Warning - This is a bit of a nit picky post, so please deal with it. :)

1. Some of the stars are as close as 4 Light Years. (but not many)
2. Current best estimates of the number of stars in our galaxy is ~100 Billion
3. Current best estimates put the number of galaxies at ~240 Billion
4. We cannot overcome physical laws: Gravity? 240 Tones of metal should not be able to stay in the sky, yet they fly over my house every day. We don't break the laws, but we do find ways around them. In time C will fall just like all the other "It can never happen" things have (powered flight, sound barrier, moon landing etc..).
5. While Einstein was very good for his day, time marches on. All of his work has been enhanced since his death. Even the classic e=mc^2 has evolved.

In today’s world where teleportation is real, light can be stopped in it's tracks and the dead can be brought back to life how can you believe in a cosmic speed limit?

Ohh and yes. I do think there is other life out there. The fact that they have NOT come here is definitive proof that they are also intelligent.

Hmm, nifty as that may be, I don't see how it contradicts Einstein in the least. Einstein's theory maintains that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. No one has evern argued that it reamins constant through all media, and as a matter of fact, it's easily proveable that it doesn't (have a prizm handy?). While it's incredibly impressive that they managed to create a medium through which light travels part way, then stops, it's not contrary to what we already know.

I'm with GD on this one... Well sort of. If you think about 1947, A Podunk farmer, and an out in the sticks air force base I can easily see a cover-up. The farmer found some Mylar (not officially invented until '52) or Aluminum and reported it as a "flying disk". Mr. Air force hick, under orders to keep the new secret balloon/dirigible/whatever hushed up says to himself "Flying disk eh?" Yea that works and runs with it. Having no idea the storm it would cause. Now that's a cover up I can believe.

Contradicts? What you think I want to get hung? I said enhanced.

15 Years ago (ok, 20..) my physics prof's were quite SURE you would never be able to stop light. Slow it down in diffrent substances sure but stop? No way not possible. <-- Notes from actual conversation.

Oh and one bit of trivia, Einstein himself NEVER said FTL travel was impossible. That thought was added by others.

Moonliner - interesting info, but a couple of comments -

The stars that are 4 light years away, to my knowledge, have no evidence of planets orbiting them. We are currently finding many planets around stars much farther away. This is why I started at 10 light years away.

We do not defy gravity in flight. Instead, we apply physics of create lift (Bernoulli, if I am spelling his name correctly) and can generate enough thrust to overcome the gravity of earth. In terms of curving space enough to travel to other areas of the galaxy faster, we are talking about gravitational forces millions of times more powerful than our sun, and I do not believe we will ever harness that type of energy.

It is possible that there are aliens. Is it worth thinking about? No, they are too far away to affect us.

I'm a sci-fi fan and a hard science fan....and I've never felt the need to think twice on the subject.

Now if you want to talk about the possibilities of us traveling at or near the speed of light, it's definitely intriguing stuff. Perhaps I'm waiting for that to be achieved before I consider other stuff.

I'm more interested in mining colonies on other planets. Some project that would pay for itself, with people that we could communicate with...that would be awesome and is much more tangible in my mind.

May I be allowed to quote my own earlier post?

So may I say we are agreed?


As for the planets, most (but not all) of the objects discovered to date are Jupiter or larger in size. I don't think it is as yet safe to rule out earth type planets around the closer stars.

Well, of course. I wasn't meaning to sound as if you thought we were turning gravity off, but merely stating I do not think it will ever be possible to harness the type of energy necessary to overcome the gravity necessary to curve space.

Aliens, sure, why not, but govt conspiracy, highly doubtful, the govt isn't that good at keeping secrets. I don't think that Einstein ever consider FTL travel, don't think it was something that he was thinking about. But theories are just those, theories, tried tested, but can never be proven to 100%(to become a law of physics such as gravity, etc) and are valid until they are proven wrong. So who knows what could become possible with future research.