Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe

Jeff Wilson · 11 Jun 2010, 00:04 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:04:48 -0500
Subject: (urth) Travelling North aka miscellaneous thoughts on Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <4C10EEB2.9070808 at lpthe.jussieu.fr>
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Message-ID: <4C117DA0.5080403 at io.com>

On 6/10/2010 8:54 AM, Paul Zinn-Justin wrote:
> That is incorrect. Some quantities might become imaginary but that is a
> mathematical artefact.
> The real point is, if you combine faster than light travel and Lorentz
> invariance of the laws of physics (the invariance principle that is the
> basis of Einstein's theory of special relativity), then you can indeed
> have trajectories which connect two arbitrary points of spacetime i.e.
> in a given reference frame it will look like you can move freely forward
> or backwards in time (you're not going ``straight'' into the past --
> you're making little loops, like travelling to a distant star faster
> than light and then coming back the same way).

Yes, the limerick is not just cute but technically accurate:

There was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light;
She set out one day,
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

- Inflicted by Arthur Henry Reginald Buller, in the December 19, 1923 
issue of Punch

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >

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