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Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay
I disagree. I think if you were to describe modern air travel to people back then, most would consider it to be complelty impossible. "What you are going to do is climb inside this big metal bird that doesn't flap it's wings, weighs 735,000 pounds before you and 400 people AND your luggage get inside, cruises at 40,000 + feet at a speed of 800 miles per hour", most would scoff at the idea and follow it up with a few "Cool story, bro"s.
And to really blow some hair back, you could point at the moon and say "Oh ya, btw, we have had humans walk on that thing" Pretty sure you would be getting dragged off to the loney bin or at least labeled as the town drunk.
It wasn't all that long ago that we thought breaking the speed of sound was physically impossible. Not only is it done daily today, the US just launched an aircraft that can do mach 5.
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Still not the same. People still had an understanding and idea of physics. They knew some things did move fast, faster than we could. They knew things could fly, which we couldn't yet. I'm not exactly sure how much they knew in terms of space and the universe in comparison to the time when the Wright Brothers made their historic flight, because I'm not sure on exact dates, but higher physics was becoming more and more relevant in that time period.
The point Photon makes is correct. Breaking those speeds and making those achievements was a test of our abilities and our acquired knowledge. But this is completely different. This would have to break the laws of physics, which are changing every day true enough, but have stood since the time of Newton and before.
And it's not just us as humans that are bound to these rules. It's everything. Unlike different beings that might crawl, or walk, or swim, or fly based on their evolution and abilities, EVERYTHING is bound by the rules of physics. Matter, light, energy. It's really quite a different argument. Not sure how to explain it better though.
Shoot we have concept vehicles that we know mathematically should be able to reach 1/10th of the speed of light, maybe even greater. Building them is not within our grasp yet, that's kinda more the argument you are talking about. The change of progress and invention and knowledge. Similar to us looking up at the birds once upon a time and going, 'you know what, we SHOULD be able to do that somehow...'
But once you get to that magic number at the speed of light, the same argument doesn't hold up. And unfortunately that number is very important because when you are talking about billions of light years away, well, if you can't even get to 1 without breaking the laws of physics...