Yes, traveling faster than light is possible.

If could harnass the power of gravity to contract the area of space before the ship, then rapidly expand space after the ship, the ship would be traveling locally slower than light. However, from afar it would be traveling many times the speed of light. The equivalent of warp drive if you will.

However, this means any life you come across in your ship is obliterated by the crushing blow of the contraction of matter before the ship - then expanded to lyse on the other end. that's not very nice... and imagine if a ship went towards the Earth like that...

Also, this requires a superstrong ship the likes of which have never been seen before, and the ability to control gravity to the point where it is 100% under control to be manipulated. Otherwise you'll crush/explode your ship.

Lastly, it requires an amount of energy equivalent to what our Sun gives off during its entire lifetime.

Basically, for the forseeable future, it will NEVER HAPPEN. But it is feasible. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

In short...

FTL travel is impossible.
Doing so violates too many fundamental laws of physics. Science fiction (with help from imaginitive theoretical physcists) has given us the potential possibility of doing so one day IF a number of GIGANTIC technological advances ever come into play. The major one is the technology to allow us to manipulate matter it self to the extent of curving the space surrounding the matter thus generating and maintaining a configurable gravitational field.

Not gonna happen. (no time soon anyway)... its hard convey with words just how impossible doing so would be... it really clear if you look at the math.. .

-TP

<small>[ April 21, 2002, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: TurtleProtector ]</small>

lol-- TP, You are such a teacher!!!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" />

<a href="http://www.autodynamics.org/" target="_blank">http://www.autodynamics.org/</a>

The article on Autodynamics Superluminic Velocity Derivations has some interesting ideas. Including mention of events that exceed light velocities.

Simply enough, traveling faster than light requires more energy than light, but how many joules would that take?

A whole family!

lol <img border="0" alt="[drinky]" title="" src="graemlins/drinky.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/cheers.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[drinky]" title="" src="graemlins/drinky.gif" />