Basically this
"Why can't we go faster than light"

Here's how I see it.
KE = 0.5 MV^2

So no... mass doesn't increase. Kinetic energy does.
The problem is the "^2"
So you also have the reverse of it meaning how much energy it would take to get an object to light speed. And I think this is what really freaks scientists out is how many zeros there are.
That's how much fuel/energy/etc you'd need to push it.

It seems a lot easier to say "well.. force reaches infinity" or "time dilation" will simply prevent light speed from being viable.

Time dilation is that idea that if you go beyond light speed, time slows down around you.
This is in some relation to bending time and high velocity...etc etc, it's extremely complicated and in my opinion... wrong.

In what I'd like to call "the physical universe" time dilation doesn't happen. The more energy you put into something.. the faster it goes. It's as simple as that in my opinion.

Here's the problem there though. In a purely physical reactive universe with no space magic or space-time you have to deliver that force. A chemical rocket works by shooting heated gas out the back which effectively bounces off the rocket to push it. So to go light speed, you need something extremely forceful and fast to go faster. Eventually a chemical rocket can't go that speed.

Eventually even an atomic powered rocket won't get any faster. Beyond that, what would start to approach light speed? The holy grail seems to be antimatter by the assumption you can either control the reaction if it's big... or that it doesn't just neutralize and do nothing. The fastest acting forces we know of are gravity, magnetism, and possibly antimatter.

The biggest obstacle is "how do you deliver the energy" even a golfball would take tremendously large amounts of energy to get to light speed even ignoring the mass of the rocket needed it takes a ton of energy probably in the order of 1000000000000000 joules kinds of energy or roughly the force of an atomic bomb focused solely on a golfball to move lightspeed.

Even assuming you have enough fuel to do so, it takes more and exponentially more energy to go a tiny bit faster. Meaning that even if we got to 90% light speed 91% would probably take double the energy... kind of like leveling on RS. And containing the force of several nuclear bombs exploding would be very hard.




TLDR? Why is this article important?
Because even though tachyons and super-lightspeed particles have existed before
Humans caused it this time! Before it's all natural reactions and low mass particles like electrons.
This means you CAN move mass beyond light speed with force alone.

This could potentially lead to highspeed rocket engines much like the ion-rockets where low mass particles + extremely high velocity = high velocity rocket with low fuel use.