Is it possible to achieve the speed of light via a Russian Doll like system of vehicles accelerating ...?
924224
No.  The design of the vehicle does not matter, it is the old e=mc^2.\n\nAs you accelerate, your vehicle gains mass, until, as you get closer to the speed of light, the mass gain approaches infinity, and it then takes an infinitely powerful push to overcome this infinite resistance.\n\nIn the case of the nested doll ships, if we use the external (larger ships), to begin the journey, you would find yourself in the strange position of continually needing greater power from ever smaller engines.
950911
At least at current technology level this is impossible (to my knowledge). I'm a physicist from Finland, and I was a bit amazed when I read this question; I had never heard that scientists in Finland have claimed to have made an anti-gravity drive. So I took a quick look what Internet has to say about it (after I couldn't find an article from J Phys D, where this should have been published according to some Internet sources). This sure smells like a hoax; the paper was withdrawn, and every Finnish scientist mentioned in conjunction with this case has denied their participation; in fact nobody seems to know what this is all about. Only guy who has said anything is this one Russian guy (Dr Eugene Podkletnov), and in the end he was the one requesting the withdrawal of the paper. A whole description of the aftermath of this Sunday Telegraph article (where this was discussed) can be found from http://www.enterprisemission.com/antigrav.html (the end part, first is the article itself).\n\nSo, there's a lot of BS going on in this anti-gravity / inertialess drive field. There may be something in maybe 1% of those "studies", but I wouldn't take too seriously anything I read from the web about these things... When something happens, the scientific community will start buzzing. At least I will notice it (I have to follow journals and media about these things because of my work); there's some movement every time a new hoax appears, but that movement stops at the point where other labs try to repeat the experiment. If something new comes up, it will be heard in every media, not only in Internet.\n\nHowever, to answer your actual question, "Is it possible to create an anti-gravity drive that could be used for space propulsion?", I would say that one day it could be possible. There's research going on, and even though some people think it would contradict Einsteins general theory of relativity, I still think it could be possible.\n\nAbout alien spaceships... eh... well, I would doubt their existence. An extraterrestrial intelligence would surely show up first to all hillbillies and mutilate their cows for research? Or play around and show spectacular light shows flying around just for fun? Of course that's not impossible, but I would see it highly unlikely...\n\nDuring my quick look, I found one nice, interesting old article of wired.com: http://www.wired.com/wired/6.03/antigravity_pr.html . I think I'll read that one through...
916821
Yes the headlights will work!!  Einstein's theory of special relativity explains that space and time "dilate" as the observer approaches the speed of light so that the observer will ALWAYS be able to "measure" the speed of light to be 300 million meters per second no matter how fast he is traveling.
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
455699
there already are hover cars (just not yet in production).\nas for teleportation, i suppose it is not yet possible. think about it, existence is like a 4 dimensional coordinate system where the 3 dimensions (x,y,z) are dependent on the 4th coordinate, which is time. Right now, if we follow this 4d coordinate system, the whole function of existence would be continuous. The introduction of teleportation in this scenarion would cause the function of existence to be discontinuous, which would be very hard to explain. Put simply, it is really hard to drastically change the (x,y,z) coordinates as the time it takes for the change approaches zero (teleportation).
49096
You can't go the speed of light, but even if you were going 99.9999999% the speed of light, yes, you could shine the beam forward, backwards, or sideways, and it would look normal in every direction.  That's the central idea behind relativty.\n\nAnd NO, the light would NOT be going twice the speed of light.  Anyone who says that is BSing you.
262909
Not quite exactly right, Flavio.  \n\nTrue the speed limit for an object moving in space is the speed of light in a vacuum, but a number of proposed methods for "warp" type travel have been developed which don't violate general relativity.  A few years back a physicist named Alcubierre (I think I have the spelling right) produced a solution for Einstein's equations of spacetime which would allow a warped region of space to move arbitrarily fast relative to surrounding space.  Within this warp there can be a region of flat spacetime which would be carried along with the warp.  I've read his paper on it and it's very clever from a mathematical and theoretical point of view, but it's completely impractical given our level of technology, and it also makes some assumptions about things that we simply don't know whether or not they're possible.   Unfortunately, Alcubierre's solution requires tremendous amounts of both positive and negative mass.  "Negative mass" could also be provided by something like dark energy, but then there's the question of what exactly that is.  Its gravitational effects are seen in the universe, but the identity isn't known, and nor is it known how to vary it.  Dark energy could be the result of the zero point density, or it could be a phenomenon that is variable, in which case it's often called "quintessence".  Heim theory, one of the more unusual approaches to a grand unified theory, uses a quintessence instead of a fixed dark energy density, and furthermore predicts the density of quintessence will be related to rapidly moving strong magnetic fields.  \n\nSo, general relativity does allow for a "warp drive" solution, but the spaceship being moved isn't actually moving at above the speed of light but rather is being carried along by the expansion and contraction of spacetime in the warp.  Relativity says that no object with a rest mass can exceed the speed of light (things with no rest mass, like photons, must move at the speed of light in order to exist), but spacetime isn't an object nor does it have an inherent mass.   So, yes, it's hypothetically possible at this point, but there are a whole lot of things we'd need to understand in order to even begin to think about how to engineer such a system, and additional knowledge about phenomena like dark energy may show that it can't be done.  Right now it's still a plausible idea, but this may only be because we don't know enough yet.
1170536
I will attempt an answer that is somewhat factual.  \n\nThe theory does not stipulate that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.  It stipulates that matter can not approach the speed of light.  In fact a hypothetical partical called a tachyon has been named that has a speed faster than the speed of light.  That partical has an imaginary mass. \n\nThe entire work comes from the equations developed by Einsten,\n\nE= MC^2/ sq rt (1- c^2/v^2)
746381
No, the laws of physics currently prohibit any type of matter from accelerating to light speed, since it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so.
718668
Neglecting the fact that it would be imposible to accelate a train (non-zero rest mass) to the speed of light,\nif you did, an observer in the train would still see light moving away from them at the speed of light.\nThe speed of light is constant in all frames of reference.
350726
If you could travel at the speed of light in your space ship (which you can't) and turned on the headlights the light would travel away from your ship at the speed of light. The speed of light is invariant -- not affected by the speed of its source.
25198
You can't be in a vehicle going the speed of light, because as objects accelerate they gain mass and a car going the speed of light would be insanely massive.
143269
As you approach the speed of light, your mass approached infinity... As your mass approaches infinity, it takes more force for you to accelerate... Therefore, I don't think it is possible for you to acchieve the speed of light...
297054
heres the info:\n\nNobody has ever managed to ride a beam of light, although Einstein in his youth imagined what it might be like to do so. Such thinking eventually lead to the special theory of relativity. Although it is still impossible for anyone to travel on a light ray, physicists have managed to stop a laser beam in its tracks! This amazing result builds on earlier work by a research group led by Lene Hau in which light was slowed to 38 miles per hour.\n     Light in a medium travels somewhat slower than 300,000 kilometers per second, its speed in a vacuum. This effect, known as refraction, is responsible for the bending of light in passing from one medium to another. In an ultracold gas of sodium atoms, the index of fraction varies significantly with the frequency of light. The gas is normally opaque, but when the sodium atoms are bathed with secondary "controlling" laser light of a particular frequency, the medium becomes transparent and light can pass through it. Due to the varying index of refraction, a primary laser pulse slows down when it enters the gas. It also becomes greatly compressed. A pulse with a length of one kilometer gets squeezed into a tiny unit one one-thousandth of a meter in length. When the light pulse exits the region of sodium atoms, it expands back to its original length zooming off at 300,000 kilometers per second again. \n     To bring the light to a standstill, Dr. Hau and her co-workers turn off the secondary controlling laser light after the impinging laser beam has entered the ultra cold sample. The medium becomes opaque. One would think that the laser pulse would be absorbed by the sodium atoms. Instead, the information about the light wave is encoded in the atoms. When the controlling laser light is turned back on, the atoms reconstruct the laser beam. It continues its propagation though medium and then out the sample. If the time during which the beam is halted is not too long, the shape of the reconstructed beam coincides to a high degree with the original shape.\n     Imagine a train one kilometer in length consisting of thousands of cars traveling at 300,000 kilometers per second. Suddenly, the track becomes rough, causing the front engine and subsequent cars to come to a screeching slowdown. With the train now moving at 38 miles per hour, the cars pile up and are crushed to the size of an ant. Then a magician snaps her finger and the train disappears but leaves an imprint on the dirt between the tracks. With a second snap of the finger, the imprint vanishes while the ant-sized train reappears and moves forward at 38 miles per hour again. Then the train encounters smooth track. The engine speeds off at 300,000 kilometers per second, and as subsequent cars enter the smooth track region, they too rapidly speed off so that the entire accordion-like structure unfolds. Remarkably, little damage to the train occurs.\n     "Impossible!" You say. Well, in the case of a train, it is impossible because the deformation of metal is an irreversible process. But light is more accommodating and can be stretched or compressed more readily. Still, Dr. Hau's team has done what seems to be magical. Why isn't the light absorbed and lost? How can the atomic information reconstruct the beam? Why isn't the beam greatly distorted when it leaves the sample? The answers to these questions reside in the miracles of quantum mechanics, the dynamics that control the microscopic world of atoms and their interactions with light.\n     A major technological breakthrough has occurred. If low cost means are found to manipulate light in the above manner, then computers and communications will be revolutionized. One can imagine using light instead of electrons to perform computational processes. Such photonic machines would calculate at many times the rate of current computers.
697091
According to Mark McCutcheon who sort of justifies why Einstein’s Theories of Relativity are flawed, and according to his Expansion Theory of the Universe, here is what he says in his book The Final Theory:\n\n“Warp speed has been within our grasp ever since the early days of the space program. We simply have not achieved it because we haven't tried, and we haven't tried because Special Relativity Theory said we couldn't – and we believed it. All that is required is continuous acceleration from an extended fuel burn; a spaceship would accelerate faster and faster as its fuel burns, just as common sense tells us it should. The spaceship will not undergo a mysterious "relativistic mass increase" as it increases in speed, it will not need to burn more and more fuel to compensate for such "mass increase," and it will not have any special difficulty approaching or exceeding the light-speed "barrier." ”\n\nNow, you can imagine the implications for these particle accelerators which apparently cannot accelerate particles at speeds beyond the speed of light because their weight or relativistic mass reaches infinity. McCutcheon states:\n\n“The "energy" used to accelerate the particles is supplied by electromagnets that are timed to pulse as the particles pass by, giving them a boost. However, as shown in the previous chapter, a magnetic field is actually a cloud of expanding electrons. If each pulse sends a cloud of electrons expanding toward the passing particles at the speed of light to give them a push from behind, it is not surprising that the particles are accelerated less and less as they speed by faster and faster. As the particles approach light-speed they would be shooting past almost as rapidly as the electron clouds would be expanding behind them. The expanding electron clouds would barely be able to catch up with the particles as they pass, and so, would only be able to give them a tiny additional boost that gets smaller still as the particles get even closer to light speed.”\n\n“Increasing the energy input simply means producing denser electron clouds from the pulsing magnets, which improves the efficiency of each boost (makes each push more solid) but does not increase the speed of expansion of these electron clouds. Therefore, as ever more energy is put into the system, the passing particles receive ever more solid nudges toward light-speed but still can never exceed the speed of light since this is the limit of the speed boosts. This need not be considered as validation of the mysterious "relativistic mass increase" concept of Special Relativity Theory, but merely as an expected result once the true nature of magnetic fields is understood.”\n\nAnd yet, we’re going to create micro-singularities soon, or micro black holes, in the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2007. So we’re going to accelerate the particles even closer to the speed of light, and that will be enough? Who knows...
323277
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/fast_light.html\n\nhave a look at this website
647799
You can't go at the speed of light. It's a theorical limit, so it's unreacheable. Only the light can reach it.\n\nIf C is the speed of light, the fastest you can get is C*0.999999999... (insert as many '9' as you want). When you turn on the headlights, they will be somewhat faster: they'll reach the speed of light.