Why Traveling at the Speed of Light Could Destroy the Universe

imagine Earth a few centuries from now

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space travel has become accessible and

we travel from planet to planed in

spaceships like regular old taxi cabs

but sadly right now we wouldn't have

enough vacations in our entire lifetime

to travel to the neighboring star system

because to reach the nearest star Alpha

centel which is

4.37 light years away from Earth we'd

have to fly on today's rockets for over

50,000 years and if we want to get to

one of the farthest known Stars beyond

the Milky Way called Icarus we'd need 9

billion light years this means that even

moving at the speed of light will never

cross the Milky Way in a human lifetime

that's why NASA is working on types of

engines that could potentially be faster

than light but however hard they try

scientists run into new challenges in

this video along with our engineer we'll

test different types of engines to try

and beat the speed of light however to

do so we'll have to find a way to bend

the laws of physics but just how

catastrophic is this kind of experiment

going to be for the

[Music]

universe how close to the speed of light

can can we get in 2017 Norwegian

Professor Espen gardar hog came up with

a new mathematical theory he claimed

that it's actually possible to create a

spacecraft that with the help of photons

can accelerate to

99.999% of the speed of light a photon

has no Mass its electric charge is zero

and it can only exist while traveling at

the speed of light sounds perfect

doesn't it but if we want to set a

spacecraft in motion with photons we

need a new type of engine one that can

convert light into energy how claims

that the best way to make this project a

reality is a solar sail so let's try

building a sail that moves using light

to make 1 kg of matter reach the speed

of light we need a sail with an area of

about 100,000 square m that give us an

acceleration of roughly 1 m/ second this

means if our engineer weighs 70 kg

they'd have to design a square sail with

sides longer than 2 1/2 km that's like

25 football fields laid end to end and

that's not even counting the weight of

the spacecraft itself but here's the

good news at least we don't have to

worry about designing a fuel tank since

we've got a free and endless source of

energy the sun it's been burning for

around 5 billion years already and will

keep on burning for just as long the

beginning of our solar sail Journey

might be pretty sluggish but the

acceleration will be constant and thanks

to the sun we can keep it going for

years even decades in about a 100 days

of operation the solar sail can reach a

speed of around 14,000

kmph after 3 years its speed will hit

240,000 km per hour and then it would

only Take 5 years to arrive at Pluto one

of the most distant objects in the solar

system this idea of constant

acceleration has prompted several

research groups in recent years to test

increasingly Advanced prototypes of

photon engines in 2015 the Japan

Aerospace Exploration Agency sent the

light sale one into orbit scientists

manages set up a solar sail with an area

of 32 square m on this small satellite

within a month the spacecraft weighing

3155 kg had its speed increased by

approximately 10 m/ second moreover they

were able to change its trajectory this

marked the first successful experiment

with a solar sail though it also shed

light on its limitations as the

maneuverability of the design was quite

quite low to optimize the interaction of

the photon Engine with light particles

NASA is currently developing what they

call a diffractive solar sail the

diffractive solar sailing project uses

small Optical gradings embedded in the

thin sails to make better use of the

sunlight in the future the photon engine

will allow us to travel not just within

the solar system but also to the nearest

star systems however there is a problem

when it comes to Interstellar Journeys

the sunlight from the Sun just won't cut

it the farther the sail is from it the

fewer photons it can capture in the

hopes of solving this problem an

international project called

breakthrough starshot plans to build a

thousand small solar sails each weighing

no more than 1 G these mini sales will

require less light to accelerate

meanwhile back out Earth researchers

plan to construct an array of laser

installations with a power of 100 gaw

their beams will be directed at the mini

sails helping them speed up in space the

destination of this journey will be

Proxima cowy the closest star to our sun

unfortunately though it'll take 30 years

to accelerate these tiny Photon sails to

just 20% of the speed of light never

less this will let us leave the solar

system by 2030 and pass by proximas and

toy around

2060 but let's imagine for a moment that

our engineer managed to push the

Starship with the photon sail to let's

say 90% of the speed of light what do

you think awaits them well of course new

challenges firstly for someone moving at

such a great speed time will tick quite

differently let's say our engineer

embarks on a quick trip to Marsen back

it'll take them roughly 16 minutes 40

seconds to reach the red planet and

return to earth now here's where it gets

interesting for people back on earth

watching our Journey to Mars It Will

indeed be 16 minutes 40 seconds but for

our engineer in the Starship the round

trip will only last 8 minutes 20 seconds

this happens because because at such

high speeds there's a time dilation

effect the closer you get to the speed

of light the more noticeable it becomes

besides for our engineer the space ahead

of the ship will appear flattened into a

blurry tunnel after a while they'll see

nothing but Darkness up ahead the thing

is light waves simply won't catch up to

them because they'll be moving at the

same speed in other words there will be

nothing but endless darkness before our

engineer So in theory scientists already

know how to accelerate to the speed of

light but for now the photon engine

doesn't allow us to do that you see to

achieve the necessary acceleration we'd

need a massive amount of materials to

build the sail itself and an incredible

amount of energy to power the lasers

required to speed it up to solve this

problem we'll have to create a more

powerful engine that works on a

different principle scientists have

already come up with a theoretical plan

for such a device so what's stopping us

from turning it into reality theoretical

physicists suggest using an antimatter

propulsion system for space travel it's

a concept for a rocket engine that

utilizes antimatter in combination with

regular matter to generate energy for

space flight when these two types of

matter react with each other they can

create an enormous amount of energy it's

300 times more powerful than that of

nuclear fusion a thousand times greater

than that of nuclear Decay and 10

billion times greater than that of

ordinary chemical reactions but here's

the rub where do we get so much

antimatter after all it's an extremely

rare and complex substance to produce

creating and storing it requires a

colossal amount of energy that's why

Engineers have been pondering the

development of a Hybrid engine to reduce

the needed amount of antimatter one

concept of this kind was developed back

in 1992 at the University of Pennsyvania

and they called it the antimatter

catalyzed micro Fusion Drive its

operation revolved around a fuel capsule

containing dyum tridium and uranium 238

this capsule was fired into a reactor

chamber where it was first bombarded

with ions and then hit with an

antiproton beam when interacting with

the antiprotons part of the matter in

the capsule is annihilated this produces

enough energy to trigger the decay of

uranium 238 which in turn initiates the

fusion reaction with Dum and tridium

this energy powers big electromagnets

that heat on the plasma then magnetic

fields direct the plasma flow and shoot

it out of the nozzle creating thrust in

setting the spacecraft in motion the

advantage of this system is that it

needs relatively little antimatter for

space travel for example to reach Pluto

you'd only need 100 G of anim matter

that may sound like a very small amount

but not when it comes to antimatter the

point is scientists produce it using

particle accelerators capable of

generating tens of millions of

antiprotons per minute that sounds

convincing Until you realize that at

that rate it would take tens of billions

of years to produce just 1 gam of

antimatter have you heard of antimatter

referred to as the most expensive

substance on Earth it's true one gram of

it can cost hundreds or even thousands

of trillions of dollars and it's not

just about creating anti particles you

also need to figure out a way to store

them since any matter annihilates upon

contact with matter we clearly can't

just put it in a container and call it a

day that's when we need special

electromagnetic traps like for instance

pinning traps these devices using

magnetic fields in a high vacuum and at

low temperature can hold on to

antimatter currently portable traps are

being developed and they may later let

scientists move the substance to other

labs one such mechanism is being

developed at the European Organization

for nuclear research but at the moment

it's almost 2 m long and weighs a ton

assuming our engineer has enough

antimatter how safe would it be to

travel on a Starship equipped with an

engine like that let's say our engine

engineer accelerated the ship beyond the

speed of light and is traveling in space

without consequences for their body but

don't celebrate just yet because when

trying to stop the ship our engineer

could be killed by radiation imagine a

photon peacefully cruising through the

universe when suddenly our antimatter

powered spacecraft catches up with it

the photon will get stuck right at the

front edge of the ship and when the

rocket stops at its Destin ation all

those stuck particles on the front edge

will simultaneously release an enormous

amount of energy there will be enough to

wipe out not only the ship and its crew

but entire planets theoretically the

disaster can be avoided if we slow down

a bit before reaching the destination

and gradually reduce speed but even with

this approach there will be intense

Photon radiation around the ship Italian

physicists def Foo Fini from the Italian

international school of advanced studies

and his colleagues explored this problem

back in 2009 they found that the thermal

flux from the photons directed towards

the ship and its crew would be

equivalent to a temperature not seen

since the Big Bang 10 to the power of 32

Kelvin or something like 142 million

million million million million million

degrees CS so one Journey at the speed

of light could endanger entire planets

on top of that physicists say that a

flight on a ship that moves faster than

light could destroy the entire universe

how can an antimatter engine destroy the

entire universe in 1994 Mexican

physicist Miguel alier developed a warp

drive model it was a theoretical

mechanism for traveling at speeds

exceeding the speed of light the main

idea of the warp drive is to bend

SpaceTime around the ship in such a way

that it's not the Starship itself that

moves through space but rather the space

moves around it this means the spaceship

won't violate the laws of physics that

prevent objects with Mass from

accelerating to the speed of light in

essence the ship will stay put space on

the other hand is not bound by this law

so it can move at any speed but here's

the catch initial calculations showed

that creating a warp bubble would

require all the energy that exists in

the entire universe besides scientists

are concerned that such a bubble could

become unstable especially when entering

and exiting warp mode potentially

collapsing along with the ship but let's

assume our engineer managed to build an

aluer drive and set off into space

faster than the speed of light and let's

assume they even avoided damaging the

bubble and successfully regulated his

speed to prevent a catastrophic stop

however there's a problem that's nearly

impossible to overcome paradoxes aluer

himself acknowledges that his Drive is

essentially a time machine after all any

method that enables faster than light

travel also allows time travel the point

is the warp drive can create close

timelike curves this means the ship can

return to the same point but at a

different time when our Starship goes on

a journey SpaceTime around it compresses

by speeding faster than light we might

end up in A Spacetime tunnel that throws

us thousands of years into the past this

can have truly catastrophic consequences

we're talking about the so-called

butterfly effect the movie called The

Sound of Thunder Vivid shows the dangers

of time traveling and how The Accidental

killing of a single mesic air butterfly

can alter the course of evolution in any

case to create a super luminal engine

without destroying the universe we'd

have to break the fundamental laws of

physics but is that even possible in

1999 British engineer Roger Shyer

claimed he knew how to outsmart physics

he developed the M drive a rocket model

that according to him could produce

thrust without expelling exhaust the EM

Drive is a hollow structure with

powerful electromagnets inside according

to scientists electromagnetic radiation

bounces around inside the rocket it

travels from the magnets throughout the

cavity of the device and when the

radiation accumulates at the narrowest

part of the structure it creates thrust

in the engine in 2016 a team from NASA's

Eagle Works Laboratories tried to verify

if the EM Drive idea worked the

scientists claimed they managed to

measure thrust it was a true revolution

in the world of physics however a team

from dresd didn't Technical University

led by Professor Martin tajar remained

skeptical of the experiment's results

and decided try and replicate it and

they couldn't measure any thrust the

thing is it was absent during the

original Eagle Works experiment as well

the phenomenon detected by NASA's

scientists was a thermal effect the

sensor was simply reacting to the

engine's Heating and if our engineer

built a ship with such an engine it

wouldn't be able to move in space at all

let alone at some high speed so in the

case of the EM Drive scientists couldn't

outsmart the laws of physics but that's

un unlikely to stop them any space

journey beyond the boundaries of the

solar system inevitably involves

breaking the speed of light but at the

same time according to Einstein's theory

of relativity that's impossible the main

limitation of our abilities is that as

an object's speed increases its mass

also increases and is bound to approach

Infinity when it reaches the speed of

light basically speaking Einstein

concluded that the speed of light is the

maximum achievable speed in the universe

but modern scientists have come up with

ways to potentially byass the laws of

physics and outpace light without

actually exceeding it they suggest

creating a space-time tunnel let's

imagine SpaceTime as a grid this fabric

of SpaceTime gets warped by the

gravitational pole of objects the

deformed SpaceTime creates something

like tunnels allowing you to take a

shortcut between two points known as

wormholes physicists propose using these

wormholes for Interstellar travel

despite the pessimism of some scientists

who say that such wormholes could only

format the birth of the universe others

suggest looking for them near super

massive black holes however this option

is highly risky anything that enters a

wormhole gets accelerated almost to the

speed of light making it any particles

inside extremely dangerous for humans it

turns out that even if we manage to

build a warp drive Starship right now we

might end up destroying the universe our

attempts to bypass the laws of physics

to avoid the end of the world might

result in destroying ourselves so the

question arises is it even worth trying

to outpace light when we press harder on

the gas pedal in a car we go faster a

car has a maximum speed but we can

accelerate even more for instance

fighter jets can move faster than the

speed of sound however acceleration has

its limits no matter how hard we try we

can't go faster than 300,000 km/ second

to break through the speed barrier we'd

need an endless supply of energy which

unfortunately we don't have yet but it's

not all Doom and Gloom scientists have

uncovered the unknown before like radio

waves and radioactivity so it's entirely

possible that a new discovery will

change everything in your opinion how

many years will it take for scientists

to invent a faster than light engine or

will Intergalactic travel forever remain

just a source of inspiration for sci-fi

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