TAB 34

The Light Barrier

The biggest problem with Star Trek spaceships, and many other science fiction epics, is that Relativity says travel at - or even close - to the speed of light (denoted "c") is not possible. However, Relativity is not universally accepted by all scientists. There are many phenomena that do not fit Relativity Theory and it is coming under increasing pressure.

Relativity was not the accepted scientific basis that it is now, but was very much in contention well into the 1960's. There were equally plausible explanations in Celestial Mechanics, for several phenomena that "proved" Relativity theory was right:

The precession of Mercury's orbit

The bending of light by the sun's intense gravity field

A miniscule time divergence in atomic clocks orbiting Earth

Relativity is the standard today because a committee of scientists decided in its favor, over Celestial Mechanics. There remains a small but obstinate cadre of scientists who oppose Relativity even to this day. Mainstream scientists consider us "The Dark Side of the Force." ( 11 )

Relativity Theory itself was derived forty years before Einstein, by the prominent Celestial Mechanics worker, Henri Poincare. The only difference is the Poincare's equations assumed the existence of an aether (a super thin "vapor" in deep space), whereas Einstein derived the exact same result, using electromagnetic concepts. Most people in the modern day consider the notion of aether to be old fashioned and archaic, like the Earth being flat or all heavenly bodies orbiting Earth and not the sun. The truth is much more subtle.

There is a famous problem in classical Celestial Mechanics called "The Many Body Problem" (or the "N Body Problem," N signifying many or infinite in mathematical notation). ( ONE ) The equations of motion of a small body acted upon by many bodies - e.g. an object moving rapidly through a solar system or several star systems with many bodies - reduce right down to the equations of incompressible flow in fluid dynamics. That is, the small object behaves exactly like it was moving through a fluid like air or water. This is an interesting result because it implies that at slower velocities, this incompressible fluid behaves like a very thin fluid - just like an aether. There is no similar analytical proof in Relativity, consequently the version derived by Poincare is much stronger mathematically.

Relativity says that matter cannot reach the speed of light because mass becomes infinitely heavy. Yet, every day electrons go that fast - if not faster, in electrical wires, in computers, and in countless electrical devices. No Relativistic effects have ever been noted in electric current flow or computer/transitor theory. ( 21 )

Many other facts are posed here, and a couple of brand new theories, that further erode the pre eminence of Relativity, and the likelihood that Relativity is just a special case - and not an all encompassing law. The implication is that the speed of light is not really a limiting constant, but simply a transition - from a thin vaporous aether, to a compressible fluid like air or water.

Over all there is at least enough solid mathematical evidence to say that travel beyond the speed of light is possible; and especially that travel at a high percentage of the speed of light is possible. This theme is recurrent through this project, which offers simple geometric and trigonometric explanations for the things explained by Relativity in extremely abstract terms.

Perhaps the strongest evidence in favor of this mechanistic perspective is that it explains many phenomena in our local stand still human level Solar System that are many orders of magnitude beyond the tiny forces supposed by Relativity. ( FOUR ) Moreover, this mechanistic Theory, when extrapolated, shows Relativity to be a special case; hence, more of a footnote than a full fledged phenomena.

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© 2004 WH Clark