No Faster than Light Travel


The possible modes of faster than light travel which are usually put forward, are wormholes, the Alcubierre drive, or teleportation with or without a receiver.

Possible modes of space travel which can reach, or get close to the speed of light, use either a pulse fusion or an antimatter drive. The gravity drive, usually put forward in science-fiction, is added as an hypothetical drive -- see Gravity Drive. Another possibility is the idea of traveling by light beam -- see Travel by Light Beam.

No Faster than Light Travel

Faster than Light (FTL) travel is not possible, according to current laws of physics regarding the speed of light. Using other methods to achieve speeds that are seemingly faster than light, have been proposed. The most popular method, which have been used especially in science-fiction, is the use of wormholes. The other method is quantum teleportation, with quantum teleportation without the need for a receiver at the destination, being the ultimate hocus-pocus physics mode of travel -- see quantum teleportation below.

Pulse Fusion Drive

The first, probable, achievable means of travel near light speed, will be pulse fusion drive. Inertial confinement fusion, magneto inertial fusion, and magnetized target fusion are the principal designs which most engineers are considering. Speeds that are faster, than that of ion drives, can be reached; allowing return trips to Mars in two weeks, and trips to Titan in 6 weeks.

Antimatter Drive

Another possible, achievable means of travel near light speed, is the antimatter drive. Several versions of antimatter drives have been put forth; such as, pure antimatter drives, thermal antimatter drives, catalyzed fission/fusion or spiked fusion drives, which are based on the following designs: solid core, gaseous core, plasma core, and beamed core. A beamed core design has recently been proposed -- beamed core antimatter propulsion: engine design and optimization by Ronan L. Keane and Wei-Ming Zhang -- which is capable of reaching 70% of light speed. The attractiveness of antimatter drives is the possibility of generating antimatter particles on-board ship; thereby negating the need to store fuel. This would allow a much higher percentage of usable cargo to be put on-board ship. It might be possible, in the future, to create antimatter with desktop particle accelerators; which could be put on-board spacecrafts, as fuel generators.

Gravity Drive

Gravity, as explained with current physics, is caused by the space warping effects of the gravitational waves emitted by a given mass. We believe that these waves can be harnessed, somehow. They can be tuned to reassert their effects on the space your mass is occupying. This would allow for the creation of a well, into which one could continuously fall, as one moves. We assume that the energy required is low enough to make the task achievable.

Within the solar system, a probe can literally navigate by the stars, as long as, the gravitational waves of the emitting star can be tuned and amplified. The idea of a gravity engine, which can rudder by the stars or solar system bodies, and throttle using the level of amplification of the waves is appealing -- see Gravity.

Travel by Light Beam

The idea that light could be a mode of transportation, is based on the premise that a stream of photons exerts a push, however minute, on everything that intersects its path. Light particles, photons, such as highly energetic gamma ray photons exert a push on any mass including stars; gravity then redirects their path around the mass.

We posit that a high energy beam of photons can be made to behave like a river of photons, where their movement dynamics are modified, to resemble the movement dynamics of fluids. This change in dynamics would only occur, as the photons are moving around a mass. It is the mass itself, which would influence the photons's movement through the use of a generated field, with or without a gravity engine, or a material coating, allowing the photons to both push and pull on the moving mass. The push exerted is not a straightly kinetic one.

The idea of using a powerful wide-diameter laser, to push a spaceship to its destination is possible, given the explanation above. The ship would have to embed itself within the beam, to let the photons generate the acceleration. This mode of travel, which constrains one to normal space, would be the only safe way to travel near light speed; as the very high energy photons will cut a path in front of your moving mass.

Holding a nano diamond in mid air with two opposite laser beams has been achieved.

Inertial Dampening

The idea of reducing travel time by increasing initial acceleration and arrival deceleration, would be limited to the level of stress the passengers can withstand, which reasonably, could be no more than 3g.

Using a gravity engine to protect astronauts, passengers, cockpit area, and cargo area, by encasing or trapping them within a well would allow for maximum acceleration and deceleration to be applied according to the spaceship specifications; but, the gravity engines would have to be an integral part of the ship's structure. A ship properly built, could be made to withstand several thousands g, if not ten of thousands of g.

Inertial dampening in this case is a misnomer. With inertial dampening, a countervailing force must be applied to counteract the inertia imparted to a mass, usually through the use of gyroscopic motors. With a gravity engine; the mass, which is within the well, is not subjected to any force from any mass which is not also within the well. The only body which can influence the mass within a well, is the body which created the well. The only way, other bodies can influence a mass within a well created by another body, is indirectly, e.g. the earth's tides caused by the moon's gravitational impact which could cause small fluctuations in the orbit of satellites.

Quantum Teleportation

The ultimate mode of travel is teleportation, where one can simply zap oneself to one's destination. Teleportation of information has already been demonstrated with photons; where the photon is re-shaped on the receiving end, by using a template photon.

The idea of teleporting mass such as a person can be entertained; if a method of deconstructing a person can be developed and another to re-create the said person on the other side, using a set of atomic and molecular templates.

An alternative method of teleportation of mass; which may not require a receiver, demands a shift in the current understanding of space. It is a mode of quantum teleportation of mass where the mass itself is made to occupy another set of coordinates in space; and not a transfer of information, as in the currently understood method presented above.

This method of teleportation requires the agent to constrains the object to be teleported. By constraining, we mean to restrict -- to force it to make certain choices over others, akin to two atoms in a chemical reaction, where one is the agent and the other, the object acted upon -- its natural tendency to be at many places at once, what is usually referred to as superposition [2]. We posit that the teleportation of atoms. entire molecules, and even objects such as a football is possible; first, the object, acted upon, must be seized, and its quantum mechanical nature accessed, in order to be able to tell it, that it should choose to be at another location selected by the agent.

The goal of the following thought experiment, is to offer an explanation; as, to how, any two points in this universe can be the same point, or could be the same point given a certain context. This idea can be used to explain non-locality or spooky action at a distance -- see Non-Locality.

Any amount of space can be seen as a sphere, and any sphere can be collapsed into a plane or a point -- the Poincaré conjecture. A mathematical proof has been offered by Grigori Perelman, which solves the Poincaré conjecture. We postulate that based on the offered proof, that any point on the sphere, is the point into which the sphere collapses, heretofore referred to as the point sphere. We also add that given the previous statement, that any two points on the sphere are actually the same point, since either one can be the point sphere.

Taking everything stated above into account; the idea of somehow teleporting mass to its destination without the need for a receiver becomes plausible -- see Teleportation follow-up. An experiment can be attempted with particles/ions, where a given particle is made to occupy a set of coordinated in space, which is different from its initially detected location. Such an experiment could use the published results of an experiment dealing with ions in superfluid Helium [1].

Non-Locality

From the Wikipedia -- In physics, non-locality or action at a distance is the direct interaction of two objects that are separated in space with no perceivable intermediate agency or mechanism. The main example of non-locality, in action, is the entanglement of two particles. Our premise is that, as particles are entangled, a space-time link is created between two quantum systems -- the systems representing the physical counterparts of both particles. These two systems can share information; and the manner in which said information is shared, is through a context switch; which allows the transmitted information to be injected into the physical system of the receiving particle.

The context switch is based on the perceived location of either physical systems in relation to their quantum counterparts. In the point sphere context, the quantum systems of both particles occupy the same location. They then switch to the sphere context, where their physical counterparts are located, in order to transfer the information from one system to the other.

Entropy dictates that an expenditure of energy should be observed at every context switch. Therefore we surmise that an energy fluctuation occurs whenever an entangled particle gets tweaked in order to influence its counterpart.

Teleportation follow-up

A means of bypassing the entanglement phase is required; since, the collapse of the intervening space takes place during the entanglement phase; said collapse can be seen, as a simple context switch. The teleportation would then just transpose the location occupied by the quantum representation of the mass onto the destination location; or, what would be seen as the location of the opposite physical system, as in an actual entanglement of two systems.

[1] Study of Exotic Ions in Superfluid Helium and the Possible Fission
    of the Electron Wave Function  W. Wei, Z. Xie, L. N. Cooper,
    G. M. Seidel, H. J. Maris

[2] Ideal negative measurements in quantum walks disprove theories based on classical trajectories. 
    Physical Review X, 2015 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.5.011003
    Carsten Robens, Wolfgang Alt, Dieter Meschede, Clive Emary and Andrea Alberti. 

Pierre Innocent