FTL Travel

Roy C. Lackey · 18 Nov 2002, 19:09 · from urth-v0211.mbox · original

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From: "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) FTL Travel
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 13:09:35 -0600
Message-ID: <urth-v0211-2155 at digest.urth.net>
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Crush quoted and wrote:
>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.

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

--=20

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