Subject: RE: (urth) FTL Travel

From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 15:56:33 +0000

Don asks:
Please explain.  Is this the usual SF take on FTL or is there a physics
explanation that makes backward time travel the most likely?  I'm pretty
ignorant on this.

Crush responds:
As one moves faster and approaches the speed of light, time slows down,
exponentially, until time stops at the speed of light. I am informed by
Stephen Hawking (not personally) that it takes an infinite amount of time
and an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light.

It is simple mathematics that as one moves faster than the speed of light,
time moves in the opposite direction. No doubt, there are other mathematical
models.

Hence, a FTL generation ship is unnecessary.

-- Crush

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:09:35 +0000

>Hence, a FTL generation ship is unnecessary.

Thanks for taking the question. I would only add that, in the wake of
Einstein's (and other's) theories, such theoretical considerations spawned
someone to pen a limerick several generation ago. (From memory.)

"There was a young lady named Bright,
who traveled far faster than light.
She set out one day,
in a Relative way,
and returned home the previous night."

-Roy

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:48:49 +0000

This is not quite accurate.

What is accurate is that travelling FTL in one inertial frame, from the
point of view of one observer,  will **always** be travelling back in time
in another inertial frame, from the point of view of another observer.

God may see the universe as a four-dimensional whole, as has been discussed.

Travelling FTL requires that you have the vision of God - that you see time,
not as a progression, but as a dimension

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
To: "urth" <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) FTL Travel

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:10:08 +0000

Nicely done, but place our explanations side by side and I think you can see
why I explained it the way I did <g>.

-- Crush

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
To: "urth" <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: (urth) FTL Travel

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From: cilluff1 at optonline.net <cilluff1 at optonline.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:14:53 +0000

Andy wrote:

<<<
<<Travelling FTL requires that you have the vision of God - that you see
time,
not as a progression, but as a dimension >>>

Although I do not pretend to be versed in the mathematics of FTL travel (I
was an English lit. major way back when, no hard science!), I'm not sure I
agree with this assertion, or at least I would be interested, as a layman,
in a little more explanation as to why FTL travel would require the
traveller to have the vision of God (which was eloquently put, btw).  After
all, we who can move voluntarily only in three dimensions may not be able
to perceive all three (for example, someone blind in one eye may have poor
depth perception, or for that matter, someone blind in both eyes would not
be able to perceive any, but he still travels in three dimensions).  As a
layman I would really be interested to hear more of your reasoning.

- Joe

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http://mail2web.com/ .

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:32:36 +0000

Shoot, I'd have to do the maths: and there is an end to all civility.

I think it is quite clear that Wolfe shows FTL travel to be a doorway to a
divine realm.   Consider the Ship, the corridors of time, the mirrors.

And yes, I do believe Wolfe is **intentionally** conflating the
Gd-outside-time of the Catholic Boethius with the time-as-fourth-dimension
of the relativistic Physicist.

Modern theoretical Physics is after all descended from Theology:  Her
bastard with the Blacksmith Hephaestos/Technology..

----- Original Message -----
From: <cilluff1 at optonline.net>

- Joe

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From: Josh Geller <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 21:06:38 +0000

> of the relativistic Physicist.

The idea of time as a dimension is much older than Boethius and very
widespread.

> bastard with the Blacksmith Hephaestos/Technology..

These are all recent developments, Aquinas, Aristotle, all of it.

You find 'advanced' ideas about time among indigenous Africans, Americans,
Australians, Polynesians and 'heathen' Europeans, as well as in ancient
Middle-Eastern and Indian books.

.

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 21:28:29 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Geller" <dclxvi at dclxvi.best.vwh.net>
> The idea of time as a dimension is much older than Boethius and very

Possibly, and what of it?

I'd bet any amount that it is the Catholic sources that Wolfe is drawing
from.

And modern theoretical physics IS descended from medaeval Catholic theology.
On the wrong side of the blankets.   Maybe some other brat in some other
land could have squalled the same song, but that is this one's mothering and
suckling.

    hartshorn

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From: Don Doggett <harlekin at earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 07:28:41 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>

> of the relativistic Physicist.

This dovetails nicely with the idea of Silk's enlightenment and the Whorl's
(alleged by me) FTL travel happening simultaneously.

Don

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 22:28:47 +0000

> > >and an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light.

"...that it *would* take..."?
> > >time moves in the opposite direction. No doubt, there are other

I wouldn't call it simple mathematics.  What Andy Robertson is
talking about is that if observers moving with some velocities see
an object move from A to B faster than light, then all observers
with other velocities see the object move from B to A faster than
light.  You can use this fact to show if FTL travel or even
communication is possible, you can send messages to your own past.
This doesn't say anything about what would be experienced by
someone traveling faster than light, if such a thing is (were)
possible.  I think it probably isn't possible, and if it is, no one
has the slightest idea what someone traveling FTL would experience.

In reality, sending messages backward in time is often cited as a
refutation of FTL, a reductio ad absurdum.  In Wolfe's fiction,
time travel is possible already, so FTL is no problem.  Severian
makes this connection, by the way--it must be near the end of
_Citadel_, after the secret of the universe.

> > >Hence, a FTL generation ship is unnecessary.
...

That one I agree with (with an exception that's probably unimportant
to BotLS).  I see no evidence at all that the _Whorl_ is capable of
FTL.  I agree with Andy Robertson that Wolfe associates FTL with
transcendence, and would add that the _Whorl_ seems to be entirely
secular.  (I don't think I'm the first person to say that on the list.)

Jerry Friedman

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 00:14:54 +0000

Don asked:

Crush does his best to help:
As one moves faster and approaches the speed of light, time slows down,
exponentially, until time stops at the speed of light. I am informed by
Stephen Hawking (not personally) *that it takes* an infinite amount of time
and an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light.

Jerry Friedman asks facetiously:
"...that it *would* take..."?

Crush explains to Mr. Friedman:
Why no. Everyone knows that Hawkings has a FTL wheelchair. ;-)
Nit. nit. nit.<g>

Crush goes on responding to Don's question:
It is simple mathematics that as one moves faster than the speed of light,
time moves in the opposite direction.

Jerry Friedman bristles at this bowdlerization of the theory of Relativity:
I wouldn't call it simple mathematics.

Crush responds to Jerry Friedman:
Neither would I, as my response to Hartshorn was intended to convey. But the
general concept of why a *possible* implication of FTL travel is that one
would move into his own past is one of the most straightforward concepts in
this realm. I believe Don's question was whether or not all this had the
scientific pedigree of dililthium crystals. I don't think my answer was
misleading given the context.

You have heroically attempted to clarify Hartshorn's beautiful explanation,
but I've got a dollar that says that a majority of the readers of this
list -- still - have no more than the vaguest understanding of what you are
describing or its implications (unless a majority of the people on this have
a B.A. in Physics).

Remember Kypris explaining possession to Silk?

-- Crush

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 15:15:27 +0000

Crush said:
...unless a majority of the people on this have
a B.A. in Physics

Crush reconsiders:
A *B.A.* in Physics is what I might have but, of course, most people get a
B.S.

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 15:38:33 +0000

I have  BA in Physics.  You get a BA in Physics unless you go to One Of
Those Other Universities.

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Wynn" <crushtv at HotPOP.com>
To: <urth at urth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 3:15 PM
Subject: RE: (urth) FTL Travel

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From: Gareth Jelley <gjelley at btopenworld.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 16:57:34 +0000

> Those Other Universities.

Ha!

Gareth,

BA in English from The University of...

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 18:37:40 +0000

> misleading given the context.

I think it was.  I had the impression that people who didn't know
physics were gathering that FTL means time going backwards, either
visiting your past or "watching the movie in reverse".  There's no
reason to expect that, though I guess if FTL turns out to be possible,
that could be what happens.

(Also, the "simple mathematics", taking the Lorentz factor literally
with a speed greater than c, gives you imaginary time--with a square
root of -1--not negative time.  Whatever either of those would mean.)

> describing or its implications (unless a majority of the people on this

I'm not taking your bet.

As you seem to know, explaining the part about sending a message to
your past takes only high-school level algebra (square roots), but
this isn't the place.  I was just trying to keep people from getting
false impressions.  I don't think I did that very clearly.

> Remember Kypris explaining possession to Silk?

And I'm not even pretty.

Jerry Friedman

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From: James Wynn <crushtv at hotpop.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 20:56:11 +0000

Jerry Friedman (J.F.) persists:
I think [Crush's explanation] was [misleading].  I had the impression that
people who didn't know
physics were gathering that FTL means time going backwards, either
visiting your past or "watching the movie in reverse".  There's no
reason to expect that, though I guess if FTL turns out to be possible,
that could be what happens.

Crush concedes:
Well, if you say that that 90 years of popular scientific articles and
Nova/Discovery Channel documentaries are whacked in asserting that FTL speed
is a likely method of backward time travel (presuming FTL travel is not an
absurdity), then I'm in no position to dispute it. I capitulate to your
evident exceeding technical expertise (I had to take college algebra twice).

J.F, coyly self-effaced:
>>>Remember Kypris explaining possession to Silk?<<<

And I'm not even pretty.

Crush toasts:
I don't know about that. You have lovely posts.
<J.F. socks Crush in the eye>

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