richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) (07/16/85)
Okay, let's do something positive for a change and start considering potential ways that FTL could be achieved. 1) On violating Special Relativity. As someone mentioned, Special Relativity is based on some very basic mathematical postulates and those postulates are unlikely to be incorrect. However, Newtonian Mechanics is also based upon a very simple set of mathematical postulates. I think we can all agree tat Special Relativity provides an accurate description in a number of areas where Newtonian Mechanics falls flat on it's face. This is NOT because the basic postulates are incorrect, but because they do not have the needed scope. Special Relativity is designed to DESCRIBE a set of actions *outside of the domain of actions which Newtonian Mechanics is designed to describe.* Therefore, if the pertinent actions which produce Faster Than Light travel are outside of the realm (i.e., based on an entirely different set of physical laws) of Special Relatively, the 'laws' of Special Relativity *do not apply* to FTL. Thus, if we don't know about the physical laws which govern FTL, we have no basis to say that its impossible. Newtonian physics works beatifully UP TO A POINT. With the information we now have, Special Relativity may or may not be an accurate description of the universe. There is evidence which suggests that it is nowhere near a complete system, however. Witness Quantum Mechanics. QM does not violate SR, but rather falls outside of the domain of SR. Second point: SR, and any other form of physics, describes a mathematical MODEL of the universe. When experience and the model don't jive, you change the model. Of course, this tends to make the proponents of the old model unhappy in the process. Everyone remember what happened when Einstein introduced SR? He was laughed down by the current physics Establishment. The basic argument is that WE DO NOT KNOW WHETHER FTL IS POSSIBLE OR NOT, AND HAVE NO RELIABLE DATA TO BASE A CONCLUSION ON. WHAT WE DO KNOW IS THAT FFTL DOES NOT OCCUR WITHIN THE CONSTRICTIONS OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY, AND THEREFORE IS PROBABLY BASED UPON OTHER, UNKNOWN PHYSICAL LAWS. 2) On the concept of Faster-Than-Light travel: There are two fundamental ways to move from place to place faster than light would travel that distance. You can either occupy each succesive point in space in a period with a shorter duration than a photon would occupy each succesive point in space; OR, you can occupy points in space non-succesively. For example: ............................................. <-- points in space ............................................. photon's path -- takes n seconds ............................................. true ftl path -- time is is less than n seconds . . . . extralight path. A B If the photon and the extralight object both start moving from point A to point B at the same time, the extralight obect will APPEAR to have gone faster than light, as it will arrive at B before the photon. Objectively, this is not what's happening; The extralight object has a speed below that of light, but is changing its location in 3-space within a shorter period of time. This is an important distinction. By the way, James Blish explored the concept of jumping from point to point in space in the book "All These Earths." Sorry I started being picky about terminology there, but the point doesn't make sense if its not stated precisely. In any case, most FTL travel is based upon the latter concept, extralight movement. Another book dealing with this, which works from the question 'What makes this point in 4-space different from any other point?,' is Gordon R. Dickson's "Arcturus Landing." orstcs/richardt "If I'm human, what are *YOU*?"
throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (07/22/85)
> Okay, let's do something positive for a change and start considering > potential ways that FTL could be achieved. > [... metaphysical discussion omitted ...] I tend to agree with most of what was said. However, the article didn't do what it said it would, that is, consider potential ways that FTL could be *acheived*. What was shown was that FTL travel is "thinkable" or conceptually possible, but then so is time-travel. The article said nothing at all about *how to do it*. I'll list five major states that a technology goes though: - Concept. "I'd like to liberate large amounts of energy from a small amount of matter " or "I'd like to travel faster than light". - Theoretical foundation. "Given special relativity, I know that E=mc^2, so the energy is there if only we can get at it." or "An infinitely long rotating cylinder with extreme density can allow an object to follow a path leading to any given point in space-time. (FTL and time travel "rolled:-)" up in one)." - Feasibility. "A fission chain-reaction will release some of the binding energy that manifests as mass in U235 atoms." - Implementation. [squash court in Chicago] - Refinement. [Three mile Island :-)] I'd class FTL in the "concept" phase. There are theoretical foundations that could apply (one is given above), but all of these (at least so far) also imply time travel and causality violation, or engineering on a truly vast scale (or both, as in the example), so I'm not holding my breath. Nobody has even the remotest idea of how to make it feasible or how to implement it. Thus, since atomic energy was one of the fastest-developed technologies to use as an analogy, I'd suspect that FTL is at least 40 years and a lot of skull sweat away (if possible at all), and that is assuming that some German patent clerk comes up with a breakthrough right now. (By the way, for an excellent treatment of FTL using the above mentioned concept, see "The Avatar", by Poul Anderson, if you haven't already.) -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw
richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) (07/26/85)
First, an apology. I hope that no one expected my note to present a set
of schematics for an FTL space-drive. As throopw pointed out, all of the
OBVIOUS approaches to FTL travel suggest time-travel and causality problems.
Q.E.D., by Occams Razor, FTL is extremely unlikely. I will not say
impossible for two reasons: First, we don't know; Second, all that Occams
Razor says (essentially) is that you shouldn't introduce unneccessary
assumptions into a theory. It sounds silly to say that a red shift occurs
'because the moon is in Cancer and the Quasar is moving away from Earth.'
The part about Luna is unnecessary. The Red Shift would still occur
if the moon were not in cancer. Once experimental data starts showing or
implying time travel, causality problems, or FTL, that data will have to be
integrated into current theories of Physics. If the theories can't be
modified to include the new facts, they will have to be scrapped, to be
replaced by theories which DO explain the new facts.
My point is: Don't give up before we start by saying "That's Impossible."
That's on the order of the farmer who said "There ain't no such animal,"
WHEN HE WAS LOOKING AT the Giraffe. Change the theory, not the data.
As for suggestions, I'm fresh out. The only suggestions I do have: start
doing a lot of gravity experiments, and start preparing to do some large
scale experiments based on time and relavtivity. Unfortunately, all of these
will have to be done on Government or Corporate grants, quite probably in
space ("We figured out how to go faster than light! all you do is make a
black hole... :-) ). That doesn't mean that none of us will take the short
route to Andromeda, It just means we need to wait awhile.
Richard Threadgill
orstcs!richardt
"As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!"