Re: Is this a personalized rejection?

In article <461c56ee$0$24767$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, crowell07
@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com says...
Gerry Quinn wrote:
In article <461ac518$0$1404$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, crowell07
@lightSPAMandISmatterEVIL.com says...
Gerry Quinn wrote:

Right. A good litmus test is whether they have a technology for FTL, but
the same technology doesn't work as a time travel technique. If so, then
they've got their science wrong. You can have both, or neither, but you
can't have one without the other.
Sure you can. Assume a preferred inertial reference frame, and there's
no problem. Aether theory a la Lorentz/Poincare works well enough,
and we could squeeze it into current physics if we had to. Just
another broken symmetry, fundamentally.
Sure, if you don't believe in relativity then all bets are off.

Tell me why I should believe in relativity, if I'm hypothesising that
FTL is possible?

You should believe in relativity because it's supported by an awesome
amount of experimental evidence. Relativity is not inconsistent with
FTL.

Sure it is: relativity + FTL give time travel, which is inconsistent
with thermodynamics.

So relativity + FTL is untenable in hard SF (though of course in softer
SF there's nothing wrong with time travel).

The point is that if you have FTL, then relativity stops making sense,
and this is what automatically replaces it - because it makes the same
predictions as relativity under normal circumstances, but is not fazed
in the same way by FTL.

If by "stops making sense," you mean it produces what appear to be
time travel paradoxes, then yes, that's true.

And 'something that doesn't make sense' is a reasonable description of
a paradox, right?

- Gerry Quinn

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: What is the most plausible FTL/Hyper/Warp Drive that you come accross?
    ... >> You want FTL. ... >> according to relativity, you can use that ability to travel ... Time travel precludes Causality ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: What is the most plausible FTL/Hyper/Warp Drive that you come accross?
    ... Time travel precludes Causality since it is possible to engineer paradoxes. ... FTL is not time travel. ... except for the nagging fact that Relativity is a remarkably robust theory that can make predictions to many decimal places. ... it doesn't matter that FTL is time travel. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Is this a personalized rejection?
    ... the same technology doesn't work as a time travel technique. ... they've got their science wrong. ... Tell me why I should believe in relativity, if I'm hypothesising that FTL is possible? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Tech building
    ... Relativity would be replaced by an alternative, ... My understanding is that FTL is equivalent to time travel in relativity. ... laws of physics have to be obeyed too. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Lorentz Ether Theory and FTL Paradoxes
    ... > make a situation where an observer could leave point A FTL, ... math and physics assumptions have to be slightly changed. ... information supraluminal transfer is the relativity principle. ... if you assume that a device is up to send signals at velocity C> c ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)