5 ms·
You're technically correct but missing the point. Past hubris is a warning that we are capable of similar hubris. What we can say is our current model of the u
by xupybd 5y ago
You're technically correct but missing the point. Past hubris is a warning that we are capable of similar hubris.
What we can say is our current model of the universe does not allow for any practical travel beyond the speed of light.
- cirrus3 5y agoValid warnings also don't mean anything.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- krapp 5y agoWe can also say that our current model of the universe is orders of magnitude more accurate, so it's more likely that we're correct about the speed of light - something which has been experimentally tested and verified by hundreds if not thousands of people - than the opinion of one particular Lord Kelvin regarding the viability of aircraft. It's just as hubristic to assume that science is as ignorant now as it always has been.
- xupybd 5y agoYes but we do have theories that suggest getting from point A to point B faster than light could be possible. We just have to do some things that appear impractical such as bend spacetime.
- bashinator 5y agoIf FTL were possible, don’t you think there’d already be evidence of the time travel? First thing I’d do with FTL is travel back to the earliest habitable epoch in the Universe and start building galaxy-sized Dyson spheres.
- xupybd 5y agoCan you elaborate please. Why does FTL produce time travel? Why go back and build Dyson spheres?
- mannerheim 5y agoIn special relativity, faster-than-light travel or communication is equivalent to time travel.
- xupybd 5y agoYes but that is only if you are traveling through space faster than light. If you simply skip some of the distance with something like an Alcubierre drive there is no time dilation to deal with.
- mannerheim 5y agoNo, it still results in time travel. > To answer your question: any FTL drive can be used to create closed time-like loops. With these you can travel back in time, but you get stuck in a loop. https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/247048 https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/247048
- xupybd 5y agoOkay, I think there is something I don't understand here. That link references a book I might have to read "Time Travel and Warp Drives". Thanks!
- bashinator 5y ago> simply skip some of the distance My understanding as a lay person of the physics that allow for things like this, is that they require starting conditions that wouldn't produce a universe anything like what we actually live in, or require energy levels around the output of galaxy superclusters to be focused into planck lengths or such. "Technically not impossible" is different for physicists than to normal people ;-)
- mannerheim 5y agoThose theories would still result in time travel becoming possible and all the assorted paradoxes that come with it.