No. Nothing can go faster than the speed of light. This is a basic precept of the theory of relativity. As an object accelerates, two important things happen. First, the mass of the object increases and second, to any observers in the object the outside world seems to be going slower. As the speed of the object goes to the speed of light, these effects go to infinity: the object has infinite mass and sees the outside world as at a total standstill. Accelerating an infinite mass is clearly impossible, so it is not possible for humans to be accelerated past the speed of light. For much the same reasons, a human actually going the speed of light is impossible as well.

Not according with the Theory of Relativity, which states that as an object accelerates, its speed flattens more and more. What is very curious is that no matter how much energy and time is used in the process, speed becomes constant right below the speed of light (around 300,000 Km/sec). It seems like something is "built-in" in mass composition to prevent it to reach this speed, which theoretically would decompose our atomic structure. This would seem pretty frustrating for us humans, who according to this are trapped in our solar system, without a possible way to reach not even the closest star-system. A travel to that point of our galaxy would take many human generations, that's why some people think that it's possible, building a ship big enough to create the fueling/feeding resources to send dozens of families, who will live and procreate so their gran-grand-grand...children would reach Proxima Centauri. However, all the theory explained on my first paragraph, responds to a three-dimensional, atom-composed reality, this means matter as we know it. Some of you have probably heard about worm-holes and black holes, which are supposed ways to travel to distant places in the universe without travelling light-speed. This of course sounds more like Sci-Fi, but the addition of a fourth dimension to our reality, call it a new variable, is something that scientists are considering more every new day. They said that we would never fly, then that we would never reach the speed of sound, then that we would never get out of our atmosphere......for me human intellect has no limits, it is only a matter of time and creativity.

In short, no. But to explore the universe, you don't need to! You can get somewhere 4 light years away in less than 4 years, and here's why: According to Special Relativity, mass increases, time slows, and lengths shorten for an object that you observe moving relative to yourself. Classic example is a train with a clock passing you. If the train goes at 0.866 times the speed of light (called 'c'), the factor (called "gamma") of the changes in mass, time, and length is two. So the train will look half as long, twice as heavy, and the clock on it will be moving half as fast. Most people don't understand that this has profound implications for exploring the universe. Suppose you get in your spaceship and decide to travel to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, some 4 light years away. If you can travel at a velocity of 0.866 times c, someone watching from Earth will see your clock run half speed, your length contracted by half, and your mass doubled. But from your point of view, as the traveller, your destination is half as far! Observers on Earth see your clock tick off 2 years on your trip there. SO DO YOU! But your 2 years don't pass slow - you see your time pass normally. But your destination is only 2 light years away when you go 0.866 c! So, we can travel as far as we want to, if we go fast enough. The only catch is that when you go back to Earth, more time has elapsed there than on your ship. This is the root of the "twins paradox" - you do a 4 year round trip at 0.866c, and 8 years pass on Earth. Interestingly, you could coordinate missions to various destinations with a fleet of starships such that each goes to a different destination, and all return at the same time having experienced the same time dilation, so the whole fleet's clocks would still be synchronized when they meet up. All that is needed is to calculate the correct accelerations for the different ships based on their destinations! And, to head off the obvious question, the accelerated reference frame (space ship) is the one that experiences the "benefits" of time dilation relative to the unaccelerated frame (Earth).

According to Einstein's studies, nothing can travel faster then the speed of light because if something were to travel at the speed of light, it would burn up in less than a second.

There is a significant amount of speculation about the existence and effect of wormholes. A "wormhole" can be thought of as a discontinuity of the time/space continuum - one metaphor, for example, pictures folding a piece of paper so that two distant points on the paper are close to each other or touching. There are theories that it may be possible to artificially distort the fabric of space to make two points closer together using something like a wormhole so that a person or craft could start here and get there without actually traveling between - like jumping from one spot on the paper across the fold to the other without walking all the way on the paper. The effect would be faster-than-light travel without violating Newtonian or Einsteinian principles. The folded paper analogy brings up other extra-dimensional options that I will let you explore for yourself.

No. that would mean that we would be able to travel fron Earth to the Sun in aproximatly eight minutes.

i believe that in order to make space travel practical we will have to figure out how to use worm holes. we'd need to create one then create an exit worm hole at the other end you wouldnt be travelling faster than the speed of light by doing this it would be more like taking a short cut. i believe someday we will be able to do thisand it is then that universe will be finally unlocked for us to explore

Perhaps... No mass can subjectively travel at the speed of light. It may be possible to circumvent this restriction, however. Consider NASA's breakthrough propulsion program: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/ Sadly, no longer funded, this was the first serious investigation into the feasibility of faster-than-light and/or massless propulsion travel. Many of these methods rely on theorized properties which have not yet been observed. (all the FTL concepts fall into this category, sadly) Others, such as the Casimir effect inertial drive, are functional, but unfeasible. The Biefield-Brown effect (asymmetric field capacitor) is another candidate, but apparently NASA is currently only studying it for the purpose of producing rotational energy. Unusual, since it was originally envisioned, tested, and verified to produce linear thrust without expending reaction mass. See: http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0211001 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physics/0211001 and also: http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm for some interesting theory and application, with video. Hope that gets some gears spinning :)

There is one theory of possible interest that would allow humans to travel faster than the speed of light. In 1994 Miguel Alcubierre proposed a "warp drive" that would shrink the space in front of you and expand the space behind you via the Casimir effect. As the inflationary model of the universe has shown, space can expand at faster than light speeds as long as no net information would be transferred. This would also be less taxing on the structures traveling, as they would have moved only a small amount. Although the energy needed to do this is far beyond our capabilities at present, it would be possible in the distant future.

If you are talking physically travelling (i.e. taking a trip) at Faster Than Light speed: not at our current technology level. With the limitations of Einsteinian physics, it is not possible to project a physical mass at light speed or beyond. (This is operating under the basic assumption that the physics are true, and not just theory). The only way to move at FTL speed, then, would be to go around Einsteinian physics. If you look into some of the pop literature of the Star Trek universe, they explain Warp Drive by shifting into another dimension (subspace) and travelling outside of the limits of Einsten and Newton. Strangely, their explanations of FTL and Warp Drive have small tidbits of credence. In current scientific theory, to travel faster than light, outside of Einstein and Newton's laws, would require what is called negative energy. Wormholes are theorised to be caused by negative energy. Just as gravity is theorised to be caused by the positive mass of matter, so scientists theorise that there is actually negative matter, with negative mass and (possibly) negative energy. This is different from anti-matter, which is positive matter with opposite electric charges to normal atoms. Antimatter has positive mass. Negative matter has negative mass. Anyway - if positive mass attracts, then negative mass repels. That's the theory. So negative energy has effects markedly different to positive energy. It is theorised that intense concentrations of negative energy or negative matter can warp space, and cause wormholes. At the same time, Negative energy is attributed to a propulsive effect similar to the concept of 'Warp Drive.' I don't have the eloquence or time to explain it, so I'll direct you all to a very good website that explains negative energy, wormholes and this warp. http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/sf/topics/wormhole/wormhole.html There are also a couple of others. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/ideachev.html http://www.concentric.net/~pvb/negmass.html

Humans, at present, cannot travel faster than the speed of light. The following website states that gravity can travel at the speed of light, but there is no technology that can travel the speed of light because our technology is limited at best and according to the laws of physics, there is nothing that can go fatster than the speed of light. Here's the website that states that nothing can beat the speed of light: "For reasons that people haven't yet worked out, the speed of light appears to be the fundamental limit in every branch of physics, from the materials in your tapping stick to gravity waves, even when light is not being used for communication. That's why I used the term "information" in my previous answer, since there are more ways to send information then by simply sending light signals." source: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=592 I hope this helps!

In my opinion it can not be, because then we would be able to go back to the past. Consider this: Suppose, of course just "suppose" that if you are in a completely open field, reflections of your movements (we can imagine as pictures or photos) traveling up to space with the speed of light. Now if we suppose that you can ride paralell with this photo in a vehicle that going exactly with the speed of light you will see this picture as a still photo. However if you are able to accelerate your vehicle, you will be able to see all your previous movements since your arrival to that place. This is a far fetched idea but it may answer the question. If speed higher than light would be possible, all of us would see our past and boy would that be horrible that we see but can not do anything about all those mistakes we have made in our past? Any comments?

Maybe if we developed something that goes faster than the speed of light. Then we could go inside it. Then we could go faster than the speed of light!