what are the technological boundaries for traveling faster than the speed of light ?
144969
It's something along the lines that mass increases with speed. The closer you get to the speed of light the more mass you achieve, which requires more energy to move you. This increases exponentially, always getting closer to the speed of light, until you are essentially immovable, you can't get any heavier so can't move any faster. I heard this explained in a college class once and probably totally got it wrong, but it's in that vein.
1061558
Moving faster than light isn't really the real issue for space travel as traveling AT the speed of light solves all the distance problems(unless you are interested in time travel!). Of course that in itself is a big challenge. If one could demass the vehicle then surely one could achieve the speed of light!!! Afterall photons do travel at this speed.\nBut we would do very well even with speeds like .99999c because time dilation will reduce the time required drastically. Have the science, just need the technology!
933622
Nothing is faster than light
347791
Your example is actually a good one for how we know no one can travel faster than the speed of light.  The people on the boat would measure the same speed for the beam of light as those standing on the shore.\n\nEinstein's theory of special relativity states that, regardless of your motion, light's speed remains constant.  Space and time warp in order to make light's speed constant from all perspectives.  As matter gets closer and closer to the speed of light, space stretches and time contracts, requiring infinite energy to reach the speed of light.  Only things with no mass (i. e. energy only) can travel at the speed of light, and nothing we know of can go faster.\n\nHowever, Einstein's theories do suggest that we could bend space and time to allow us to get around the speed of light.  We can't travel a trillion miles per second, but, with enough energy, we could shift some spot a trillion miles away to right next to us.
650633
No known force could push you faster than light.  The only exception might be quantum entanglement, but we're nowhere near the technology to use that.  At the speed of light, nothing could catch up to you from behind, but plenty of stuff will hit you from the side or head on.  Just like any propulsion, light propulsion might get you close to but not quite to the speed of light.
85344
Based on the relativity theory, there are many studies that are taking place to look into the possibility of traversing the time-space continuum.  As far as I know, we're not quite there yet.  But if and when we are, we should be able to tap into the theoritical "worm-holes" to go into different points in space without having to exume too much time.
8700
no. well, its absolutely impossible to travel at the speed of light, but lets pretend you can so i can actually give you an answer to the question. The speed of light is actually the ultimate speed limit to the universe, nothing can travel faster than light, so although you would expect the light to be going at twice the speed of light (you plus the speed of light)it can't because it is physically impossible for even light to travel faster than the speed of light so it would be going at the same speed of you and not reach any path in front of you.  Of course, if you turned on your headlights before you started moving, the light would always be one step ahead of you.\n\nbut again, this situation couldn't happen anyway since you can't get to the speed of light, and if you want to know why, look at some of my answers to other questions about time travel (which involves velocity distorting time) and shining flashlights and such.
27573
No. There is no practical possibility. Humans can't travel at a speed equal to or greater than that of light.
612849
NO energy, matter, or information has EVER been observed to exceed the speed of light.\n\nTheoretically, there are particles known as "tachyons" ( see wikipedia ) that travel ALWAYS in excess of that of light but never AT or BELOW that speed. Although never observed, their theoretical existence has sent many physicists to look for them ( or their trails ! ) \n\nthere are many abstract entities that "travel" faster than light.  for example, the shadow of a large celestial object ( a planet say ) on another celestial object can be observed to move at great speeds.  a shadow however is not a real entity ( i.e. mass or energy ) and it cannot convey information.
376581
Theoretically it is possible to build a spacecraft with that speed. Nasa came to me with that proposal. I gave them a design and asked them to design an engine that would generate INFINITE amount of energy. They are working on that.[you see an object offer more and more energy as it nears speed of light till at c it needs infinite e. Sure a body can theoretically have speed GREATER than light.
117448
From our current undestanding of physics, we cannot. That does not mean in 500 more years or 5000 more years we will not have a better understanding of physics that includes methods for travelling faster than the speed of light in a vaccuum. However, at the moment it looks very doubtful. \n\nWe have substantial evidence that special relativity is true from years of operating particle accelerators. From special relativity, it appears that it would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to the speed of light. The glib manner people here are discussing an infinite amount of energy tells me that people do not understand what infinite means. \n\nAn infinite amount of energy is more energy than the sun produces. It is more than the energy produced by a billion suns. It is more than the energy produced by a billion galaxies full of hundreds of billions of stars. It is more energy than would be produced if every particle in the universe (about 10^70, the Eddington Number) was converted into a star like our sun. In fact, it is an INFINITELY greater amount of energy than 10^70 suns would produce. \n\nIf something is going at a speed greater than the speed of light in a vacuum (tachyonic speeds), then presumably the formulae we have for special relativity would not apply. There has been some occasional attempts to look for tachyons (particles going faster than the speed of light), but they have never been reliably discovered. \n\nThere are postulated entities called wormholes that might enable this kind of travel. Of course, we have no evidence for them at all.\n\nHowever, our understanding of physics is still very crude. We do not understand dark matter. Unifited field theory is still unproven. Even if it is proven, we do not understand the consequences of it (a lot of technology came from unifying electricity and magnetism). We do not understand what happens in black holes. We do not understand how the quantum world and gravity fit together. Even in quantum electrodynamics, which is viewed as settled and accepted, we end up performing illegal mathematical operations to get answers that agree with experiments. The role of the observer in quantum mechanics is not understood. We do not understand quantum teleportation very well. We do not understand BCS theory and its instantaneous coupling very well. We do not understand the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe (a sort of anti-gravity). There are immense holes in our understanding. Therefore, I would not be too confident that our current physics means very much here. \n\nThe only way to address this, is to continue to enhance our basic understanding of the way the physical universe operates. This might not be as romantic as it appears in the movies, but the hard work has to be done.
455984
Photons because light travels at 300000km/s, it would be called teleportation if an human was able to travel at such a speed.
678688
It's not a yes or no question.\n\nCan one travel faster than the speed of light?  No.\n\nCan objects be moving away from each other at a relative rate faster than the speed of light?  Yes.\n\nMeditate upon this, and you may become enlighted, or enspeeded, or something...
72176
If you're asking about some mass being accelerated up to and beyond the speed of light, no it is NOT possible. Einstein theorized that the faster an object moves, the greater will become its mass. This increased mass would require more energy to accelerate it even more, which in turn would increase its mass, which would require more energy to go faster, etc., etc.,. Ultimately to get this object up to the speed of light would require infinite energy, and that's impossible. This isn't just theory anymore either; mass increase versus velocity has been observed countless times in modern particle accelerators.\n\nOf course there are plenty of sci-fi novels, TV shows and movies (like Star Trek and warp drive) where things move faster than light, but unless someone can find a way around Einstein and all the evidence that he was right we'll never be able to attain FTL travel.\n\nBy the way...worm holes don't provide a way to MOVE faster than light. So-called worm holes, if they exist at all, are nothing more than short cuts; going through a worm hole you'd still have to obey the speed limit imposed by Einstein.\n\nPersonally I hope that some day some radically new branch of physics is found that would allow us to get around Einstein, but right now it doesn't look too good.
32023
i think u have to go to a room with a tempreture of absolute zero (O Kelvin) then decrease the gravity that the molecules could move faster than light by the way u could race time by this method\np.s. this is only a theory
989387
The only thing that can travel at the speed of light is light. So basically yes.
82342
This is an impossibility.  Cars don't travel at the speed of light.