the hand turns slowly, but at the end of the hand, it moves faster. There has to be a point on the arm (if it were built long enough) that would be turning faster than the speed of light. Yes, it would be long. Well, we could even build this device in space if we needed to.

You mathematicians could figure this out. Make a model of this device. Consider that the center of the clock hand, the point where it hooks onto the axle in the turning motor, is rotating at 10 mph. The part of the hand hooked on to the axle is therefore turning at 10 mph. There will be a point not to far away on the clock hand turning at 20 mph. And a point somewhere turning 100 mph. If the clock hand were long enough, there would have to be a point by which it was exceeding 186,000 miles per second---the speed of light. Again, I realize the length of such a clock hand would be extremely long---but the fact is, there is a point along the line of the clock hand that would be moving faster than the speed of light. If the machine were to be built for real, I am sure the motor would have to rotating faster than 10 mph, but I just used that speed to illustrate this. I am no physicist, or mathemetician, so someone could figure out how fast such a motor would need to turn in order to get the transport car at the end of say a hundred mile long hand/arm to move faster than the speed of light.

I have an idea: Let's spell "Quantam" with a "u" so that the word looks like "Quantum"!

That'll confuse the heck outta most people, and make you look like Mr. Schmottgai!

Its good to do thought experiments. However, I'm sorry to deflate your idea. The problem is this. To make things travel faster takes energy. The closer to the speed of light the more energy is needed to increment the speed. If you look at the physics equations you will see that to actually get something to 100% the speed of light requires infinite energy. Obviously that is impossible. Engineering considerations aside, to propel the hand of your huge clock so that the tip reaches the speed of light would need more energy than there is in the universe.

However, the barrier is the speed of light itself. So there is no reason why you cannot travel faster than the speed of light - the problem is that your initial velocity needs to be already faster than the speed of light, so it is a catch 22 for ordinary matter.

A more realistic way to travel to the future is to hang out near the event horizon of a black hole for a while then come back and you will find time has moved on more for everyone else than you, so you have sort of stepped into the future.

I don't think it's possible to have an object with no mass. Having mass would be a defininiton of something being an object. I don't think it's even possible to accelerate one atom to the speed of light.

Actually massless particles can have energy and momentum:

Newtonian physics says momentum = velocity * mass, which is a close approximation for speeds much less than the speed of light, but the 'real story' is given by Special Relativity

momentum p = m v / sqrt( 1 - v^2/c^2 )
energy E = m c^2 / sqrt( 1 - v^2/c^2 )

If m = 0 and v = c this gives

p = 0/0
E = 0/0

which is zero divided by zero which is undefined so it can be anything. I used to find that kind of a weird justification, but it really is more than just a mathematical parlor trick.

Sorry about the smart-ass response above, but I know iamnotaparakeet is a smart guy, and is probably "testing" people with his response. I noticed he has a tendency to do that sometimes.

Here are a couple interesting articles for both skeptics and believers in travel faster than the speed of light. The first article was just written. There may be more articles in their archives.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... n-the.html

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... peed-.html