Will Einstein be proved wrong?

I am noticing people are mentioning the word space a lot in this thread. Space is the crux of the issue.....

Local notions of space are the main problem here. When one travels through space, distance is involved and thus time. From this, "space-time" is derived. But there are examples of an FTL (faster than light) connection in quantum entanglement. Energy passes from point to point instantly.

My guess is that space is more rigid the deeper one penetrates it dimensionally. Once you get to the quantum level, faster than light transmission is possible. Beyond this, as one delves even deeper (smaller than the planck scale), quirky particles may travel instantly to any place in time or space.

Space is softer and more general when one considers waves. When particles are regarded, they reside closer to the rigid fabric of space. Space and space-time are more an analog structure, while timelessness involves rigidity, nascent digital reality, and instantaneous quantum and sub quantum connections. "Unmarried time" (unmarried to space) is a place of timelessness. Here, space is not a factor; distance in bewteen two entities is traversed at once.

What a person would need, in order to travel faster than light, is to tap into the rigid, grainy structure of space via tight pulses of energy. This happens daily to humans, when they are having sudden bursts of energy. Light can't do this, because it uses both wave and particle. It is consigned to travel in space because of its wave properties. But if one could tap into ongoing, discrete,individual, focused PULSES, then energy can travel at faster than light speed across not only space but time as well. For such an energy, distance and time are no object, it can travel anywhere.

Here's where Einstein errored: in his very notion of space-time. If space-time is all you think about, then it is not surmountable, you are always factoring space into all equations. But if one considers time alone, unmarried with space, FTL becomes a reality. Timelessness is Spacelessness.Space-time is a contradiction when one is traveling at instant speeds through timelessness.

The reason humans don't often think about timelessness is because we are dependent on space in so many ways! Also, America is largely an analog driven Nation (unlike China, which is more digitally oriented).

So, to sum up, there is the realm of space and space-time (analog). But there is also a realm of timelessness (nascent digital reality), where particles and energy can travel instantly, evading spacial distances altogether. Separate time from space, and you can reach FTL speeds.

Exactly why "must" there be a way of travelling faster than light? And why "must" there be infinite speed?

True we don't know the physics of deep space. It is highly probable then that those laws are exactly the same as on Earth. No reason why they "must be" any different.

And yes ideas get proven wrong all the time. One of those ideas that is plainly wrong is the idea that it "must be" possible to travel faster than light.

Very few ideas are ever actually proven wrong once they have been well proven and supported by experimental evidence.

In science fiction anything is possible. In reality the universe runs according to strict rules and in practice there are severe limits to what is possible. Reality inevitably wins.

Cheers!

Probably not pertaining to light speed. Although Special Relativity states that the 'c' barrier cannot be broken, it is open tot he possibility that hypothetical objects traveling faster than light could exist, but they can never slow down to light speed or sub-light speed. One such hypothetical particle is a tachyon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

As far as his work on gravity, it is very possible that General Relativity is "incomplete" (notice how I don't use the word "wrong"). But it currently remains the best model we have for the observations we have. The minor problem is, occasionally 'missing mass' needs to be added for some of GR models to work, the most common culprit is the mysterious Dark Matter. If Dark Matter is not real, then General Relativity is contradicted by the observations of the rotational curves of galaxies, and gravitational lensing. But the model works perfectly fine with everything else... much the same way Newton's model for gravity works perfectly fine in non-relativistic scenarios.

So I guess it depends. If you consider Newton wrong, there very well may come a day when you would also consider Einstein wrong. But it does not appear that Special Relativity and the speed of light will be where we find errors amongst Einstein's published theories.

>Will Einstein be proved wrong?

It may turn out that einsteinian physics is incomplete, in a similar way to how newtonian physics is incomplete. Newtonian physics is a very good approximation most of the time, but fails with increasing severity under increasingly extreme conditions. Relativity may turn out to be similar. Knowing this for sure will await a successful unified field theory.

>in theory there must be a way of travelling faster then light

Not necessarily.

>Einstein's idea that you can't travel faster then light is only based on the physics of earth, we don't know the physics of outer and the deep reaches of space.

Our observations strongly suggest that physics works basically the same way everywhere in the observable universe.

Adherents of General Relativity (the overwhelming majority of physicists) ASSUME that the Laws of Physics are frame invariant. General Relativity is a tour de force - an intellectual masterpiece. Einstein and others developed the math to express the Laws in such a way that the physics is the same whether you are spinning, accelerating, orbiting, falling, standing still or just coasting.

However there is nothing in the math that allows for FTL travel. (Actually not even SOL travel - if you have mass).

It is "possible" that if I drink from a small vial and then paint myself green that I can run faster than the SOL. Never been tried, so can't be absolutely falsified. There is no reason to believe that it CAN happen, so most rational people will dismiss it as nonsense. But even if someone tries it and Fails, I can just point out that the Moon and the Stars weren't in the opportune positions. Or more nonsense.

So there is no absolute truth in Science (try religion or philosophy).

To take your point of view: Why do we believe that Dark Matter is restricted to the same physics as "normal" matter? What Law would be violated if it was found that DM was confined to 2c or less?

Not (yet) knowing what DM is, we can NOT dismiss this even based on our understanding of the way the Universe works. Until we have a well verified TOE (Theory of Everything) which reconciles the contradictions between GR and QM there is significant room for doubt. And perhaps DM will explain the weird non-local effects or augment our understanding and provide us with a way "around" the restrictions we now believe are fundamental to the structure of space-time.

No. And you are incorrect -- Einstein's work is very much based on the physics of outer space. Starting with the fact tha tMercury shows a slight but significant deviation from what Newtonian models predict. So do other planets, but Mercury moves fast enough so the deviation was detectablee with the instruments of the day. That ws a key clue for Einstein.

In addition -- an dmore importantly: pheomena in space are correctly predicted by Einstein's work, thus showing that his model of motion and energy applies thee as well as on earth. And we have a great deal more evidence. Nuclear reactions, for one thing.

That DOES NOT mean a faster-than-light method does not exist. It's conceivable that future scientific discoveries that can deal with situations Einstein did not envision (and could not have, since thte data could not have been obtained in his day) will reveal a means to break the "light barrier."

But "prove Einstein wrong?" No. He's been proven right.

Now, here's a bit of a confusing pooint: strictly speaking, scientists (at least competant ones) never rlue out the notion that a theory can be shown to be "wrong" in one important sense: try as we might, it isn't possible to take every possible variable into account. A new variable of some point can always be discovered. Hree you get into what's called epistimology: the study of how we know what we know. An example: you can view Newton's physics as being wrong since Einstein show his work didn't explain certain pehenomenae. OR, nting that you can derive Newton's equations from Einstein's work, you can take the view that Newton was right -- within the limits of the condiitons (variables) he could measure and account for. Since Einstein had better and more comprehensive data, his model is more useful, and it incorporated Newton's work into a broader theory. Personally, I take the latter view -- but it's a matter of philosophical perspective, not scientific accuracy or validity.

I have always been under the impression that the laws of physics that we are familiar with on Earth are regarded as universal, i.e. applicable throughout the Universe. Hence the universal law of gravitation.

Any scientific theory or model is only as good as the results of observations or experiment to test it. For example Newtons law of gravitation works fine under "normal" conditions here on Earth but it breaks down when we start talking relativistically (i.e. in terms of light speed). That is where Einsteins description of gravity takes over and so far no better or alternative theory has been put forward.

In science we have to be open minded and take nothing for granted. Otherwise no progress would be made. Einsteins theories are continually being tested and perhaps one day a viable alternative to his model of gravitation will be found. Up to now though the predictions made by Einstein have matched observations and experiments with flying colours so to speak.

Einsteins theory of General Relativity incorporates physics relative to Earth, and it states that nothing may travel faster than the SOL. As you approach light speed, the particles in your body reach an infinite amount of mass and energy. It's used in everyday physics, and it doesn't include cosmological factors that didn't have a very large effect on Earth.

When Einstein began to explore the physics outside of Earth and the Solar System, he noted that the numbers didn't add up. He figured there must be some value missing from his maths, a value which varies dependant on scale. The cosmological constant, it was named, was discovered and Incorporated into a new theorem; Einsteins theory of Special Relativity.

Special Relativity states that space itself (not matter, matter can NEVER travel faster than the SOL) may expand at a rate faster than the SOL. That's how we know for one, the universe is expanding faster than we can ever reach it's edge, and two, gives us a reasonable insight into quantum mechanics and the origins of the universe. Remember that General and Special Relativity are very different theories.

So to summarize, we DO know the physics of deep space, quite well actually. Einstein thought of your very question and solved it. Contrary to popular belief, Einsteins theories have never been falsified. Problems were found with his models, but were subsequently solved with modern physics.

Albert Einstein was truly a genius scientist, he may have made some errors in his mathematical calculations such as...lambda in his equation, but corrected himself.Einstein's theory of speed of light was based everywhere in the universe. As objects approach the speed of light they gain more mass and slows down, while light particles which are mass-less will be at constant speed anywhere here or in space.

General relativity was tested in space. It's not like we're basing all this off stuff we tested in the basement. These are the laws of the universe. Nothing can travel faster than light. That's how it works. When you reach the speed of light, time stops. Could Einstein be wrong? Probably, he's been wrong about a few things already (cosmological constant, anyone? Right, then wrong, then ultimately right again, but wrong about QM). If GR wasn't right, your GPS wouldn't work. But there's always more to the picture than we originally see. Newton was right, but not if you go to relativistic speeds - which he couldn't do.