Breaking The Light Speed Barrier

Have we broken the light speed barrier? Albert Einstein stated that the speed of light could never be surpassed, because the energy it would require would be more than the energy available in the entire universe. Since making that statement several tantalizing experiments show that this might already have happened, but every time the results of one of these experiments is revealed, critics come out and state that it only seemed that it was broken but in actuality it wasn't. I am not saying that either side was right or wrong, just stating the facts. Light speed experiments are among the most controversial ones that can be made. I guess cold fusion is another.

Star Trek Enterprise
Graphic Source: GNU Free Documentation License

If we ever hope to get anywhere in our travels through space, we not only have to break the light speed barrier, but travel many times faster than light. When one looks at the enormous distances involved after we leave our solar system, we realize that this is a daunting task. It will require not only tremendous speed, but also protection for the spacecraft. Even a grain of sand hitting a space ship at these speeds would completely destroy it. Another thing that will be required is an extremely accurate navigation system. There will be no room for error at these speeds. I don't think I have to tell you what would happen if the spaceship hit a planet or moon traveling in excess of 186,000 miles per second, which is approximately the speed of light.

Laser Light Experiment
Photo Source: Public Domain

Einstein is probably one of the most respected scientists of all time, but this hasn't stopped other scientists from trying to prove him wrong on his theory about light speed. They realize that if he isn't wrong, we could be doomed to having to stay in our own solar system. The other option would be building generation ships. Those are spacecraft where generations of people live and die for hundreds or even thousands of years, until the ship reaches its destination. There are other scientists that are not willlng to accept the fact that a ship has to fly faster to get where it is going. They claim that if we bend space we can connect two distant points together thus making the trip much shorter. This is yet to be proved, although there are many theories on the table. Another untested theory is travel by wormhole or even blackhole. I won't go into that, because if you are readers of this site you know that I have talked about this many time before.

Center Of Milky Way
Photo Source: NASA

One of the ways to try and find out if faster than light speed is possible, is by investigating space and nature. You look for indications that something is traveling faster than light already. Since this is supposedly impossible, if you find it, then Einstein's theory is incorrect and we have just opened up the entire universe to faster than light travel. Throughout history there were supposed barriers that stopped us from ever reaching certain speeds. One of the very first was what I like to call the horse barrier. Some people used to say that man would never be able to travel faster than on the back of a horse. We all know what happened to that theory. Then there was the sound barrier theory that stated that man would never break the speed of sound. Before that it was man would never fly and radio would never work. We are very good at breaking barriers, which gives us hope in the case of the light speed barrier.

One problem with our society today is that so much is secret that we could have broken the light speed barrier and it is being kept secret from us. I am not saying that we did, all I am saying is that if we did, we may have never been told. Isn't it a shame when we have to live this way? Anyway recent experiments have been conducted at the NEC Research institute in Princeton, New Jersey and the scientists there claim that they have broken the light speed barrier. If this is true, it could be the greatest discovery of all time. The results of the experiment are controversial. It doesn't seem to matter how solid your basis for a discovery might be. If it involves breaking the light speed barrier, there will always be critics for several reasons. The first and foremost reason is that there are those that believe that Einstein could never be wrong.

Here is the greatest part of all this, light speed was exceeded by a factor of 300. That is 300 times the speed of light. The nearest star system to earth is Proxima Centaui and it is 4.2 light years distant. If we were to travel at 300 times the speed of light, I calculate it would take a little over 5 days to reach it. Here is how I arrive at that figure. 4.2 LY X 365 LD = 1533 Light Days. Dividing 1533 LD by 300 = 5+ days. This is quite impressive and would allow us to explore some of the nearer star systems, but we would still need more speed to explore most of the systems in our own Milky Way. I don't want to get too ambitious, but this rate of speed is far too slow for travel between galaxies.

Something very strange occurred during this experiment, the light left the chamber before it entered. This violates the theory of causality, which states causes must always precede their effects. It just might turn out that some of the laws of science we have been taught all our lives, might just be wrong. I do admit however that this does sound a little creepy. While many of the experimental results by this group have been challenged on the basis of severe limitations on measurement, the results from this last experiment are different. "The effects are much larger and more spectacular", stated one of the scientists.

In this experiment some elements of light actually traveled backwards. If you are confused you are not alone. Many of the scientists that looked at the results of this experiment say that they are still open to interpretation. Some scientists don't like the idea that light was passed through a gas medium. They feel that it should have been a vacuum. I think that many others could be given the results on a silver platter and are just not ready to believe that Einstein could be wrong. Some scientists go on to say that even if the light speed barrier was broken, the beam would probably not be able to carry any information. This sort of sounds like sour grapes to me. If we could get a beam of light to go 300 times the speed of light, even if it didn't carry information, it would make a nice propulsion unit for a spaceship. It certainly doesn't take much energy to move a ship in space as demonstrated by the Ion engine.

Let's hope that the experiments continue and that the results will be able to be applied to space travel. I can't help but envision a chamber built on the end of a space ship where a beam of light is excited to 300 times the speed of light then allowed to exit the box at that speed. This would push the ship in the opposite direction. No doubt it would take time to build up to the full speed, but think of the frontiers that we will be able to conquer.