lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/31/83)
Greetings. An acquaintance of mine called me up with a question
regarding the speed of light and information transfer. While
I realize that his proposal couldn't work, I am not a
physicist and I can't get him to believe me. Can someone
out there send me a clear explanation of the physics involved in
this problem that he *might* be willing to accept?
The problem: transmitting information faster than the speed of light.
His idea is as follows. Assume the existence of an extremely thin but
very strong and non-elastic straight taut wire one light year in length
in a vacuum. Person A is holding one end of this wire (don't worry about
the vacuum!) and person B is holding the other end. Now, person A tugs
his end of the wire 0.5 inches toward himself. The question is, why
wouldn't person B feel the tug almost instantaneously, thusly resulting
in an information transfer *much* faster than the speed of light?
I've tried to explain this in several ways, but apparently I'm not
very convincing on this topic. Would any of you care to take a stab at
this guy? I'll forward any responses onward to him. Please reply by mail;
I am not in this newsgroup. Thanks much.
--Lauren--
{decvax,ihnp4,harpo,allegra,ucbvax!lbl-csam,randvax}!vortex!lauren