Introduction
For hundreds of years all people who made some able scientific and dreamy calculations worked actively on the problem how to move at this incredibly high speed. What such a journey would involve? What would change for them and what would change in our perception of time, space and the reality in its entirety?
As fans of space opera and other subgenres of science fiction know, faster than light travel is not something that can be achieved with a flip of a switch or power of the enterprise’s engine. Whether the issue is an engineering problem or the question of the approach we should undertake in using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, light-speed travel raises philosophical questions over the nature of the universe.
In this blog, features that provide the above insights will be analyzed including the current record in human speed, the issues of biology and technology of near-light speed travel, and the relativistic effects around such speed. Such a feat could humanity ever accomplish? It is time to investigate the ‘whatif’ of space exploration and unpacking of the facts that create and underpin our science and possibilities in space.
How Close Have Humans Come to the Speed of Light?
People have not even been within 50% or at least not even half the speed of light. The preceding small Parker Solar Probe may collect some of the fastest manmade object reaching a velocity of 700000 kilometers per hour or 430000 miles per hour. However, this is only about 0.064% the speed of light which again is a spectacularly high speed of sound.
Can a Human Travel Near the Speed of Light?
At this time, people have not capable to travel at near some light speed. The energy needs and engineering solutions are utterly unprecedented for today’s standards. time dilation and relativistic mass increase making it impracticable with modern technology in light of relativistic effects.
What Happens to the Human Body at the Speed of Light?
Should a human were to theoretically be able to travel at the speed of light, the experience is usually deadly because of relativistic velocities effects. The mass of every part of the human body would experience extreme growth and that’s why life would become unbearable. Besides, the kind of acceleration to attain such speeds would prove fatal. Engulfment, degradation, preselection, or suppression can be technology solved, but the biological implications present an insurmountable problem.
If You Travel at the Speed of Light, What Happens to Time?
If one was traveling at the speed of light then according to theory time would stand still. From Einstein’s theory of special relativity, it is clear that time dilation increases without bound as object approaches light speeds. Photons are particles for which time does not pass, for those particles can only travel at the speed of light. This concept alters the notion of time and space beyond any previous concept that has been advanced.
How Close to the Speed of Light Can We Travel?
With current technology current technology, the speed that a human can travel is limited to a minute proportion of the speed of light. Remote spacecrafts have been accelerated to the speed at best only just a fractional value of the speed of light. Other propulsion systems may be developed in the future like nuclear fusion or antimatter drive which may prove to be more efficient, but at present we are more or less still confined to sub-light velocities.
What Can Travel at the Speed of Light?
This is possible only for massless particles which includes particles like photon, which is able to move with speed of light. From the stand point of physics, any mass could take an infinite amount of energy to afford the velocity of light which is impossible. This inability is one of the postulates of special rel relative to the measurement of objects’ velocities.
If You Travel at the Speed of Light, How Much Time Passes on Earth?
If you could travel at the distortion of light for you, the traveling one, no single moment could elapse, but back on Earth, moments would elapse in their normal customary way. When you got back you would discover that, far as Earth’s measures of time are concerned, it had in fact taken more time than you percieved —the effect of time dilation. This has been confirmed experimentally with high-speed particles and atomic clocks researches being conducted to prove the idea.
Relativistic Effects: What Would the Universe Look Like?
Traveling at speeds close to the speed of light would drastically alter how the universe appears. Due to the relativistic Doppler effect, objects in front of you would appear bluer as the wavelengths of light shorten, while objects behind you would appear redder as wavelengths stretch. This phenomenon would create an intense visual distortion.
Moreover, the intensity of light as well would rise to corresponding levels to meet other requirements put forward for photon applications. If you were traveling at near light speeds more photons would strike your retina at one time and this creates a scene which is extremely bright which almost blinding to the environment .
Biological Challenges: Can the Human Body Survive?
Probably one of the largest issues in near light speed travel is the strain of the g-forces during acceleration. For such velocities, acceleration has to be restricted to below three G or it would be fatal. Still, if exposed for a long time, such conditions negatively affect the body through causing injuries to the organs, constriction of the blood vessels, and stretching of the tissues. Using the rates of acceleration that do not harm the spaceship and its inhabitants, researchers believe that it would take approximately a year to get closer to the speed of light. Nevertheless, the chronic biological alterations are still remains undiscovered.