As far as we are aware, it is impossible for a human to go faster than light. In reality, no object with the mass you or I possess can move faster than the speed of light in any direction.
Einstein’s theory of relativity seems to say it can’t happen, but what if it could? Some unusual particles can move at twice the speed of light, allowing them to travel back in time.
Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is one of the most useful physical theories we have right now.
The speed of light, according to this theory, serves as the universal speed limit for anything with mass. Relativity states that nothing within the group can travel faster than the speed of light.
An object with mass must receive additional energy to accelerate. Therefore, the speed of the object is directly proportional to the energy supplied to it. Einstein’s equations of relativity say that it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate something with mass to the speed of light, no matter how much mass it has.
However, all sources of energy that we are aware of are limited in some way. Indeed, it is conceivable that the universe has a finite amount of energy, to begin with.
That would imply that the universe lacks the energy needed to accelerate any mass to the speed of light. As long as we have mass, we won’t be able to travel at twice the speed of light.
Anything with “regular mass” is subject to this universal speed limit. There are, however, “imaginary mass” tachyons, which have a unique type of mass. The existence of tachyons has never been proven. Relativity, on the other hand, says that it is impossible to rule out the possibility of such things.
If tachyons exist, they must always travel faster than the speed of light. Tachyons cannot be slowed down below the speed of light, just as ordinary mass cannot be accelerated above the speed of light.
Some physicists have hypothesized that if tachyons existed, they would constantly travel back in time. As a result, tachyons are often used to describe time travel in science fiction.
There is speculation that one day we could build a time machine using tachyons. However, since we cannot yet identify likely tachyons, this remains a distant dream for now.
Our inability to travel faster than the speed of light is a disappointment. 4.35 light-years is the distance between us and the nearest star to the Sun. If you were to move at the speed of light, it would take you more than four years to get there.
We have discovered stars that are more than 28 billion light years away from Earth. It is therefore time to stop attempting to map the entire cosmos. However, relativity does permit the possibility of “wormholes”. Any two locations in space can be connected via a wormhole.
Through a wormhole, a star that is 4.5 light years away in conventional terms may be reached in a matter of hours.
As far as we know, the farthest reaches of the universe could be reached in a single lifetime if there were true wormholes somewhere in our universe. Wormholes, like tachyons, are just a theory at this point.
We can try to imagine what it would be like to travel faster than light, even though we cannot do so. If we think this way, we are engaging in “counterfactual thinking.” We imagine what life would be like if things were different.
We need to consider a wide range of potential outcomes, each based on a unique set of physical rules.
We don’t know what would occur if we could travel faster than light, thus we can’t forecast what would.
What may occur is simply a speculative possibility. Tachyons, according to some scientists, might allow us to travel through time.