Light Speed

[Nerotic7]

Just a random question I have seen floating around the internet lately, so I decided to ask you folks to see your answers and theories.




So, say some scientists found a way to put a ship into light speed. A ship goes out beyond out atmosphere into space, and accelerates to lightspeed. Now, here's the question. How does it stop? Since there is no gravity or inertia to slow it down, how would the ship be able to stop itself?

[Stackprotector]

Just a random question I have seen floating around the internet lately, so I decided to ask you folks to see your answers and theories.




So, say some scientists found a way to put a ship into light speed. A ship goes out beyond out atmosphere into space, and accelerates to lightspeed. Now, here's the question. How does it stop? Since there is no gravity or inertia to slow it down, how would the ship be able to stop itself?

The same way it accelerated itself but then in the opposite direction.

[Nerotic7]

The same way it accelerated itself but then in the opposite direction.

But wouldn't that require it to change direction? How is something going lightspeed suppose to change direction, not to mention even if it did, it would just proceed in the direction it was turning, never really slowing down.

[Stackprotector]

But wouldn't that require it to change direction? How is something going lightspeed suppose to change direction, not to mention even if it did, it would just proceed in the direction it was turning, never really slowing down.

If you can place rockets to one side you can also place rockets to the other side. Basically just like a double sided dildo, doesn't seem very genuine but hell it is!

[rasenove]

E = mc^2
which means if an object has to reach light speed it must have infinite energy and as it accelerates it's mass increases. So theoretically it's impossible.

But if you want me to assume it did, I'd say the same thing as factionwars.
.
.
Other than that, the only way a ship can reach such velocity (and more) is by somehow compressing and extracting space itself.
Read this for inspiration

http://www.gizmag.com/warp-drive-bubble-nasa-interstellar/24392/

[Kulverstukas]

@rasenove: read the mothafucking thread before you mothafucking post, mmk?
The question was how would a ship going at light speed be able to stop.

@OP: Factionwars has a valid point - just put same boosters on the front of your ship for deceleration.

[Axon]

Since you question is a hypothetical question, all the hypothetical solutions are possible. Unless proven otherwise.

[Deque]

E = mc^2
which means if an object has to reach light speed it must have infinite energy and as it accelerates it's mass increases. So theoretically it's impossible.

E = mc² is not quite correct as it applies to a non-moving object.
A moving object has the formula: E = γmc
where γ = 1 / sqrt( 1 - (v/c)² )
You see that γ = 1 for a non-moving object.

And that's also only where you see that an object with mass must have infinite energy to travel by the speed of light (set v = c and you would have to divide by zero).

[rasenove]

@rasenove: read the mothafucking thread before you mothafucking post, mmk?
The question was how would a ship going at light speed be able to stop.

How does a ship stop from light speed if it can't even reach light speed?

[Deque]

Just a random question I have seen floating around the internet lately, so I decided to ask you folks to see your answers and theories.




So, say some scientists found a way to put a ship into light speed. A ship goes out beyond out atmosphere into space, and accelerates to lightspeed. Now, here's the question. How does it stop? Since there is no gravity or inertia to slow it down, how would the ship be able to stop itself?

That's what I found: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/travelling-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-is-harder-than-it-looks

Then there’s the issue of brakes. The warp drive can get a space ship to move impossibly fast across the universe, but it doesn’t offer a great way to stop it once it gets to its destination. Physicist José Natário pointed this out in a 2002 paper that explained how it would be impossible to steer or stop the ship once it’s in a warp bubble because it would be impossible to send signals from the back to the front of the bubble. So the interstellar pilots might set sail for Gliese 58g, an Earth-like planet about 20 light years away, but end up in another galaxy.

The paper the blog post mentions can be found here: http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0110086

[proxx]

The same way it accelerated itself but then in the opposite direction.

My first thought exactly.
Just to overstate the obvious , what we believe is that nothing can reach the speed of light however close.

Besides time would really mess up at such a point.
You would effectively stop in time thus there would be no stopping nor continuation.
Or I am just too drunk too to make a valid argument right now.

[Darqsunscreen]

The thing is. It's never gonna be an issue.

If you classify intelligent alien communities.. It might be something like this.

Class 0: Able to dodge mass extinction by blocking comets or asteroids.. Some bases on planets. Start Terra forming.

Class 1: Able to manipulate the weather and volcanic activity on your home planet. Living on other Planets.

Class 2: Able to manipulate our Solar System and harness the power of the sun.  Makes wormholes possible. Eternal Life? (unless killed)

Class 3: Able to Control our Galaxy and able to move planets in or out of orbit.

Class 4: Able to Control the Universe and create other universes. Dodge extinction forever.

We are not even class zero and all our future progress is close to home.. Our own solar system. By the time we get to our own sun and harness it's power we already know how to compress space and we don't need to travel at light speed.

[chlortho]

photons accelerate virtually instantly.  However, to my understanding (it's been a while), light photons slow down depending on the medium in which they are traveling.  For example, we see the light spectrum through a prism because the various forms of light travel through the prism at different speeds.    I believe this is called "Light Dispersion."  The process of slowing down would be very taxing, in that the time it would take you to accelerate and decelerate without turning into mush would eat up a lot of precious road time. 

Nevertheless, as previously stated, 'reversing the thrusters' would be the way to do it. 

Traveling by the speed of light is theoretically obsolete.  It just is not fast enough to get us 'out there.'  Granted, we could cover some ground in our own back yard, but that is about it.  For example, our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, whose light travels at a blistering 186,000 miles per second, still takes a grueling 2,900 years to get here.

Quantum teleportation and worm holes are the ticket!