Mathematicians Extend Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity beyond Light Speed

“Since the introduction of special relativity there has been much speculation as to whether or not it might be possible to travel faster than the speed of light, noting that there is no substantial evidence to suggest that this is presently feasible with any existing transportation mechanisms,” said Prof Jim Hill of the University of Adelaide’s School of Mathematical Sciences, who co-authored a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

“About this time last year, experiments at CERN in Switzerland suggested that perhaps neutrinos could be accelerated just a very small amount faster than the speed of light; at this point we started to think about how to deal with the issues from both a mathematical and physical perspective.”

“Questions have since been raised over the experimental results but we were already well on our way to successfully formulating a theory of special relativity, applicable to relative velocities in excess of the speed of light.”

“Our approach is a natural and logical extension of the Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, and produces anticipated formulae without the need for imaginary numbers or complicated physics.”

The new formulas extend special relativity to a situation where the relative velocity can be infinite, and can be used to describe motion at speeds faster than light.


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