According to Einstein's theory mass expands as it nears the speed of light. Once an object reaches the speed of light, which cannot happen according to Einstein's theory, supposedly the mass of the object would reach infinity. With that said, why can people from 'Star Trek' travel faster than the speed of light?

Gnomon

People in Star Trek can travel faster than light because it is fiction. Faster than light travel is necessary for much science fiction because stories would be very boring without it. We don't want our intrepid heroes to set out and not reach their destination for 10,000 years, because it would make for very boring television. Having said that, the makers of Star Trek talk about a Warp Drive which distorts space in some sort of unexplained way so that Einstein's rules apply in a modified form. Then you can do what you like. Aug 17 02, 9:58 PM

riotgrrl

Some physicists, including Stephen Hawking, believe faster than light travel might be possible by using wormholes, a phenomenon associated with black holes and their hue concentrations of mass. These wormholes would allow people to travel in a fourth dimension, and bypass the supposed curvature of the three-dimensional universe. I don't think this idea was around when Star Trek started, but it provides a possible way to bypass Einstein's theories. Aug 18 02, 12:56 AM

Jeeves

The theory has been around in fiction for a while that space could be warped by a generator on a spaceship. If, for example, you wanted to travel from A to Z the intervening space is bent so that A is next to Z and the spaceship travels a small distance to its destination, after which the warp is switched off and Z is now a long way from A. The idea of bending space is accepted by scientists, but whether a machine could be built to do it and how much energy would be involved is the fictional part. May 29 03, 9:27 PM