Speculation with portals
Sadly, I never finished it.
Hahaha wut??? A Soap Opera? With Portals?
Easy there killer. That's what we call nitpicking.
If I understand what you're trying to say, you're attempting to draw a line between traveling faster and traveling at c. Not only is this immaterial to the matter at hand, I'm not convinced your conclusion is entirely true. I can't find any statements either way off hand.
Nice try, though.
Wow, this thread has a lot to think about.
This isn't what I actually think would happen, but its fun to think it out.
OK, so assuming that one portal can go through another, if I place a portal on the wall in front of me and another portal of the same size on my own chest:
I would place one hand at the top of the wall portal and the other hand at the bottom and start to pull myself sideways through the wall portal out of my own chest. So now I have my head through the wall portal and I'm looking out of my chest sideways and then I see my own head going into the wall portal. Then I look back through the portal on my chest and I see another of my own head coming out of my chest. This is truly disconcerting because I can reach for any of the three heads and each time I feel my own hand touching my head. Lets see what happens next. I pull myself through even farther and I have more and more of me coming out of my chest, but it doesn't seem to effect my balance. Then I get so far in that I have to squirm into a weird position to try and get my regular body and the head and torso coming out of my chest through the wall portal. This is difficult because every time I move my body to a better position the head and torso mimics it and so I have a hard time finding the right angle that lets both of me fit through at the same time. Finally I get the right angle and I try to force myself with my head and torso through the wall portal and then I realize that if I pull the me that's coming out of my chest through the wall portal again then I won't have a chest to come out of in the room that I started in. Maybe I have to get the right angle so that the me coming out of my chest is staying in the original room no matter how far the rest of me is through the wall portal. Maybe this would actually work better if I went in feet first.
If this works I'm going to set up an infinite loop and then shoot the ceiling portal onto my chest after reaching terminal velocity!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
If I actually tried that and didn't die then I'd definitely get all scraped up by skidding across the floor. OUCH!
Going to stop you there. What you're saying doesn't make sense. Acceleration and velocity does not share the same units and as such you cannot say that nothing can accelerate faster than the speed of something other. It's apples and oranges.
Footnote: Acceleration is measured as distance per time per time (SI unit m/s^2) where as velocity is measured as distance per time (SI unit m/s).
lol I forgot I posted in this thread.
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This is clearly correct, and very perspicuously stated. You, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.
As to the matter under discussion, perhaps I can elucidate. The Theory of General Relativity states that no mass can be accelerated to a speed beyond that of light because it would require an infinite amount of energy, which the universe does not contain.
The reason is this. Matter and energy are opposite sides of the same coin. One can be converted to another, but neither matter nor energy is ever created or destroyed.
As matter accelerates to near-lightspeed, it has more energy. That is essentially what acceleration is: taking energy from one system and applying it to another in order to produce a change in velocity. (This could be potential-to-kinetic or kenetic-to-kenetic transfer, doesn't matter -- in each case energy is added to the system from outside of it.) As it takes on more energy, it becomes more massive. The total amount of mass/energy in the system is increasing, but please note that it is not being created. That mass/energy is being added to the system from without (that is, from the surrounding universe). As it becomes more massive, it requires exponentially more energy in order to accelerate any further.
The amount of energy required approaches an asymptote at infinity. Since the universe does not contain infinite matter/energy, no further acceleration is possible, and the lightspeed barrier remains unbroken.
Est-ce que c'est clair?
Of course you could always find something that is faster than light and travel at it's speed, or you could slip into subspace, or just bend space-time.
Among other things.
The latter two, yes, true. (Supposing that by "subspace" you mean "extra dimension(s) other than those observable in our universe.")
The first part is flawed in at least two ways. How does "finding something that is faster than light" -- an impossible supposition to begin with, as I have just explained -- mean that you could magically "travel at its speed"? Makes no sense.
Tachyons in special relativity for instance, or anything with a negative mass.