Jor-El Was Right: Faster-Than-Light Travel to Save Humanity

Posted by Alex in Science & Tech on October 22, 2008 at 10:48 pm


A lot of people think that Faster-than-light (superluminal or FTL) travel is the stuff of kooky mad scientists-wanna-bes (indeed, Albert Einstein himself had declared that it is impossible).

I get a lot of submissions from crazy people claiming that they’ve discovered fundamental flaws in physics or that they’ve come up with a completely novel Theory of Everything, and those go straight to the junk pile. But when this came from an emeritus physics professor from Rice University, I was intrigued.

Here’s Robert Haymes, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, wrote about FTL travel:

Presented below is a concept of how it might be possible to travel in space at speeds in excess of the speed of light in vacuum. It is presented now because of my firm conviction that immediate actions are necessary to Save Our Species; steadily increasing overpopulation of the planet Earth by humanity, coupled with a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, signals that we may soon wipe the planet’s surface clear of civilization, if not of life itself. One mode of salvation would be to establish self-sustaining branches of humanity on other planets. It does not appear that any other habitable planets exist within our solar system. However the Milky Way Galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, many if not all of which have planets orbiting them. Some of those planets are most likely habitable. Astronomers generally believe that these stars are separated by distances averaging a few light years. To reach them in practical amounts of time will require faster than light travel.

Link – Thanks Nancy! | Another interesting article: Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? by Philip Gibbs


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COMMENT

11 comments to "Jor-El Was Right: Faster-Than-Light Travel to Save Humanity"

  1. Larfin Jackarse
    October 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    I remember reading about this in the future, doesn't work.

  2. Ali S.
    October 22nd, 2008 at 11:49 pm

    Interesting. But I'm in the school of belief proposed by Prof. Farnsworth where the ship doesn't move but the Universe does instead.

  3. Angstrom
    October 23rd, 2008 at 6:15 am

    So, all we need is a large pile of antimatter balanced exactly against the mass of our ship? Sounds a little 'explodey' to me.

  4. sparge
    October 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 am

    So, the idea is to escape an Earth that might have significant changes in climate, threats to life, and overall living conditions... for a planet which certainly has a different climate, threats to life, and living conditions.

    Personally, I think the odds are higher that humanity will survive whatever it does to itself than either the chances of developing faster-than-light travel cheaply enough to transport a significant number of people off-planet, or the chances of adapting to the new ecosystem. At least in the next few centuries.

  5. Gerry
    October 23rd, 2008 at 8:22 am

    Its amazing how many of these 'groundbreaking' FTL theories seem to mirror the exactly functions of one USS Enterprise that has been on television since 1964. Funny that.

    BTW: There is no evidence in all the antimatter we've actually produced that it 'repels' light. And when you mix matter and anti-matter, there is no way to direct the thrust of gamma rays.....

  6. WillSasso
    October 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 am

    Speaking of Farnsworth, these exact ideas were first proposed in Futurama. In that cartoon, spacecraft are powered by dark matter and "scientists increased the speed of light in 2208".

  7. kid_icarus
    October 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 am

    wow who could we send on this mission of exploration.....i would suggest a lot of the people who are just wasting oxygen and space....

  8. ChrisW
    October 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    Any species which can't learn to solve the problems of their planet shouldn't be flying in space. That includes short trips to the Moon or Mars.

  9. Angstrom
    October 23rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Kid Icarus, you may remember this from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

    {Golgafrincham's} people decided it was time to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population, and so the descendants of the Circling Poets concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in a great catastrophe. (It was apparently under threat from a "mutant star goat"). The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitizers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and "led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliways#Golgafrincham

  10. sparge
    October 23rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    ...and don't forget where those useless people ended up!

  11. sam
    October 24th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    I was interested up until his doomsday speech. The only difference between this guy and a crazy bum on the street holding an "end is near" sign is that people actually listened to this guy for a while (and even paid money to do so).


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