Source: Explore everything in the universe
If you want to ask, what is the greatest achievement of mankind after entering the age of science and technology? Different people will give different answers to this question. However, an important criterion for measuring the strength of a scientific and technological civilization is speed. The speed of transportation is closely related to the strength of science and technology, and it is also closely related to the strength of human civilization.
In ancient human civilization, due to the lack of science and technology, people's travel basically relied on walking, and the faster means of transportation were just horse-drawn carriages. At such a speed, it is naturally impossible to travel around the world, to truly understand the world in detail. The limitation of vision also hindered the development of human civilization, until human beings entered the era of science and technology, the speed of transportation is also increasing. From the original bike to the current rocket, the speed is getting faster and faster.
Human beings rely on the advantages of speed to quickly travel to every corner of the earth and have a comprehensive understanding of the earth's surface. But when human beings, more than half a century ago, after once again increasing their speed, were finally able to go out of the earth and see the vast universe beyond the earth.
When humanity really stepped out of the earth, we realized that the speed we were proud of in the past was nothing in front of the cosmic scale, and such a speed was not even a turtle speed.
So what kind of speed can cross the universe? One might say it's the speed of light. Because outside the existing physical system, the speed of light is the limit of the speed of an object. At the beginning of the last century, scientists proposed the photoelectric effect, the wave-particle duality of light. At that time, we had a more thorough understanding of the nature of light. At the same time, Einstein's theory of relativity also proposed that the speed of light is the limit of speed.
According to Einstein's theory of relativity, objects with stationary mass can only be infinitely close to the speed of light, and cannot reach or surpass. Scientists have come up with the speed of light through measurements, which is 300,000 kilometers per second. This is a speed beyond our imagination, but can such a speed really cross the universe? That's how much you think about.
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When you truly realize the vastness of the universe, you will understand that the speed of light is only the speed of the turtle in front of the cosmic scale. We all know that the universe is based on light-years as the basic distance unit, between stars and stars, before galaxies and galaxies, we usually calculate in light-years as the basic distance unit. For example, the nearest neighboring galaxy to the solar system is about 4.2 light-years away.
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter, and the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light-years away. A light-year is the distance at which a photon travels at the speed of light for a year, and if we start from Earth to a starry sky a light-year away, it will take a year to fly at the speed of light. It takes at least 25,000 years to get straight out of the Milky Way at the speed of light, and 2.5 million years to travel to the Andromeda galaxy.
If that doesn't make you realize how slow the speed of light is, then let's look at the current observable universe of about 93 billion light-years, and this range may be just the tip of the iceberg of the vast universe. When do you say you can fly at the speed of light and travel across the universe? I am afraid that when the universe is destroyed, we will not be able to reach the edge of the universe.
Through our understanding of the vastness of the universe, we understand that the speed of light is an incredible speed in our eyes. But in the face of the cosmic scale, it is only turtle speed, and at this speed we can't even go out of the milky way, let alone cross the universe. Therefore, only faster-than-light flight can hope to travel through the universe, so can faster-than-light flight be achieved? Perhaps as long as you master it, there is hope.
Some people may think that faster-than-light flight completely violates the existing physical theory, violates the theory of relativity. If faster-than-light flight is real, is relativity wrong? The theory of relativity has been found by a large number of experiments and observations to prove that it is a correct theory, but if the theory of relativity is correct, is the faster speed of light just a dream thing, which can never be realized?
If the velocity is analyzed according to the Einstein theory of relativity, then the speed of the object can only be infinitely close to the speed of light, and it is impossible to exceed the speed of light. However, the universe is vast and mysterious, and there are many phenomena that completely subvert our cognition, such as the theory of the expansion of the universe. Through a large amount of observational data, scientists have proved that the universe is expanding rapidly, and this expansion rate exceeds the speed of light.
According to scientists, the universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago, and if its expansion rate is the speed of light, then the current universe should be 13.8 billion light years. But the reality is that our observable universe now has reached 93 billion light-years, and this range is only the tip of the iceberg of the universe.
It can be seen that the speed of the expansion of the universe is far faster than the speed of light, so why does the speed of the expansion of the universe exceed the speed of light, does it violate the theory of relativity? In fact, the speed of the expansion of the universe and the speed of the movement of objects are completely two concepts. The speed at which an object is moving is only a quantity in our three-dimensional space, and it must obey the relativistic limit on the speed of light of the object.
The speed of the expansion of the universe is a kind of compression and distortion of space, which is a new theory completely different from the theory of relativity, and it is two modes of speed. The big bang of the universe gave birth to time and space, they can be said to be the two most mysterious things in the universe, and time we do not know anything about it, but space we can see, can determine its existence.
Scientists in the universe have observed that the expansion of space can exceed the speed of light, which is a very fortunate and happy event. You know, by expanding the universe, we've established that faster-than-light speeds are real in the universe, and that it's not a completely imaginary thing. As long as the universe exists, it is in line with scientific theories and can be achieved.
The expansion of the universe is a kind of compression and distortion of space, so scientists believe that there is no upper limit to the speed of space warping, as long as the distortion is strong enough, its speed can be infinitely increased. So scientists proposed the space curvature drive flight mode, curvature drive is also known as space tossing technology, is to achieve faster-than-light flight by distorting space.
Scientists once conceived of a curvature spacecraft that consists of a spacecraft in the shape of a soccer ball surrounded by a large ring-like structure. These ring-like structures can compress the space in front of the spacecraft and expand the space behind the spacecraft, thus forming a kind of space bubble that envelops the spacecraft. The space around the spacecraft then distorts, driving the spacecraft to fly faster than the speed of light.
This mode does not violate the theory of relativity, the spacecraft itself is immobile, it just distorts the surrounding space, and then lets the space drive the spaceship forward rapidly, which is somewhat similar to the surfing movement of the earth, the surfing board itself does not move, and the front and back waves drive it forward rapidly. If we achieve curvature drive, then the universe will no longer be a dream.
Curvature drive is also called space jumping and wormhole shuttle in many science fiction novels, although their names are different, but the principle is the same, all through distorted space. Of course, curvature drive is theoretically feasible, but it is not so easy to achieve in reality, and we need to have enough knowledge of space.
And with man's current understanding of space, it is far from achieving the goal of curvature drive. Of course, the road has to go step by step, curvature navigation is still too far away for us, the next goal of human beings is to achieve sub-light speed flight, and to achieve this goal, it needs the realization of more powerful energy sources, such as controlled nuclear fusion.
Friends, what do you think about this? Welcome to leave a message below to discuss and express your own opinions and opinions.