chems on Urth and a FTL Whorl

Michael Buice · 18 Aug 2003, 18:59 · from urth-v0308.mbox · original

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From: Michael Buice <mabuice at uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) chems on Urth and a FTL Whorl
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 13:59:14 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0308-3932 at digest.urth.net>
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On Monday, August 18, 2003, at 01:05  PM, James Wynn wrote:

> Crush seeks clarification:
> Okay. Are ya'll saying that a generational ship *would* be required=20
> for FTL
> travel?
>

Completely orthogonal question.  I'm saying that with sufficient=20
technology to deliver large amounts of power, the generational starship=20
is no longer a realistic story.  Although it will seem as if 30 years=20
have passed to any proverbial "Typhon" back on Urth, the ship can=20
travel such that the entire trip takes as few as a couple of seconds to=20
the passengers, acceleration and all.  This is essentially a=20
combination of time dilation and Lorentz contraction (and needs a=20
geodesically complete space-time, but nevermind that).  Realistically,=20
one would imagine some compromise wherein the generational starship=20
makes more sense and is essentially a big rock traveling at constant=20
velocity through space, not fast enough that the passengers won't still=20
experience a great deal of time (as the, I believe, 500 years or so=20
suggested in Long Sun).

For clarity, all of this is subluminal.  Superluminal travel, as I said=20
before, completely wrecks causality and should be left to fuzzy logic=20
and "heavenly" Ships.  Put it another way, Tzadkiel (or whoever=20
designed the Ship) would have to know more physics than I do (says the=20
physics grad student).

Michael

--=20

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