FTL Travel

Andy Robertson · 18 Nov 2002, 19:48 · from urth-v0211.mbox · original

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From: "Andy Robertson" <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) FTL Travel
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 19:48:49 -0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0211-2159 at digest.urth.net>
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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


> 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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